Feeling a bit better, she went back to her laptop and turned on a movie. She lay down, and it wasn’t long before she dozed off. When she woke, the credits scrolled on the screen, and there was a suggestion for a similar movie waiting for her. She reached for her phone and found a message from Graham.
Graham Cracker: I owe you dinner. Tonight? My place?
Without hesitation, she told him she’d be there.
SIXTEEN
“Is that a snowflake?” Graham’s mom pointed to the windshield. “Oh, there’s another one,” she said, only for the wipers to clear the window. “Turn those off, Graham. I want to see if it’s snowing.”
“If he turns the wipers off, Johanna, he won’t be able to see. And if he can’t see, he’s liable to drive up right into the damn ocean. Let him drive,” George shouted from the back.
For whatever reason, whenever George sat in the back of Graham’s SUV, he felt the need to yell to the passengers up front. He didn’t speak loudly. He screamed because he said no one could ever hear him. Graham heard him plenty but chose most of the time to ignore his father.
In the days since Grady’s hospitalization, George Chamberlain found himself at odds with his wife and other son. Johanna and Graham refused to play by George’s rules when it came to Grady, and each had put their foot down. Graham wasn’t sure what changed his father’s mind, but he suspected it was when the doctor told them, without a doubt, if Grady didn’t get sober, he was going to die. It wasn’t an if but a when.
When Graham picked his parents up for family therapy, he expected George to grumble, to claim illness, or to declare there was a can’t-miss game on television. Still, he surprised his son and wife by walking to the car and climbing into the back seat without any prodding. Of course, the situation was this: if Johanna and Graham wanted George to go with them, they were going to have to deal with his constant yelling.
You’re driving the wrong way.
You didn’t stop at the stop sign long enough.
Are you sure you’re going the right way?
Did you buy a ticket for the ferry?
We won’t make it in time.
Put the game on, will ya?
The demanding tone, gruffness, and volume of chatter gave Graham a headache. If it wasn’t his father saying something, it was his mother and her eagerness to have a white Christmas.
“I don’t think it’s snow, Mom.” Graham leaned forward and looked out the window toward the sky. It was gray, overcast, and trying to rain.
“Someday, I would love a white Christmas,” she said quietly as she gazed out the passenger window.
“We can take a ride east if you’d like,” he said, offering to take his parents to the mountains. “We could rent a lodge and have a nice quiet Christmas. No outside distractions.” Even though he offered, he knew his mother and father would never take him up on it, nor would it be feasible this close to Christmas to find an available lodge to rent.
“It sounds nice, but your father would never go for it. He can’t stay away from that damn television or the Loyal Order of the Sasquatch. Did you know they don’t like women in there? We’re allowed, of course, but every time I walk in there, the place goes silent. It makes me wonder what they’re talking about.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say women,” Graham said through laughter. He loved how worked up his mother became over his father’s Sasquatch group. A couple of times a year, the group came into the bar for lunch. They always chose to sit in the back, and anytime Graham or any of the staff members got too close, they’d zip their lips.
His mom swatted him and laughed. “Knowing your father, he’s in there complaining about having to make his lunch when I go out with the gals.”
“You’re talking about me like I can’t even hear you, Johanna.”
“I know you can, George,” Johanna huffed.
“Well, what do you and the gals talk about?” Graham prodded as he drove toward Port Angeles.
Johanna blushed at Graham’s question. “Women stuff.”
George and Graham chuckled. “So, it’s okay for you and the ladies to talk about us, but we can’t talk about you?” George asked as he leaned forward, sticking his head between the seats.
Graham had seen a slight change in his father, one he attributed to Grady’s most recent accident. He would never wish harm on his brother, but in a way, he was thankful for everything that happened Thanksgiving weekend. George and Grady needed a wake-up call.
She brushed him off. “It’s not the same, and you know it. We talk about new cleaning products we’re using or how we got a certain stain out of a shirt. You silly men . . . well, who knows what you guys go on and on with for hours.”
“Talk about sports, who caught the biggest fish, and how retirement is treating us.”
Graham smiled. For the first time in a while, he enjoyed spending this time with his parents when they were like this. It had been a long time since he had seen his father act playfully toward his mother. He even saw his father hug his mom the other day, which made Johanna cry, and when Graham asked her why she had tears in her eyes, she said it had been years since he’d touched her.
When they pulled up to the ferry booth, Graham showed the attendant their reservation. After they parked on the ferry, Graham helped his mom out of the car and held on to her until they were seated on the top deck. Surprisingly, his father followed. Their last trip on the ferry, George had stayed in the car. As soon as the boat pulled away from the port, Johanna excused herself, telling Graham and George she had to use the restroom, and left the two of them alone.
The Chamberlain men looked out the window, watching the passing scenery. A young boy stood next to George and pointed out the window. “What do you see?” George asked him. Graham turned his attention toward his father and watched him interact with the young boy.
“I think I saw a whale.”
“No way,” George said.
“Yes, sir. Right out there.” More people congregated to where they were sitting. People lined the wall, looking out the large pane of glass, and while it was freezing outside, people rushed out to the side of the ship to get a better look.
Time moved faster than Graham expected, and he was startled by the captain’s voice as it rang out over the loudspeaker, telling everyone to return to their cars. George stood and asked Graham, “Where’s your mother?”
“She should’ve been back by now from the bathroom.”
Together, they scanned the people moving toward the stairs and finally found her resting against the bar with a cocktail in her hand. She was in deep conversation with a woman Graham had never seen before.
“I see her, Dad. Why don’t you go down to the car, and we’ll be there in a minute?” George and Graham parted ways. He went to his mom and touched her elbow. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. She jerked in surprise and smiled brightly at him.
“Oh, honey. Let me introduce you to Cindy. Her daughter, Lacey, just moved to Cape Harbor. Have you met her yet?”
Cape Harbor was small, and normally when someone new moved to town, Peggy from the diner knew about it first. It was like some odd rite-of-passage sort of thing. When people arrived, they stopped in and introduced themselves to Peggy, and the grapevine in town was strong. A neighbor of Lacey’s would’ve told Peggy, and Peggy would’ve announced it to the community. Still, Graham hadn’t heard a thing.