Double

I looked sharply at her. “Now what did I say wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s not you. Maybe I’m just tired of always being the dependable one.”

“Don’t you go causing problems now! It’s bad enough with—”

“Don’t worry.” Her wonderful smile lit up her face and, with her mop of curly hair, she looked just like her three year old. “I’ll be good.”

“You better. I’m going to find Pa now.”

The garage was at the extreme side of the lot, beyond the bedroom wing. As I approached, I could hear my father’s guitar, and his reedy voice raised in song.

“But if there be dishonesty
Implanted in the mind,
Breeches nor smocks nor scarce padlocks
The rage of lust can bind...”

I stopped, listening. The song was a new one. For years, my father had concentrated his musical talents on Irish folk ballads, but my mother had informed me in one of our weekly phone calls that his interests had expanded recently to American songs — and the bawdier the better.

“Whores will be whores, and on the floors,
Where many have been laid...”

Quickly I knocked on the side door of the garage. The guitar issued one last plaintive chord and fell silent.

“Enter, if you must,” Pa called.

I entered. He was seated on his workbench — a big man with a full head of snowy-white hair. When he saw me, his ruddy face broke into a smile.

“You caught me at it, Shari,” he said, using the pet name only he called me.

“What’s this with the dirty songs, Pa?”

He stood up and laid the guitar on the bench. “A man’s got to have an interest in life — that’s mine.”

I looked around the garage, with its lathes and drills and sanders. Ever since he’d retired after thirty years in the Navy, Pa had been a cabinetmaker. “I thought your interest was carpentry.”

“That’s my work; there’s a difference.” He came over and put an arm around me. “You’re not going to begrudge your own father a little pastime, are you?”

“No, Pa. Sing all the dirty songs you like — I’ll even join in.”

He gave me a mock-pained look. “Please don’t. You know you can’t sing worth a damn. I suppose your mother sent you for me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Frankly, I’d rather stay out here. Parties, family gatherings...” He shut off the light and followed me outside.

“Frankly, Pa, I’d rather stay here with you.”

“What, you don’t like your family?”

“I love my family. But I think it’s going to be kind of a hectic evening.”

“What other kind do we ever have?” He stopped, his eyes studying my face fondly. “Your mother asked you to talk to John, didn’t she?”

“Yes.” I felt a sudden flash of resentment. Here I was, home two days, and already the burden of family responsibility was being heaped on me.

“See what you can do, Shari,” Pa said, his face suddenly lined. “He needs help, and it’s something he can’t accept from the rest of us. Maybe he can from you.”

“Maybe,” I said somewhat ungraciously.

“Try it.”

“All right, all right!” I turned and went toward the rear of the property where it backed on the canyon.

This part of the city was full of little finger canyons that stretched behind what looked like ordinary square lots. The canyons were overgrown with scrub oak, eucalyptus, and Torrey pine, and all kinds of animals, from chipmunks to coyotes, lived in them. For a time when I was small, we had had ducks in the yard, but one by one they fell prey to coyotes that would hop the fence at night. Finally one had even got our proud black cat, Gilroy, and after that my mother had said no more pets.

I took off my high-heeled sandals and stepped over the place where the rough rail fence had been pushed down ever since my childhood. There was a series of stone steps that my father had set into the side of the hill so his kids wouldn’t break their necks climbing down. I followed them deep into the canyon, toward the ruins of our treehouse.

My mother had been right — John had taken himself into the canyon. He sat on a log under the oak that held the shell of our abandoned aerie, drinking a beer. Ma had been wrong about the beer, however; it was not one six-pack, but two.

He heard me coming and looked around, his fine blond hair falling against his forehead. With a shock, I saw how much the last few months had aged him: there were worry lines like my mother’s between his eyebrows, and his blue eyes were peculiarly without light.

“Welcome.” He gestured with the beer can. “I take it this means supper is almost ready.”

“Not yet. I just wanted to escape the crew up there.”

“Ma sent you.”

I’d never been able to fool my older brother. “Yeah, she did.”

“Poor Ma. She worries too much. Have a seat. You want one of these?” He reached for the six-pack.

“Sure.”

He pulled a can from the plastic holder, cracked it, and held it out to me. It was a Schlitz, the brand Wolf drank before he got svelte and switched to beer-flavored water. “Thanks.”

“What does Ma want you to do, talk me out of the custody fight?” John asked.