30. Too Early and Too LateEleven Years Ago

Too Early and Too Late

I'm watching the sunset on the back porch when Cece calls.

I'm listening to the waves, a cup of tea in my hands. I have no reason to feel peaceful, and yet I'm so peaceful that I don't hear the phone buzz at first. I'm taking in the soft light and the sound of those waves and thinking of Jack. And I'm wishing he was here with me, knowing how peaceful he'd find it too. I consider picking up the phone and calling him, but I feel like I don't get to do that anymore. Not just because I miss him. Not until I also have something different to say.

When the phone buzzes a second time, though, I think for a moment that it is Jack. But it's an 805 number that comes up on my phone, a number I don't recognize, Cece's voice coming at me, her tone clipped and anxious.

"I hope it's alright that I'm calling," she says. "Your uncle Joe told me that you were at Windbreak."

"And how did my uncle Joe know that?"

She gets quiet, not answering. "I thought maybe we could have dinner tomorrow. Talk some things through."

"Is he joining us as well?" I ask.

"I didn't share with him that I was reaching out to you, actually," Cece says. "I was hoping that just the two of us could talk…"

I hear a knock on the screen door. And look up to see Clark standing there.

"I'm going to head out," he says.

"Hey, Cece, I'm going to call you right back, okay?" Then I click off and turn to Clark. "Thank you for coming out."

"Of course. It's nice to have someone staying here again."

I give him a smile and stand up, walk over to where he is standing in the doorway. And I reach into my back pocket, Cece's voice still in my head. "Before you go, can I show you something?"

"Sure."

I hold out the group photograph with my father and with Uncle Joe in it. With Cece in it.

"I guess, and I understand if you want to remain discreet even now, but… did my father and this woman spend any time together here?"

He reaches for the photograph, reluctantly at first, clearing his throat. But then he looks down at it, scanning the group, landing first on my father.

"Wow, Liam looks so young here," he says.

"I know."

"And a lot like your brother."

"I think so too."

He holds the photograph closer to his face, takes it in. Then he shakes his head.

"But the woman… I can't say I recognize her."

"I can pull up a more recent photograph online."

"No. There's no need." He hands me back the photograph. "I never really saw him here with anyone. You kids occasionally, but, more often than not, your father was alone here."

I nod. "Yeah. That's what I thought."

Clark touches the doorframe, running his fingers alongside it. Then he turns to leave, his back turned to me, his voice almost too low to hear.

"He talked about you," he says. "He'd like that you were here."

"I appreciate you sharing that."

I look down, grateful, too grateful really. It means too much to me to hear that my father wanted me here. To hear that this part matters.

"There was one woman who came here with him."

I look back up at him, wondering if I heard him correctly. "Sorry?"

He looks at me over his shoulder, shrugs. "Or at least there was only one woman that I met. That was it."

I hold his gaze, my heart starting to race. He isn't saying the rest because he doesn't have to. He means one woman besides my father's wives, one woman besides his families, one woman who he is guessing shouldn't have been here.

I can see it in his eyes. He isn't sure if it's a betrayal that he's told me or the right thing to do—or, somehow, both at the same time.

"I only met her a few times, and I wasn't sure if she was a friend."

"Did she seem like a friend?"

"Yes. And no."

"Do you happen to know her name?"

He doesn't hesitate. Now that he's gotten this far, he doesn't hesitate when he says it. "Cory," he says. "He introduced her to me as Cory."

Cory. Why does that sound familiar? That was the name etched into the closet. Cory & Liam. I'm sure of it. Could it possibly be the same Cory?

Clark knocks on the doorframe, as if he is steadying himself against what he revealed. And I reach out and touch his arm. "Thank you," I say.

Then I am moving away from him—to the living room, to the bay window and that bird wallpaper, to all the photo albums and playbills and yearbooks that I spilled onto the floor already, that I have yet to put back.

Cory & Liam.

I call Cece back, but she doesn't pick up. I leave a message.

Then I reach for his oldest photo albums—anything that looks to be from high school, anything that looks to be from before that.

And I start to move through.