tougher it’ll be.”
She and Teddy were heading up the center of the lawn now, their conversation, whatever it had been about, apparently concluded. “Tedlowski better not be telling her about Jacy jumping on tables when she sang, because that would definitely appeal to her.” He looked around now. “You’re really gonna sell this place?”
“You think I shouldn’t?”
Mickey shrugged. “How would I know?”
“Most people have opinions.”
“Not me,” Mickey said.
It had always been one of the most endearing things about him, Lincoln thought—this ability to say perfectly ridiculous things and make them sound absolutely true.
* * *
—
“LOOKED LIKE YOU and Delia had quite the conversation this morning,” Lincoln ventured. He was driving Teddy to the hospital, where he’d have his eye checked and the bandage replaced. The damaged side of his face seemed even more swollen than it had that morning, the bruising more vivid, but the nap he’d taken after Mickey and his daughter left seemed to have done him good, and Lincoln marveled at his recuperative powers. “What do you make of her?”
“I’m not sure,” Teddy replied, as if this were the very question he’d just been pondering. “It’s like one minute Jacy’s in there, looking out through those eyes, and the next she’s completely gone and there’s just this stranger.”
Lincoln nodded. Though he himself had barely spoken to the woman, he’d come away with the same impression.
“She’s definitely a coarser version of her mother,” Teddy continued, “but I guess that’s to be expected. Take away Greenwich, Connecticut, and good private schools, and replace those with shitty public ones, and Delia’s what you get. But I found myself liking her. Quite a lot, actually. She’s defensive and stubborn, like anyone would be after bouncing around foster homes. She can’t quite figure Mickey out, but she seems to like him well enough.”
“Like him?”
Teddy shrugged. “I read somewhere that babies in Russian orphanages stop crying after they learn it doesn’t do them any good. Which of course ruins them emotionally for the rest of their lives. I think something like that might be happening with Delia. If she let herself really love her father, she’d be vulnerable. She’d rather be tough, even if that means being resigned to bad outcomes. On the other hand, she wouldn’t have come looking for him if she hadn’t been hoping for something. Having found him, though, she doesn’t seem to know what comes next. Could be she just needs a friend who isn’t her father.”
“Yeah?”
Teddy must’ve heard the skepticism in his voice, because he gave him a one-eyed look of disapproval. “You don’t feel any obligation? She’s Jacy’s daughter.”
In truth Lincoln wasn’t sure. Earlier he’d offered to help pay for a better treatment facility than Mickey could afford, but the obligation he’d felt then was to him, not her. Anita factored into it, too. What would she think if he allowed himself an emotional attachment to the daughter of a girl they both knew he’d once been in love with? Didn’t she deserve to be shut of her rival at last? He’d hoped that finding out what happened to Jacy would at long last settle his own mind, but now, thanks to Delia, that might never happen. Although she was a couple thousand miles away and still knew nothing of Delia’s existence, Anita nevertheless seemed to sense her presence when she’d phoned earlier. “What’s wrong?” she wanted to know as soon as she heard his voice. Instead of giving her a complete accounting, he’d told her only about Teddy, how he’d passed out, fallen on a shattered wineglass and nearly lost an eye as a result. “Actually, there’s more,” he admitted, “but I can’t really talk now. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as the guys are gone, I promise.” When she didn’t say anything to that, he took the opportunity to change the subject. “How’s everything where you are?”
“Your father says hello.”
“Yeah? How is the old reprobate?”
“Okay, except he keeps calling this new woman Trudy. When she reminds him that she’s not your mother, he says”—and here she mimicked his high, squeaky voice—“ ‘I can tell that just by looking at you.’ ”
Lincoln laughed out loud, as he always did when his wife allowed herself to mimic his father. She’d had Dub-Yay down about ten minutes after meeting the man, but she was usually too kind to mock him.
“And here’s the part you’ll love,” she continued. “She’s Catholic.”
“Roman Catholic?”
“She took him to Mass last Sunday.”
Lincoln felt the earth wobble. “Wolfgang Amadeus Moser went