“You need any help with the bar?” Ryan offers.
I shake my head. “I’ll call you if I do. The employees are supposed to gather for a meeting tomorrow morning before we open back up.”
“All right. Take care.” He moves to the back door. Chad goes outside, but Ryan turns back before I close it. “I’m glad you’re home, Michaela.”
I smile around the lump in my throat and lie. “Me too, kiddo.”
I close the door, pulling the faded gingham curtain aside, and watch through the upper glass. The little pickup rolls down the alley.
I move back into the living room and gather up the soda cans, the pizza box, and napkins, and throw them in a trash bag. Then I get to work. First, I make the bed and set up a small lamp on the table next to it. The curtains will have to wait until another day when I can take them down and haul them over to Ma’s for washing.
In the living room, I unroll the rug and position it in front of the overstuffed floral couch, then add a wooden end table and a coffee table that have been left behind. I take one of the antique spindle-leg chairs from the kitchen table and place it next to the end table, then pull out the other lamp from one of the boxes and plug it in. With my hands on my hips, I survey the area. So much for the living room.
The fireplace has a nice mantle. A large painting would look great above it. I shake my head, reminding myself I’m not staying that long.
Moving on to the kitchen, I unpack a box with a coffeemaker, toaster, utensils, a pot, fry pan, and baking sheet, along with the few dishes Ma gave me.
I plug in the refrigerator and it hums to life. Now for the terrifying part … I bite my lip and dare to open it. The light comes on and I’m relieved to find it spotless.
I unload the box with the food staples Ma sent with me: coffee, sugar, bread, jam, peanut butter, canned soup, instant oatmeal, macaroni and cheese, and a tin of her homemade chocolate chip cookies.
I’ll have to make a run to the grocery store later for some milk, butter, and eggs, but for now, I’ve got enough that I won’t starve.
Moving on to the bedroom, I unpack my suitcase and put my things in the dresser. When I’m done, I know I can’t avoid it any longer. I’ve got to go downstairs to the bar and check things over so I’m prepared for tomorrow’s meeting.
I lock up and head down the steps to the bar’s back entrance. I slip the key in the lock and push open the big metal door. Searching blindly, I find the light switch on the right and flip it on, revealing the back hallway. My da’s office is on one side and a storage room is on the other, followed by a small kitchen and then the bar.
It’s been years since I’ve been here, but a slew of memories come flooding back. Like upstairs, there are hardwood floors worn from a century of customers who entered and sidled up to the bar, resting their shoes on the brass foot rail. This place has been a town fixture since my great, great grandfather opened up in 1903, and it’s been in my family ever since.
The long bar runs along the right side wall, its ornate bar back and mirror harken back to that era. The bottles of different-colored liquor and sparkling glassware reflecting in the mirror have always seemed magical to me. The ceilings are high with shiny pressed tin tiles. There’s just enough room for two pool tables up by the front windows, while a dozen tables and chairs take up the left half of the room.
I run my hand along the polished wood bar top. My eyes stop on the framed black-and-white photograph hanging on the wall. It’s supposedly my great-grandfather and his brothers the year they opened. Their white aprons and mustaches look funny, but I can see the family resemblance.
While I appreciate the family legacy here and the history of this old building, I also remember how much my father had to sink into the place to keep it running, repairing old wiring and plumbing, leaking roofs, and decrepit old furnaces.
It’s so quiet and still in the building as I wander back to his office. The room has an eerie quality to it and everything is exactly as it was that night—the night he killed himself. He was found in his car, right outside in the alley.
Da’s desk is piled with papers—forever a mess, just like I remember it, and tucked in behind it sits his old red leather chair. I pull it out and sit, gingerly at first, noting how it still swivels and rocks. I remember as a child spinning around and around in it. Now it creaks as it bears my weight.
Inhaling a deep breath, I swear I smell the lingering scent of his Old Spice cologne. A bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey sits off to the side; an empty glass that looks like it’s been drank from sits next to it. Did he have a drink while he sat at this desk and wrote his suicide note? Before he stood, went outside, and shot himself in the head?
I sense his presence, and my skin chills with goose bumps. A feeling swamps over me that this is all wrong. None of what they say happened that night makes any sense. I haven’t seen the suicide note—I haven’t wanted to—but now, suddenly I do. Though, I’m not even sure who has it. Ma? Aunt Kathleen? The police?
While I’m running both hands over the edge of the wooden desk, my pulse starts to surge as heat flashes through my body. I pound my fist on the desk and shove the papers to the floor, then lay my head down on it and burst into tears, tears that have been pent up since the day of the funeral. Grief mixes with a rush of anger like some horrible cocktail I’m forced to drink. I want to reach out and take his glass and smash it against the wall. But I don’t. I can’t. It’s one of the last things my father may have touched. Every item in this room that he touched—that bottle, that glass, those papers scattered on the floor—when they’re all gone, it’ll feel like the last pieces of him will be gone too—forever.
I’m so angry, so very angry with him that I can’t bear it. Why? Why did you do this to us, Da?
I sob until I’m exhausted and cried out, but then I finally straighten myself and take a few calming deep breaths. This isn’t why I came down here, but I must have needed it. I needed to let it all out.
After rubbing my sleeve across my face, I stoop to gather up all the papers, tamping them into a stack. As I lay them down in a neat pile, my eyes fall to Da’s black bound ledger. He’d always written everything by hand, never having mastered working on a computer. While I was in high school, I had tried to drag him into the twenty-first century, but it didn’t take. He’d given it a shot. He would hunt and peck with his index fingers and squint at the monitor until he’d growl, then he’d shove it away and stomp out of the office, cursing technology.
My hands run over the leather, again feeling my father and imagining his hands, so worn and calloused. When I flip it open, there’s a red satin ribbon marking the spot of his last entries.
I scan the columns and figures scratched out in his slashing handwriting. The daily totals of the cash register till are entered, and the cash and credit are separated out. I browse through the pages, checking the months further back, and am surprised at how much the bar pulls in each month.
Flipping back to the outgoing expenses, I’m able to make sense of most of them. Payroll, food, liquor, supplies, utilities—but there’s one entry marked simply KOC. I frown. What in the world is that? It catches my eye because of the four-figure dollar amount. I skim through the ledger, searching out and finding it listed every month for the same amount, going back all the way to the beginning of the book. I do the math in my head. It adds up to over twenty thousand dollars a year.