Seven Year Switch Part 8

"Good job, honey," I said, hoping my voice didn't sound quite as strangled as it felt.

I helped Anastasia tape up her poster over the fireplace, and then we put on the Drew's Famous Hawaiian Luau Party Music CD Anastasia had picked out at the library. I'd wanted something a little bit more authentic and less like Hawaiian elevator music, but Anastasia's choice in music turned out to be the perfect touch. How stressed could you be while you were listening to the theme music from Hawaii Five-0?

Anastasia and I had found fresh pineapples on sale, so we bought two-one for today and one for my cla.s.s tomorrow. I started peeling and cutting up both of them, while she threaded the big chunks of juicy pineapple onto wooden skewers.

We moved on to making Huli Huli Chicken to the beat of "Surfin' USA," taking a little break to dance around the kitchen-doing the swim, of course. Every couple of strokes we'd hold our nose and bend our knees and pretend to go under water.

We mixed chicken broth, frozen pineapple juice concentrate, soy sauce, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and chopped ginger in our biggest Pyrex mixing bowl. It wasn't a fussy recipe-nothing from Hawaii was ever fussy-so I just guessed on the amounts.

We soaked some more bamboo skewers in water, which would keep them from burning when the chicken cooked. I opened the jumbo packs of boneless chicken thighs, trimmed off the fat, and cut them into bite-size pieces, then plopped them into the marinade. Anastasia covered the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator while I washed my hands.

Anastasia and I had been preparing food together since she was old enough to stand up on a chair beside me at the kitchen counter, so we had a nice, easy rhythm. "Kokomo" was playing now, and we sang along, faking the words until we got back to the Aruba, Jamaica part.

"We have to remember to show my dad all my old report cards," Anastasia said when "Kokomo" was over. "He'll like me better if he knows I'm smart."

I was holding a clear gla.s.s lemonade pitcher that had belonged to my mother. I put it down carefully on the speckled Formica counter.

"Sweetie...," I said.

Anastasia slid the pitcher closer to her and started pouring in the lime juice. "But we should show him pictures first, especially the ones when my soccer team made it to the play-off s."

I opened the pineapple juice concentrate slowly. "You don't have to prove anything to him...," I said, casually, conversationally, as if my stomach hadn't just tied itself into a million knots at the realization that my daughter saw today as a tryout. If she did well, Seth would be back in her life. If not, then he'd just go looking for a smarter girl, one who played better soccer, somewhere else.

Anastasia took the opened can from my hand. She was looking straight ahead, as if she didn't have a care in the world and didn't even know I was in the room with her, but I could tell she was waiting for me to finish my sentence, to tell her why she didn't have to prove anything to the father she hadn't seen for seven years.

I wanted to say, Of course he'll stay in your life. You're brilliant, sweet, and funny. You're so incredibly beautiful, inside and out. How could he possibly resist you?

But the truth sat on the counter between us like a big fat white elephant. What ever the missing secret ingredient, somehow the recipe that included Anastasia and me hadn't been enough once before.

"The Tide Is High" was playing now. The perky line about wanting to be your number one was making me wonder if there was a DJ in the sky somewhere with a twisted sense of humor.

I handed Anastasia a big wooden spoon to stir the Luau Punch. "When your dad left," I said, "it wasn't about you. You are the best thing that ever happened to either of us. Nothing about you could be more perfect-you're smart, you're kind, you're talented, you're pretty, you're loveable. And you're loved. What ever happens, I will always love you."

The sound of three distinct, evenly s.p.a.ced knocks came into the kitchen like punctuation. Randomly, I thought of that old song about knocking three times on the ceiling if you want me. I hoped Drew had had the good sense not to include it on this CD.

"He's here!" Anastasia yelled. She dropped the wooden spoon and ran.

Just as she opened the front door, the song changed again.

Don't Worry, Be Happy.

14.

"HEY. YOU MUST BE ASIA."

"Hey. You must be my dad."

My eyes teared up, even though I'd sworn I wouldn't let them. I wanted to float up to the ceiling, numb, ethereal. I could be Anastasia's guardian angel, keeping an eye on her but not feeling the pain of this world.

They stood like that for a long moment-the door wide open, Seth with one foot on the threshold, the other still outside on the cracked cement step. I had this sudden awful feeling he might turn and run. I wanted to run. All those years they'd been apart stretched between them, almost visible, like a long winding trail of loss.

Finally, Seth pulled the front door closed behind him.

Anastasia held out a lei with both hands. It was royal blue and made out of crinkly plastic.

Seth leaned down. She looped it over his head.

"Aloha," Anastasia said.

"Aloha," Seth said.

There was a long, awkward moment.

"You can hug me if you want to," Anastasia said.

"Thank you," Seth said.

He set the shopping bag he was carrying down on the floor. He leaned forward and put his arms out, carefully.

Anastasia threw her arms around his neck.

Seth stood up straight and lifted Anastasia off the floor. He wrapped his arms around her and twisted back and forth. Her hula skirt made a rustling sound as her legs swung from side to side.

His eyes met mine over her head. They were shiny with tears.

I looked away.

Seth choked back a sob. Anastasia patted him on his back as if she were burping a baby. "It's okay, Dad," she said.

"I can do cartwheels," Anastasia announced the second her feet touched the ground again.

"When you were little, I used to hold your feet so you could walk on your hands," Seth said.

"Cartwheels are much harder," Anastasia said. "Want me to show you?"

