Page 100 of Lost Love on 6th Street

I roll my eyes. “Yes, Mom.”

She giggles and pats her hand over mine. “You know I love my adages.”

“Yeah . . .” I sigh heavily. “I’m afraid she’s not going to give me a chance to make up for it.”

“Have you talked to her today?”

I shake my head. To my chagrin, she hasn’t reached out to me. Which isn’t shocking. And though I wanted to text her this morning, I thought giving her space would be the best Idea. I don’t want to look desperate, but that seems like an impossible task when I’ve laid myself at her feet over and over again.

“Give her time. She’ll come back around,” Mom says.

“But what if she doesn’t?”

She sighs, then grabs a cube of sugar and drops it into my coffee. “I wish your father were here to give you better advice. I can give you the woman’s perspective, but what to actually do about it . . .”

“What would you want Dad to do then?” I ask.

She looks at me. There’s a flash of something in the back of her gray eyes, a strike of lightning. She’s silent for a moment, then says, “Grovel.”

“I can do that.”

We both laugh. And once that’s off my chest, I let her talk my ear off for a while. There’s a lot to catch up on since I’ve been so busy with work and women. Time always passes so quickly that I’m shocked when I come back home and realize how long it’s been.

“So, did you come all the way out here just to cry about a girl?” she asks after she’s had her fill of chatting.

Not entirely. In fact, I didn’t even know that was going to come up. “I wanted to see if you were ready to go through Dad’s stuff.”

Her body jerks. “Oh, heavens, you should have warned me about that before you came.”

I try not to be sheepish. Boxes of Dad’s stuff sit in the attic. His clothes still hang in the closets. The way the house looks, you’d think he’s going to walk through the backdoor any minute, sweating his ass off from mowing the lawn. He’d chase her around the kitchen trying to give her a kiss, and she’d whack him with an oven mitt to get his sweaty face away from her.

Ah, the good old days.

“You would have told me no,” I say.

“I would have said ‘no, but come down anyway,’” she grumbles. Mom tinkles her manicured nails on her coffee cup. “I’m not ready for that, baby. I know you think I’m crazy, but—”

“Not crazy at all.” I think about the way I’ll have to mourn Eleanor if she walks away from me, and that’s only been a few months. How do you mourn a whole lifetime with someone?

However, I’m not leaving here without learning something about Diane and Dad.

“Could I poke around? Just find some things maybe to . . . to remember him by.”

Mom’s mouth turns from a hesitant smile into a full one. “Well, that’s a great idea.”

* * *

I go to the boxes in the back. The ones hidden and buried.

Because if there’s any evidence to what I think might be there, it’s hidden and buried.

I sort through boxes of newspaper clippings, old books, albums of people I don’t recognize, tchotchkes and other memories. Each item I touch feels charged with a memory of my father. Nothing specific, no images. Just him.

I miss him. I miss him so much.

And I’m afraid that when all is said and done, I’m going to be mad at him.

Eventually, I start coughing. The attic is a haven for allergies. It gets to the point I’m coughing more often than I’m not. I know I’ll need to stop soon.

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