Lex and Lu(42)
Everyone was surprised, but no one more than Lex, and it showed in his expression. Feeling awkward towering over her, he went down on one knee, resting his elbow on the other leg, and leaned forward.
“What did he tell you?” Lex asked, completely curious.
“That you are really special. You play soccer.” She held her hand out and with each point, she counted them on her fingers as if trying to remember everything. “He said you’re smart and funny. But he said the most important thing about you is that when I finally get to meet you that you are going to be a really good dad.”
They all reacted to this. Jo choked on a suppressed sob, Pete smiled, suddenly feeling lighthearted, Willa looked to Lu, concern lining her face. Lu just watched Lex. She saw how that one sentence seemed to lift him up. It restored his swag. And then she couldn’t watch anymore. She found Willa’s gaze, silently asking for help, then slipped from the room.
Lex, who had thought he couldn’t love his father any more, felt his heart fill. Leaning in to his daughter, he said, “You know how he knows that?”
She shook her head.
“Because he taught me, and he was the best father in the world,” he confided to her, his eyes damp.
She smiled, obviously agreeing.
“Granny was getting me some ice cream. Do you want to have some ice cream?” she asked.
“I’d love some.” Lex stood up then got back down. “Can I ask you a favor first?”
“Sure,” she answered.
“Any chance I can get a hug?”
She didn’t answer. She just threw herself into his arms.
18
Jo found her some time later, sitting on the refurbished swing set that had been updated to accommodate Nina when she came to visit. Lu sat with one foot gently pushing, slowly, the moment it encountered the ground. Lost in her thoughts, Lu didn’t see Jo approach and jumped in surprise when she spoke.
“Well, that certainly went better than I expected,” she observed as she sat in the swing next to Lu.
Lu nodded without taking her eyes off the toe of her shoe. “Yeah,” she said shortly.
“Are you OK?” Jo asked, concern obvious in her voice.
Lu glanced up ruefully at her. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“Probably,” Jo concurred. “But I’m thinking the changes in your life are going to be more numerous and just as difficult to deal with as mine.”
“Yeah,” Lu said again. “But you can’t change what happened.”
“Neither can you.”
“Are we going to argue about whose situation is worse too? Because, not to make you feel bad, but yours is much worse.”
Jo laughed, a genuine laugh. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
Lu smiled at the picture Jo made, sitting on the swing with her sad eyes smiling. “Did you know that he told Nina?”
Jo shook her head. “No, sweetie, I didn’t. We didn’t really talk much about the situation. It’s crazy to think about now, with him gone. Which, let’s face it, I’m never going to get used to that.” Shaking her head, as if to clear it, she continued. “It was the one thing in our marriage that we never resolved.”
“That seems weird to me,” Lu commented.
“Me too. But nevertheless, it is what it is. And now there’s nothing I can do to fix it. But you can.”
“I’ve done my part. They’re together now. How we’re going to sustain that, I’m not sure.”
“She took right to him. They’re in there eating ice cream, chatting like they’ve always known each other.” Neither one of them spoke for a couple of minutes. They sat, gently swinging, each lost in her own thoughts. “What do you think the plan’s going to be?”
Lu kicked the dirt with her foot in frustration. “Who the hell knows? He lives in England for God’s sake. And to top it off, he hates me.”
“Lex could never hate you, my dear. He’s angry, which is not something he’s had to deal with, ever. When he’s had some time to think through everything, when he gets some distance, he’ll forgive you. It’s not his nature to hold a grudge. He devotes too much energy to other things to try to sustain a grudge.”
“It doesn’t matter as long as he and Nina can figure their way around each other.”
“That will take time too,” Jo said sagely.
“Do you think it’s odd that Nina never told me that she knew who her father was? I mean, she never even asked me.”
“I thought about that briefly. I wish I could shed some light. I wish Mike had told me that he’d spoken to her about it. From what she said, it seemed like they had spoken about it often. She was just so comfortable and confident about him being her father that I feel like it’s something she and her grandfather spent a lot of time discussing.”