Page 22 of The Maine Event

Dan smiles as he stirs the ingredients in the pan. He sprinkles the grated cheese with a flourish and then pours in the egg.

“Chloe not around?”

“She’ll be back later. Thursdays she goes home with her friend Zara after school. Ostensibly to study, but I’m not sure the textbooks ever make it out of her backpack.”

“Ask no questions, get told no lies?” I offer.

“Something like that. They’ve been friends since kindergarten. Zara’s mom will drop her off soon. I think it’s important she can, you know, talk girl stuff or whatever. Sometimes dad’s the last person she wants to confide in, especially at her age, if you know what I mean.”

Dan sets a plate of steaming pasta in front of me, the rich, creamy sauce still bubbling. “Dig in. But just to be clear, this is strictly not a date,” he says with a wink.

I laugh, feeling myself relax a notch. “Duly noted.”

As we eat, our conversation flows easily, jumping from work to books to ridiculous childhood stories. I’d almost forgotten how nice it could be, just sharing stories, not trying to sell something.

“You confident? About your meeting, I mean,” Dan says, looking at my documents in the plastic folder. “Did you want to run through your pitch? I’d be happy to listen, maybe offer some feedback.”

I’m tempted, but I shake my head. “Thanks, but I should probably go over it on my own. Back at the motel.”

“Of course. I always rehearsed in private too.”

I nod, wondering if I should go there. “Why did you stop? Acting, I mean.”

A pained expression dances for a second across Dan’s face. He stands and reaches to take our empty plates. But he catches himself, and sits back down. “When Rebecca. That’s Chloe’s mom. When she died, I took a long hard look at myself and knew I needed to make some changes. For Chloe as well as myself.”

“But what about the income?”

“No point earning it if you can’t spend time with your family enjoying it.”

“Rebecca and I were practically strangers by then. She was bringing Chloe up by herself while I was on the other side of the country eating the aforementioned takeout food for the forty-ninth time.”

“But what about when you weren’t filming?”

“That’s just it. As soon as the series wrapped, I’d take on small roles in indie films, voice-over work, anything my agent could sign me up for. I had this arbitrary figure in my head of how much I wanted to earn, and I just went for it. At the expense of everything else.”

“What happened? To Rebecca. If you don’t mind me asking.”

Dan considers the question as he lines the salt and pepper shakers up on the table. “I’d just finished shooting a supporting role in an indie feature. Had been home less than forty-eight hours when the producer called. I needed to do some ADR down in Florida.”

“ADR?”

“Sorry, it’s when you go into a studio to record some of the lines of dialogue again if they’re not clear, or you need to add something new because they’ve edited something out,which means that scene no longer makes sense. Anyway, it was the week before Thanksgiving, so everyone wanted to finish up before the holidays. Producer was begging me on the phone, really laying on the guilt. If I didn’t do it right then, they weren’t going to hit their deadline, and the film would miss its release window.”

“So, you went.”

“Yep. Rebecca was furious. She had planned Thanksgiving down to the last minute. I don’t just mean the day itself, I mean the whole week. My mom was coming to stay with us to look after Chloe, and we’d RSVP’d to various gatherings in Portland. And I got on a plane to Tampa.”

Dan stands, resting his hands on the table.

“When I landed, I had a missed call from Portland PD. Rebecca had been killed in a car accident on the way back from dropping Chloe at school.”

“I’m so sorry.” The words sound hollow. Not enough. Sometimes this language of ours simply isn’t adequate.

“It should have been me driving that morning. I always took over the school run when I was back. But I wasn’t here, I was in Tampa, and my wife was dead.”

I let his words hang in the air, thick and heavy like the fog rolling in from the water. Part of me wants to tell him that it wasn’t his fault—that none of it was his fault—but I know that’s not what he needs. Sometimes, no matter how many times people tell you it wasn’t your fault, it doesn’t make the guilt any easier to bear.

He glances at me, his jaw tensing, like he’s bracing himself for judgment. I surprise myself by moving closer, reaching out to put my hand on his forearm.

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