Page 90 of Lake
I swallowed hard and tried to hold back the tears.
“The last thing he wanted was for you to feel the same thing.”
“So why all the training. Why did he groom me for this life?”
“Don’t you get it, Bridget?” He let out a sigh and rubbed his temples for a moment. I could see how I was giving him a headache but I had to know everything. “It was all he knew and all he ever wanted to do was spend time with you.”
“Yeah…”
“Damn right, yeah. That man loved you beyond words.” There was a long pause. I knew my dad loved me, I felt it every day. “Being a private investigator isn’t like it was in the old days. It’s not like how it was back in your grandpa’s day. Things are… not as glamorous.”
I let out a short laugh. I honestly didn’t think that would have been the word my granddad would have ever used to describe it but I got what he meant.
“It was the last piece of him that I had,” I whispered admitting the truth of why the business really meant so much to me.
“Oh, damn,” he grumbled. “You’re going to make me get all emotional and wise on you now.”
I smiled at him. He was a hard man, made that way by his lonely life. But underneath that all, there was a beating heart.
“He’s alive within you. In here.” He pointed to his head. “And in here.” He moved his hand over his heart.
We talked some more, mostly remembering stuff about my dad. He set my mind at ease a fraction when he told me that he’d saved my granddad’s desk for me and that it was safely stored away in a climate controlled storage unit. Silly as it may have been, I wanted to keep that desk in my life. It seemed that Art had taken care of everything— with a little guidance and instruction from my dad, I guess. By the time he was shooing me out the door saying he needed to get packing, I felt a little better.
“You’re going to be okay?” I asked as I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.
“Yeah, gonna be just fine.”
“I’m going to call and check up on you. You better answer my calls.”
“I will. I promise. Take care of yourself.”
I went back to my apartment still a little shaken and emotional.
The place felt different and the moment I walked through the door, I wanted to turn around and run. I wasn’t sure why and I had no fucking clue where it was that I wanted to run to.
I was maybe a little lost on what to do.
It seemed like Art already had a plan for himself.
My dad had a plan for me only that plan didn’t have a final phase. The strings had been cut, I was free, but I didn’t feel like it.
I felt antsy and hated it, so I decided to throw myself into some cleaning.
I started with the refrigerator because I knew there were a few things in there that needed to go. I went as far as taking everything out and wiping all the shelves down. The coolness surrounded my sweaty skin and I pushed passed the strange feeling it gave me.
I gave everything a new home as I put it all back in. Pickles went on the top shelf on the door instead of the middle. Ketchup went to the bottom. The cheese remained in the cheese drawer because, duh, that was where it was meant to go.
I strangely decided that when I bought fresh milk and eggs that they weren’t going to share the same space anymore. They weren’t going to sit side-by-side and be best friends. No, they would have to make new ones and have new adventures.
And I realized that none of that made sense to a sane person which furthered my point that I was just plain crazy now.
But was there some kind of underlying statement I was trying to grab onto with that?
Things were all different for me. My life was pretty much tossed into chaos. Or not… was it the opposite now because I didn’t really have anything to do with no firm to run? Sure, soon I was going to have to nut-up and face the fact that I needed to figure out what was ahead.
Only first, I just needed to process the huge changes that had been forced on me.
I moved to the stove. I hated cleaning the stove and so I always put it off every time I thought about it. There were stuck on bits all over the place. Random toppings from the many frozen pizzas and burnt cheese stuck to the wire racks. There was a spot that was sticky and didn’t want to come off no matter what I did. With deadly determination filling my veins, I yanked the metal spatula out of the drawer and started to attack the offending mess. A chunk flew off and hit me in the forehead but I didn’t stop.
