“Well, I want to see him before we go home,” his father said.
“Ned, it’s just a cat,” his mother said wearily from across the room.
“Ignore her,” Ned said, winking.
Mr. Holtzman arrived with two Torpedo ales for Frost and Ned — like father, like son — but then he headed upstairs to be with his wife and left the three of them alone.
As usual, his mother didn’t know what to say, and his father didn’t know when to stop. Janice hid her pain; Ned used light conversation to pretend his pain wasn’t there. Emotionally, Frost was more like his mother, but over the years, he’d always been closer to his father, even if it was only to talk about history and sports. They also shared a love of San Francisco. Ned had been a convention planner at the Moscone Center for most of his career, and even in retirement, he talked up the city as if he’d never left it behind. If it had been up to Ned, they’d still be living in the house next door, but Janice couldn’t stay there with Katie’s ghost in all the rooms.
His father was like a shorter, squatter version of Frost. In his late sixties, he kept a bushy head of brown-and-gray hair and a trimmed beard, and he had the same laser-like blue eyes he’d given to his children.
“How about that Duane, huh?” Ned asked, swigging his beer. “Have you met Tabby? Isn’t she great?”
“She is,” Frost agreed.
“I love her. We both do. Cute, smart, way too classy for that boy.”
“I thought the same thing,” Frost said, smiling.
“As soon as we met her, we thought she’d be perfect for Duane,” his father went on. “Janice was on top of that fix-up from minute one. Every time we saw her, she’d be pushing her to call Duane.”
“Because she’s a chef,” his mother pointed out from across the room. There was an apology in her tone, as if she had to explain why they’d chosen to fix up Duane and not Frost.
“I get it,” Frost said.
“Of course, it took them forever,” Ned said. “And we all know Duane’s reputation for going from girl to girl. Your mother told him right from the get-go that he was not going to see Tabby unless he was looking for something more. I guess he was finally ready.”
“I hope that’s true,” Frost said.
He waited for his mother to grill him about his own relationship status, but her silence was eloquent. She didn’t need to say a word to make him realize that he’d disappointed her again.
His father, on the other hand, had never met a pause he didn’t need to fill, and he recognized some of the tension between Frost and his mother. “I want to stretch my legs,” Ned said. “I’m all cramped up after the flight. Frost, how about taking a walk around the old neighborhood with me? That okay?”
Frost glanced at his mother. He sensed an ulterior motive. “Sure, Dad.”
“Great.”
His father grabbed a jacket as they left the house, and he zipped it up as they made their way to the sidewalk. The evening didn’t feel cold to Frost, but Arizona life had already thinned Ned’s blood. His father walked fast on his short legs, but Frost’s long strides kept pace with him. He noticed his father eyeing their old home in the glow of a streetlight.
“Do you miss it?” Frost asked.
“Every damn day,” Ned said. “I miss the house, the city, you and your brother. But it is what it is. Janice likes Tucson. She says she’s free there.”
“How are you two doing?”
“Better. I won’t say perfect, but better.”
When his parents had taken the first steps toward reconciling after their split, Janice had made it clear that she needed a fresh start somewhere else if they were going to put their relationship back together. That meant leaving San Francisco. So Ned retired. They sold the house and moved.
“You could come back more often,” Frost pointed out. “Even if Mom doesn’t want to. You could stay with me and Shack. There’s a ton of room in the house.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ned said, but Frost knew it was never going to happen. His parents always let him down easy about things they didn’t want to do, by telling him they’d keep it in mind. Or they’d run it by the committee. Or they’d put it on the to-do list. Those were the places that ideas went to die.
“Where’s the family gathering this weekend?” Frost asked.
“Natasha Lubin’s parents are hosting it at their house. They have a place near Stern Grove. I know it would mean a lot to your mother if you could join us at this one, Frost.”
“So she said.”
“Look, you know Duane. He never has time. Tabby can’t get out of her shift at the restaurant. So we’ll be on our own, and that’s not good for Janice. This will be a big gathering. A lot of family members from out of town are coming in.”
“I already told her I’ll be there if I can.”
“Good. I appreciate it.”
They kept walking at the same fast pace, and they reached the end of the avenue at the gates of the zoo. The street was quiet. Down the block to their right, invisible in the darkness, was the Pacific, but he could taste it in the strong wind. Mist was in the breeze, too, dampening their faces. His father sucked in a chestful of air, as if he needed to fill himself up with the city again. Ned looked at home here.
“I remember when you and Katie sneaked into the zoo at night that time,” his father reminded him. “You were what? Eleven years old? I still don’t know how you guys got the ladder down here from the garage. Then security caught you, and the cops called us. Jeez, the two of you could be trouble.”
“The scary thing is, it was Katie’s idea,” Frost said. “And she was only seven.”
“That doesn’t surprise me in the least. Nothing ever fazed that girl. She could talk to a stranger for two minutes and know their whole life history.”
“Yes, she could.”
His father jammed his hands in his pants pockets. The ocean breeze rustled his hair, and his face was full of shadows. “Hey, listen, Frost, I want to talk to you about something. That’s why I suggested we take a walk. I didn’t want your mother to hear this. She’s got enough on her mind right now without me adding anything more.”
“What’s up?” Frost asked.
“It’s about Katie. I don’t know if it’s important or not, but with everything happening—”
“Tell me,” Frost said.
“Okay. Look, you remember, three days after we found her — after you found her — it was our anniversary.”
“I remember.”
“You know me. Gift giving has never been my thing. And your mother is not exactly the easiest person to shop for. So the week before, I asked Katie for help. I gave her a hundred bucks and told her to find something nice. Naturally, she picked the perfect thing, like always. A beautiful Tibetan Buddha water fountain. It was delivered on our anniversary. At any other time, Janice would have loved it, but of course, getting it then, she went to pieces. So I put the fountain in a box, stored it in the garage, and we never looked at it again.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you, Dad,” Frost said. “What is this about?”
“Well, the thing is, the box went to Arizona with us. We didn’t really take the time to downsize. Janice wanted to get out of the city as fast as we could. It wasn’t until earlier this year that I started going through a lot of the boxes that were still sitting in storage that we didn’t have room for and had never bothered to unpack. And I found the box with the fountain in it.”
Ned slid an envelope out of the inner pocket of his jacket.
“The receipt from the store was inside with the fountain. I had never even opened it. See, I had given Katie the money a week earlier, so I assumed she’d bought the fountain the next day. She was always efficient. But for some reason, she must have waited, because when I looked at the receipt, I realized that she’d gone to the shop to get the fountain on the day she died.”