She was like Dabney twenty years earlier, Dabney as she had been standing on Steamship Wharf just before he left. But there was something else in this woman that grabbed at him: the hazel eyes, and a certain facial expression he had only ever seen in the mirror.
He clenched his right fist and felt his phantom left fist clench in unison; he felt his whole left arm in a way he hadn’t in months, except in dreams.
He couldn’t believe it.
“Agnes?” he said, his voice no more than a whisper.
“Yes,” she said.
It took some convincing to get her inside. He understood the urge to flee. It was scary and confusing, this reunion, unplanned, unexpected—but for him, not unhoped for.
He said, “Can I offer you a cup of coffee? Or some tea?”
She blinked at him.
He said, “I don’t bite.”
She barely moved her head, whether to indicate yes or no, he wasn’t sure.
He said, “I have bourbon.”
She turned off her car, a hybrid, more a toy than a car. Clen wondered what Eight-Cylinder Dabney thought about the Prius.
He poured two Gentleman Jacks, neat, and Agnes threw hers back without flinching. His daughter.
She said, “My mother comes here.”
He couldn’t tell if it was a question or not. “Yes,” he said. “We’re friends.”
“Friends,” Agnes said.
Clen downed his bourbon, then poured two more. He didn’t know how to proceed; he didn’t know what Dabney had told the girl.
He said, “How did you know to come here?”
She said, “That I can’t tell you.”
He laughed, not because she was funny but because she was so much like him. He felt like he was being born. His daughter, his child, his progeny, his DNA, his his his. How had he missed out on this until now? Tears stung his eyes. It was too much, it was overwhelming. He stared at the grain of the oak table. Agnes held her silence. Any other girl her age might have been shrill or hysterical, angry or dramatic.
Oh, Dabney, he thought. Forgive me, please.
He hadn’t realized what he had given up—not really—until now.
He said, “Does your mother know you’re here?”
“She does not.”
“Are you going to tell her you met me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Clen said, “I answered your letter, years ago. I never heard back. Did you get my letter?”
“I did,” she said. “Thank you. It helped me to read it. It was enough.”
“It wasn’t close to enough,” Clen said. “You deserved much more.”
“Let’s not have that conversation right now,” Agnes said. “Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, relieved.
“I want to talk about you and my mother,” Agnes said.
The relief evaporated. “I think you should probably ask your mother.”
“I have asked my mother,” Agnes said. “She has been disappearing all summer long—leaving work for three- and four-hour stretches. She tells Nina she’s ‘running errands.’ A few weeks ago, I saw her by chance about a half mile from here, and when I asked her about it, she said she was going to have lunch at Sankaty.”
Clen nodded. Nobody who knew Dabney would believe Sankaty.
Agnes said, “That was bullshit, of course.”
Clen drank his second bourbon. He itched for a cigarette.
Agnes said, “She comes here to see you. She comes every day?”
“Not every day.”
“The two of you are…lovers?”
“Agnes…”
“The two of you are lovers, yes or no?” There was no anger in her voice, but her tone was uncompromising. She was demanding an answer. Was Clen supposed to tell her the truth, tell his daughter that yes, in fact, he and her mother were lovers?
“Yes,” he said.
Agnes said, “How long?”
Clen poured another bourbon even though the first two shots were making his head swim in one direction and his stomach swim in another. Another man might be able to have this conversation without alcohol, but he wasn’t that man.
“I moved back here at the end of April. It started a couple of weeks after that.”
“Oooooohweeeahhh!” Agnes said. Whether this utterance was one of surprise or horror or disapproval, Clen couldn’t tell.
He said, “Dabney and I are in love, Agnes. Deeply, truly, passionately in love. This was true for years before you were born, and continues to be true now. More so now that we have each lived lives that had nothing to do with each other. Dabney Kimball is my reason and my answer.” Here, his voice failed him, much to his shame. “I can’t let her go again.”