The small cottage in San Clemente is two blocks from the ocean and twenty minutes from Irvine and the kids. A “cozy charmer” is how the real estate listing described it. He bought it the day he surfed for the first time, choosing it for its location and large backyard.
There’s no picket fence, but it’s the sort of house that could have one. The landscape needs work, but Dick’s always wanted to try his hand at gardening. There’s an old playset out back that needs to be hauled away. It would make a nice spot for a vegetable bed. He’s already started looking into plants that do well in arid beach climates. Squashes and lettuces seem to be good choices. The house itself is solid and has been recently updated with new windows, wood floors, and fresh paint.
“Dee,” he says from his new cellphone, in his new kitchen, in his new house, “I need your help.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Dee answers, her voice tight.
“Nothing,” Dick says, wondering about the strange reaction. They’ve texted a few times, but he hasn’t talked to her since he left for Hawaii, which was over five weeks ago—a glorious, rejuvenating month of surfing, lounging on the beach, and sleeping.
He had hoped Jim and Kiley might join him for some of it, but Caroline put the kibosh on the idea, claiming they were too busy.
“I bought a house,” he says, “and I was thinking you and Jesse might want to come for a visit, maybe bring Janelle, and help me furnish it.”
“You bought a house?” she says, relief in her voice.
“You, okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. What made you buy a house?”
“I figured it was time to get out of the apartment.”
“Oh,” she says flatly.
“Everything okay?”
She blows out a breath. “Steve and I broke up.”
“Oh,” Dick says, genuinely disappointed. Though Steve is turning out to be his nemesis, he likes him, and he especially likes him for Dee. He’s the first man Dee’s dated seriously since Jesse’s dad left, and the first decent man she’s dated since Joe.
“Where’s the house?” she asks.
“San Clemente. It’s nice. A beach town. You don’t have to come. I can just order some things online.”
“No. Of course I’ll come. How about next weekend? I just need to get my shifts covered.”
“Great!” he says with too much fake enthusiasm, the whole conversation off rhythm.
“Dickie?” Dee says, hesitation in her voice.
“Yeah?”
Another awkward pause until finally she says, “Nothing. Never mind. I’ll see you next weekend.”
* * *
The house is mostly empty. He has a lawn chair he bought at the drugstore, a large flatscreen TV set up on a couple cinder blocks, and a new king-size bed. Though he’s not a fan of television, he keeps the set on when he’s home for the noise. It reminds him of the kids. He never much cared for SpongeBob or The Simpsons, but he liked watching them watch them.
Without a job, he’s horribly lonely, and it makes him miss them that much more. He needs to figure out a way to bring them back into his life. He thought the house would be a start, but when he called to tell them about it and to ask if they wanted to visit, neither was interested. Jim’s in summer camp during the week and wants to hang with his friends on the weekends, and Kiley has no interest, period. Perhaps when they’re older and not so much under Caroline’s control, he’ll be able to have more of a relationship with them, but for now, he’s not sure what else to do but to continue to let them know he’s here and that he loves them. Each day, he sends them each a text, often including a “meme.” He likes that he knows what that is. Jim almost always emojis back a laughing face or a thumbs-up. Kiley doesn’t reply.
His phone buzzes, and he looks down to see a text from Dee:
He texts back a smiley face and thumbs-up, though he isn’t happy at all. The isolation is getting to him.
At least, he still has his work. He is in the process of converting the third bedroom into a lab. Yesterday, the carpet was pulled up and replaced with linoleum, and today, two lab tables and twenty rodent cages are being delivered. He lied to Katz. Compound four is much closer to completion than he led him to believe. It needs a bit of fine-tuning, but the formula is solid, and it’s only a matter of weeks, not years, until it will be ready for a clinical trial and then FDA approval.
It keeps him busy enough that he can mostly avoid thinking about the remaining three Pepper files. Part of him never wants to return to them again. The problem is red rose bushes. Each time he passes a red bloom, his rage returns as he recalls Cayman’s post and thinks about Ingall, who his gut tells him might be the worst monster yet.
Which is why, reluctant as he is to return to that world, each morning, as he sips his coffee, he searches for Ingall’s name, idly awaiting and dreading an opportunity to infiltrate his life.