Merrick scanned the room. This was where his father proposed? It was so not him. Merrick had pictured them as more of a Gary Danko couple than the mom-and-pop restaurant sort.
The hostess returned and set a full mug of steaming black coffee before him. “Thank you,” he said.
“Your waitress will be with you shortly.” The woman wove her way through the full-to-capacity restaurant, greeting the customers who had started to line up by the podium.
Merrick didn’t bother looking at the menu as he sipped his hot drink. He took in each table, group, family. A little boy with oatmeal all over his face, hair, and high chair banged his spoon on the table. Two old women talked incessantly, their mouths moving a mile a minute and at the same time. A man with a newspaper, Rolex, and fedora sipped at his own black cup of joe, seemingly unbothered by the commotion surrounding him.
“Can I take your order, hon?”
He spilled coffee all over the front of his shirt at the question. Merrick scooted back and stood, fanning his chest while pinching his soaked and stained shirt.
The waitress gasped. “Merrick?”
“Mom.”
Several customers stopped to watch the scene unfold. Funny how an entire room could go quiet like that.
“Merrick,” she said, between her teeth this time. “What are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same question.” The statement came out with more severity than he’d intended.
“Have you ever considered she doesn’t want to be found?”
He shoved away the question that came to him through Coral’s voice. “Mom. I’ve missed you.”
This was the part where she would hug him. Tell him she’d been trying to find him and Amaya for months, but their controlling father had kept that from happening.
Instead, Lyn covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head. “Merrick. I can’t.”
And for the second time this year, his mother took her leave without so much as a good-bye.
Leaving a five-dollar bill on the table, he made his way to the hostess stand. “Can you tell me the time, please?”
She checked her watch. “2:02 p.m.”
“Thanks.” He was out the front door. His phone vibrated against his leg. A text from Coral lit the screen. She was at the house. Shoot, he’d forgotten he’d asked her to come. His impatience got the better of him. He replied with a quick apology and asked her to check on Maya before pocketing his phone and circling the inn’s wraparound porch.
Several mismatched chairs occupied the border, some vacant, some hosting quiet vacationers sipping Arnold Palmers. On one end of the inn stood the old abandoned lighthouse that gave the place its name. Out of use for years, it had been transformed into a museum, a tourist trap for anyone who’d never seen one before. An image of his dad with little Maya on his shoulders filled Merrick’s mind. He swatted it away and entered the lighthouse.
Behind the front desk sat a quiet little man with large eyeglasses, a striped button-down shirt, and a vest. “Welcome to the oldest operating lighthouse on the West Coast.” He went into a spiel about the lighthouse’s history.
“How much is admission?”
The man’s expression altered from joyful welcome to baffled and blinking. “Well, it’s free, but we have a suggested donation of—”
Merrick slammed a ten down on the desk and sprinted up the stairs. More he’d owe Grim later.
Old framed photos dating back at least a hundred years covered the swirling stairway walls. Lighthouse keepers and their families had kept the place alive for generations, making sure sailors found their way home. This was considered modern technology back then. A beacon of light and hope for the community.
A few people lingered on the balcony at the top. Taking photos against the railing with the Pacific as their backdrop. Merrick circled the perimeter, finding his mom alone on one side next to a pair of pay-per-view binoculars.
“Mom.” She’d run out of places to hide and he was out of words.
She held up a hand and her shoulders shook. Wiped her reddened cheeks.
He’d struck an emotion. He couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.
“You’re a waitress?” Merrick didn’t mean it as a jab, but that was how it sounded.
“Tryin’ to be.” She shrugged. “I’m not any good.” The breeze tousled her hair. She looked so much like a healthier version of Amaya in that moment.
“I can’t believe that man would do this to you. That he would send you here to make scraps while he’s in the city in his high-rise office.”
When she turned to face him, her confused expression sent an explosion of questions across his mind. She dabbed at her eyes and nose with the corner of her apron. “Your father didn’t send me here.” Her lashes lowered and she turned to watch the sea again. “I couldn’t do it anymore. That life with him. I . . . couldn’t. I was suffocating.”
His hands grasped the railing next to hers. “He’s a jerk. I know. I watched how he treated you.”
She shook her head.
“Would you stop defending him? For pity’s sake, Mom. Look where you are!” Merrick gestured at her soiled apron. “If it wasn’t for him—”
Lyn placed a hand on his, her voice soft and kind. “If it wasn’t for your father, I wouldn’t be able to afford to stay here, bless his heart. He comes once a month to pay my bill and make sure I’m okay. He asks about you. And Maya. He wants to know if I’ve seen you. Every time I have to tell him no. I see so much heartbreak and regret in his eyes.”
No. This was backward. She was lying, defending the man as she often did.
“Hiro is rough around the edges. He didn’t know how to be with y’all. His time in the Navy hardened him. He used to be so . . . soft. Sweet, even. All he ever wanted was the best for you both.”
Merrick’s eyes burned and his throat was closing in. No. No. He gripped the railing tighter.
“Your great-grandfather was soft on him as a boy. Your daddy didn’t want you to go out into the world unprepared. He had the best intentions.”
Merrick wanted to tell her to stop. To take back the words that changed his whole perspective. He didn’t want to see his father as a hero. As the good guy. He was not the good guy. He couldn’t be.
“Mom. What you’re saying. It can’t be true. He wanted to send Amaya away to some facility.”
“Did you ask him about it? Did you look into it at all?”
That wasn’t the point. “Don’t do this. Don’t make him out to be something he isn’t.”
She turned to him again, sadness gone. Replaced with something else—resolve. Certainty. “I’m not. He knows who he is. And so do I. We’re not good for each other anymore, but he’s taken care of me. He’s been faithful despite the numerous opportunities he’s had to do otherwise.” Her hand over Merrick’s, she squeezed gently. “He’s never hit me. Or you. Or Maya. The night we went to the hospital wasn’t the first time she cut. It was just the first time you knew about it.”
He backed away. His hands found his head, held it there to keep it from spinning. “No.”
“The summer two years ago when you went on that school trip? The one you begged to go on? That was when we found her cutting. Your father hired the best counselors and doctors. Maya didn’t want her big brother to know.”
“Dance lessons?” His head wouldn’t stop shaking. “Piano? Violin?”
His mom’s downcast gaze confirmed his worst fear. “Counseling. Group sessions. Doctor visits.”
Everything Coral and Grim and even Nikki had been trying to get him to see came crashing down. “Amaya isn’t okay, Mom. She needs you.”