Nate’s morning began like any other. So how could he possibly know that, well before the day was over, his life would never be the same? Who would have guessed that something that was laid to rest for him some thirty years ago would soon return to upend everything he’d ever thought and known and alter his entire worldview? All that, just as another major part of his life was about to disappear?
He’d often swing by Occidental College to visit his dad, who had taught American Literature there for the past twenty or so years. Nate loved to linger in the back of a lecture hall listening to the cool, accessibly erudite Jim Cronin theorize on one great author or another, one great novel or another, always making it sound like the first time he’d ever held forth about either. Jim had a wondrous view of books, of the written word, and this enthusiasm made the professor seem far younger than his sixty-two years. That and his longish, still more pepper-than-salt hair; vintage T-shirts; athletic build (strange, because Jim’s idea of exercise was pacing in front of a lecture hall); and warm, melodious voice that made the potentially dull seem captivating.
Nate would spot the occasional coed—and even a few so-inclined male students—eying his dad like they would readily jump his bones if the opportunity knocked, age difference be damned. Jim acted oblivious to all that, and looked at Nate like his son had three heads the one time he mentioned that his dad’s students seemed “hot for teacher.”
“I could be their grandfather, for God’s sake,” Jim said. But Nate knew the thought tickled his unaffected dad, even if he would never act upon it. He was more of a straight arrow than he looked, which may have added to his appeal.
“I can’t believe you still teach The Great Gatsby,” Nate said as he and Jim exited stately Fowler Hall that pivotal morning and made their way across Occidental’s lush, bucolic grounds. Jim’s lecture on the famed, if oft-trod, novel was his usual mix of inspiring and insightful, positing that the reader’s trust in narrator Nick Carraway is the key to believing that Gatsby is, in fact, great. “I mean, it never gets old for you, does it?”
“‘It is a lucky man who succeeds at that which he loves,’” quoted Jim with professorial authority.
Nate assessed his father as they turned onto the lovely Academic Quad, where students gathered, studied, sat, and ate under its towering old oak and eucalyptus trees. It made Nate’s heart ache for his college days, its freedoms and possibilities. “Don’t tell me,” Nate guessed about the source of his dad’s bookish quote. “Albert Camus.”
He flashed Nate a devious twinkle. “Jim Cronin,” he answered, tapping his chest. Camus clearly had nothing on Cronin.
“I should’ve known,” Nate joked. He wished he had half his dad’s joie de vivre, his puckishness, his intellect. But Nate, earnest and orderly, sometimes felt more like the parent than the child, especially as he was growing up motherless, Jim filling the role of both mom and dad. Their differences somehow worked for them; Nate adored his father and the feeling was mutual. “How about that cup of coffee you promised me?” Nate asked, worried he’d be late for the noon estimate he had to give on a new landscaping job.
Jim hesitated. “I need to talk to you about something first.”
The sound in his father’s voice, so serious and troubled, gave Nate pause. He saw something fearful in his deep blue eyes. “What is it, Dad?”
“Let’s sit down, okay, son?” Jim said, indicating a quiet area toward the edge of the campus. Nate’s head and heart began to race. His father quickened his pace; Nate silently followed. Jim waved at a few passing students, though never turned to meet their gaze.
They reached a bench perched on a bluff overlooking downtown Los Angeles, its familiar structures and towers shimmering in the hazy spring sun. It was an especially beautiful day in contrast to the kind of news Nate was expecting to receive. He and his father sat side by side and faced out at the city skyline and the dense residential areas that lay before it.
Jim told Nate his painful story in an uncharacteristically careful, plainspoken manner, struggling to reach the finish line without shedding a tear. Somehow, Nate saw his own life flash before his eyes as if it were he and not his beloved dad who had the inoperable tumor.
“You’ve known for six months and you haven’t told me?”
Jim absorbed his son’s anger while formulating the most honest answer he could. “It’s bad enough I had to know,” he finally said. “Besides, there’s nothing you or anyone else could have done.”
“Except be there for you,” Nate said quietly, his fury morphing into something more desperate, more helpless. He could barely remember his father being sick a day in his life. What kind of cruel joke was this?
“You’ve been there for me, pal,” said Jim, unable to contain his tears any longer, “you just didn’t know it.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, swallowing hard. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.” But that didn’t stop his tears.
Nate only had one more question. Not that he wanted the answer. “Did the doctors say how long … how … much time?”
“A month, maybe two,” Jim answered, his voice muffled.
Nate stared at the distant skyline, strained to remember the name of that iconic white tower with its rounded sides. It used to be the tallest building in Los Angeles but now it was number two or three. What a strange thing to be thinking about at such a dire moment. The mind works in mysterious ways, especially when one needed protection.
“Pretty shitty, huh?” Jim’s eyebrows arched in a kind of wry disbelief. For a flash, he looked like the old Jim: charismatic Jim, raconteur Jim, the Jim who would live forever. But all Nate could see was the Jim whose body had betrayed him, the father he couldn’t picture a life without.
Nate knew the answer to the question he was about to ask but asked it anyway. “And there’s absolutely nothing that can be done?” Jim shook his head. Nate nodded just as faintly. It hit him: The U.S. Bank building. So fucking what?
Jim turned to Nate. “Look, I don’t have a lot saved up, but I’m leaving you the house. Live there, sell it, whatever you decide. It’s yours.” Nate couldn’t quite process what his father was saying. Jim cracked a small smile and added, “Hey, you’ll finally be able to landscape the place the way you want.”
“Jesus, Dad.” It was all Nate could muster. Maybe that said it all. He wanted to ask, “How can you joke at a time like this? How can you even think straight? Get up in the morning? Get dressed? Keep teaching the fucking Great Gatsby?”
Instead, Nate thought about Jim’s house, that small, weathered Craftsman just a few blocks away on Eagle Rock’s winding Escarpa Drive. How it cried out for a shot of new paint and, yes, a new front garden and a serious tree trim. How the place was not unlike Jim himself: charming, casual, deceptively solid. How Nate had lived there with his dad for a decade before college, moving from their modest rental in Valley Village about a mile from where Jim had once taught high school English.
A door shut on Nate’s fleeting memory and suddenly he found the right words to say—and the heart to say them. “I’m so, so sorry, Dad.”
“No, Nate. I’m sorry.” They were four short words but filled with unspeakable sorrow. “And just know that whatever I’ve done as a father, it’s always been with your best interest at heart.”
Nate studied his dad, still so effortlessly handsome despite the destruction unfolding within him. “Why would I ever think anything else?”
Jim returned his son’s gaze with an enigmatic stare. It would take a while for Nate to receive his answer.