Lyle was afraid to check the mail, and he was afraid to check his phone. Just one reason: his father called about coming over Sunday. He said all the time it had been. He said there was the game. “Your mother’s making gravy,” he said. “And a baked ziti. It’s been so long, I don’t know does my son remember us.”
“I need to work.”
“Work. What work?”
Lyle paused for composure. “I am involved in some research. For a book.”
His father said food on the table. He said the Micellis had always worked, always. He said what about come back forty-a-weeks, like the summers.
“I can’t go backward,” Lyle said.
“Family business is backwards now?” his father said. “The Micellis would always do what it took. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what. It used to be family meant something.”
“This book means something too.”
Yet Fourth Amendment had been done. McCreight thought the story was the work he’d done triangulating calls and emails to target terrorists years before, but it had been reported in newspapers already to quick and small ado, and the more Lyle thought about it, the more he was certain that the American audience would not care for further detail. What he needed was new. What he needed was more about the Iranian centrifuges. Material weapons. Threats that appeared real, or victories. That story arc.
“I’m talking about Ingrid. She’s a good girl, Ly. And so is Marina.”
“No one’s talking about Ingrid or Marina.”
“I’m happy to help, don’t get me wrong. But I worry about my granddaughter,” his father said.
“And I don’t?”
Lyle could feel the days closing behind him like doors. He had not forgotten the sums he owed his father, that Ingrid wanted to film a film that would undo official facts in China. He had not forgotten that already Marina had become a girl and would want more, want better. And he would want to be able to give better, to live better, to not bring her to a sad little one-bedroom where sometimes there were bugs and other times rats, and always there was something a little sad and adolescent about the entire setup.
“Listen,” his father said. “We’ll talk over dinner Sunday. That’s how it’s always been done. We always did it like such. You talk over dinner.”
Lyle looked at his daughter. She didn’t look unhappy in her sleep. She didn’t look underfed, neglected. She looked tired from their afternoon in the park and eating hot dogs.
“How it’s always been done was segregation until the civil rights movement,” Lyle said. “That’s what I think about how it’s always been done.”
“We weren’t teenagers forever,” his father said. “There was respect for work. You didn’t have every other one on a so-called social program, Lyle.”
“Who is on a social program and what is so-called about it?”
“I’ll tell you it’s college,” his father said. “Because I look and all I see is protests. Every other day protests on your alma mater campus.”
“They want the university to divest from private military firms, Dad. What is the problem with that?”
His father could be heard beeping the car horn. “Jesus Christmas,” he said. “All right, kiddo. All right. Coming in loud and clear. But Sunday. Tell us sooner. You remember how to call.”