"Sure," Seth said. He wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. Anastasia grabbed his other hand and pulled him toward the kitchen door. If we were still married, I would have gotten him a tissue, I thought randomly.

After the door slammed, I just stood there. The shopping bag Seth had brought with him was still sitting on the floor. I certainly wasn't going to pick it up.

The music changed to a tinny version of "Wipeout."

I followed the sound, happy that I could turn off at least some of the noise in my head.

WHEN ANASTASIA AND SETH finally came in, they were laughing. They both had beads of sweat mixed with the freckles on their noses, and their ears were an identical shade of red. Seth's shirt was all wrinkled from rolling around in the yard, and he had a dandelion stuck behind one ear. He was still wearing his blue plastic lei. Anastasia had gra.s.s stains on the knees of both pink tights. I'd probably never get them out.

I felt a piercing stab of jealousy.

I grabbed a book of matches and headed for the back door to light our little Weber minigrill.

Seth held out his hand. "I'll get that," he said.

"No thanks," I said. "I've pretty much got it down by now."

When I came back inside, Seth was helping Anastasia set the table. It was the right thing to do, but it still p.i.s.sed me off. How dare you touch our silverware? I wanted to yell. How dare you touch our plates and our paper napkins? How dare you come anywhere near us after all this time?

I dug deep, trying to feel happy for Anastasia that she appeared to be having a healthy, if seriously overdue, bonding experience with her father, at the same time I focused on staying detached enough to ignore said father.

I attempted a deep breath, but even this turned out to be more difficult than it should have been. Maybe keeping my heart shut down made it harder for my other vital organs to function. The air seemed somehow thicker since Seth had arrived, almost liquid, and my body seemed to be telling me that if I breathed in too much at once, my lungs would fill up and I'd drown. My breathing stayed shallow, almost like panting.

I started threading the chunks of chicken onto wet wooden skewers. Anastasia opened the refrigerator and put the platter of pineapple kabobs on the table. She poured a bag of baby carrots into a little bowl and placed them next to the pineapple.

Seth reached for the refrigerator door.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Just trying to help," he said.

We looked at each other.

Or not," he said. He walked over and took a seat at our tiny kitchen table.

"Want some Hawaiian punch, Daddy?" Anastasia said.

How about a nice Hawaiian Punch? a voice from the old commercial said into my ear. If I were Punchy, the Hawaiian Punch mascot, as soon as Seth said yes, I could haul back and deck him. I couldn't imagine anything feeling much better right now.

"Thanks, Asia," Seth said. "I'd love some punch."

"She goes by Anastasia," I said.

"That's only because you never told me about Asia," Anastasia said. "Mom, can you go put some more music on?"

"Did something happen to your feet?" I asked sweetly.

Anastasia turned to Seth. "She gets like this sometimes. Don't worry, she'll calm down."

He laughed. He stopped as soon as he saw my face and started to stand up.

"I'll get it," I said.

As soon as I pushed Play, and Keali'i Reichel's lush music floated through the house, I felt better. I carefully inhaled and exhaled a few cleansing breaths. "You're almost there," I whispered to myself.

"Nice music," Seth said as I walked back into the kitchen. He retrieved his shopping bag and pulled out a bottle of red wine. "In lieu of Luau Punch?"

I weighed the chance to say something mean against the fact that I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a gla.s.s of wine.

"Okay," I said.

"Am I allowed to look for gla.s.ses and a corkscrew?" he said.

Anastasia watched our every move, as if she were at the zoo and we were the exotic animals she'd come to see.

"What ever," I said.

"Great," he said. "But first..." He pulled out a wooden box and put it on the table in front of Anastasia.

Her eyes lit up. She ran her hand across the top of the dark, intricately carved box reverently. "Thank you," she said. "It's just what I've always wanted."

Seth burst out laughing. "Don't worry. There's stuff inside."

Anastasia opened the box. It was filled with small cloth dolls. They were all about the same size, maybe six inches tall or so. Each one was female and completely unique. Their skin tones ranged from cappuccino to espresso, and a bold array of bright geometric print fabrics was wrapped around their bodies and knotted on top of their heads.

Anastasia slid her plate back. She took them out of the box carefully, laying them side by side across the table.

"You're probably too old for dolls now...," Seth said.

"Not this kind," she said.

"They're handmade Senegalese pocket dolls," Seth said. "One of the things I did in West Africa was to help build partnerships between local artisans and fair trade organizations in the United States and Canada."

"I love them," Anastasia said.

I turned away to check on the rice. I grabbed the chicken off the counter.

Seth looked up at me. "And this is for you, Jill...."

I ignored him and walked out to the grill. I stood there while the skewers of chicken cooked, taking big deep gasps of air, not even caring that I was probably inhaling smoke and Huli Huli Chicken grease.

I'd just finished turning the chicken, when the kitchen door opened and Seth came out. He was holding two gla.s.ses of red wine.

He reached one out to me.

"Just leave it on the table in the kitchen," I said. "I'll get it when I have time."

Seth took a sip from one of the gla.s.ses.

I moved the chicken skewers around some more on the grill, just for something to do.

"Look," Seth said. "I know this can't be easy for you."

I spun around fast enough to make myself dizzy. "Look," I said. "You don't know anything about me, so don't kid yourself. You don't know who I am, how I've changed, what I've been through. You don't have any idea what I'm feeling or not feeling."

I reached for my winegla.s.s. Seth let it go without a word.