It wasn't quite dawn yet, the stars gone a shade paler in the eastern sky and Mount Tam to the west still an absence in the deep slough of dark and fog. Nothing had been moving fifteen minutes earlier when he'd backed out of the garage for a run to the coffee shop, and now, as the heavy wooden door slapped shut behind him, he eased himself out of the car with the cardboard tray-the same stuff they made egg cartons out of, and how was it he'd never noticed that before? Balanced there, in the molded slots, were two large double lattes and a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and a white paper bag of assorted croissants and half a dozen éclairs to glut Madison into a sugary road-enhanced daze. She didn't travel well, and that was going to be a problem, but Natalia had spent a couple hundred bucks on coloring books and a miniature farm set and videos for the TV monitor built into the back of the seat.
The coffee was hot, the croissants still warm, but instead of going right upstairs with them, he set the cardboard tray on the hood of the car and eased open the side door next to the garage. For a long moment he stood there, watching, listening, taking in the cold rich damp scent of the sea for the last time. And then, just to satisfy himself, he took a quick stroll through the lot, checking the cars that sat inert under the thin skin of the dew. He was calm, breathing easily, feeling optimistic about what lay ahead, though he hated having to leave-hated being forced out, hated the miserable interfering sons of bitches who'd come after him and turned everything upside down-and when he'd gone through the lot, he walked the gravel path all the way round the perimeter, the mist (what was it Madison called it? — the breath of the bay) rising up to envelop him and let him go again.
Natalia was perched on the edge of the couch, in a green velvet suit jacket, skirt, stockings, heels, waiting for him. She was applying her makeup-she never went anywhere, not even down to the corner store for a box of crackers, without her makeup-when he came through the door. She didn't smile. Didn't even look up from her compact. “Madison is still sleeping,” she said.
He set the tray down before her like the offering it was. “Good. Maybe I can just carry her out to the car and she won't wake up till we get to Tahoe, what do you think?”
She didn't answer. He'd packed everything the night before-early into the morning, actually, and he was exhausted, looking forward to the hotel, the fresh sheets, room service, the blissful anonymity-and he noticed with a tick of satisfaction that the new matching overnight bags, Natalia's and Madison's, had been set by the door. The hassling was over, the pouting, the arguments, the tears, the pleading and the demands, and the new phase was about to begin. They were minutes from being out of here, turn the key and never look back.
“I got her hot chocolate,” he said, “the kind she likes, from the bakery? And éclairs. For a special treat.”
Natalia was not the sort of mother to buzz over a child's sugar intake. To her mind, whatever you could squeeze out of a glutted overblown capitalistic society was a good in itself, and éclairs were the smallest expression of it. A look for him now, above the mirror. “Yes,” she said, faintly amused, conciliatory, “that is very nice. You are a very nice man”-and he could see she wanted to speak his name, wanted to say “Da-na,” but checked herself. She bent forward to remove the plastic lid of the takeout cup. “This is the double latte?”
“They both are.”
She brought the cup to her lips, the white foam clinging like drift to the waxen sheen of her lipstick before her tongue melted it away. The simple animal satisfactions, sugar, cream, caffeine. He reached for his own cup. The smell of coffee, reminiscent and forward-looking at the same time, filled the room. “Very nice,” she concluded, the fingers of one hand probing at the neck of the confectioner's bag even as she sipped at the latte and gave him a glossy uncomplicated smile.
They were complicit. He felt gratitude for that, for what she was giving up for him, for her trust and faith, and he swore to himself in that moment that he'd do everything in his power to live up to it. Easing himself down on the back of the sofa, he ran a hand over the side of her face, caressing an ear, letting her hair sift through his fingers. “I am,” he said. “I am a nice guy.” And he meant it.
The coffee was still warm in the pit of his stomach when he lifted Madison out of her bed and carried her down to the car. She'd folded herself up in the fetal position, her thumb in her mouth, hair fallen across her face in a silken swirl, and he took the blankets and bedding with her, one big bundle, the warmth rising from the furnace of her, her pupils roaming beneath the lids in dreamtime, and how could he not think of Sukie, of his own daughter, back in Peterskill and as remote from him as an alien on another planet? As he laid Madison across the backseat and folded the blankets over her bare feet, he had a fleeting picture of the two of them together, the two girls, at the park-at Depew Park, in Peterskill-running hand in hand through the dandelions and the long amber grass, white legs flashing in concert.
It was a mistake to go back to Peterskill, he knew it-he'd known it all along. But it sang to him in his blood-it was what he knew-and his daughter was there. And Sandman. There was a house in Garrison, up in the woods and with a view of the Hudson, late nineteenth century, stone, with hand-hewn beams, remodeled in what Sandman called the prevailing bourgeois fashion and dernier cri of consumer convenience, and it was his for the taking, fifty-five hundred a month with an option to buy, Sandman contributing the deposit and talking up the owners, who were retiring to Florida but not yet entirely sure they wanted to give up the house for good, the credit check done and the papers just waiting there for Bridger Martin to blow into town and affix his signature. That was all to the good, and after vagabonding around the country on a nice extended vacation, it would be a relief to get there and start over-the schools “were” good and Natalia could shop till she dropped in Manhattan. He wouldn't want to hit any of the old haunts, though, wouldn't want to run into anybody, even his mother-especially her. Or Gina. It wouldn't do to have people calling him Peck, not anymore. But Garrison was the next town up the line and he figured he'd be spending most of his time in the City, anyway, and with Sukie it was just a matter of hooking back up with the lawyer and getting those Sunday visits quietly arranged again. He was just “Dad” to her, not Peck or Dana or Frank or Bridger, just “Dad,” and no one the wiser. Or maybe that was a dream. Maybe the cops would be waiting for him at McDonald's, because why wouldn't Gina sell him out, why wouldn't her mother?
“You are ready?” Natalia slid into the seat beside him. She was wearing a pink visor with a designer logo that had probably cost fifty bucks, fifty bucks at least. When she saw he was looking at it, she said, “For travel. For the sun. Is there not sun in Las Vegas?”
“Yeah,” he said, distracted, “yeah, there is. Good thinking.” He flicked the remote for the garage door and the pallid light flooded in. He was thinking of what they were leaving behind, of how everything, from his knives to his saucepans to the Viking convection oven and the new microwave, would occupy their niches until the place was sold and everything the new owners didn't want or couldn't use was dumped in the trash. No regrets, he told himself as he started up the car-one of the finest production cars in the world, in the history of the world-and backed out into the morning.
What he didn't notice-what he failed to notice because he was still there, upstairs, roaming the uninhabited rooms of the condo, lingering in his mind over all the dispensable things they'd accumulated and left in their wake-was the black Jetta, pulling out behind him.