familiar road sign loomed ahead: Bianco’s: Farm to Market.
He turned up the road, eyes sweeping the land. The Christmas trees were full-grown—they were saplings when Erik first saw them freshman year of college. More acres of them sprawled on his left. The bare orchard trees on the right looked bigger and more numerous. The grapevines were cut down to the ground, leaving only the supports lining the slopes like stunted telephone poles.
A mailbox marked the Biancos’ private driveway. At its base squatted a funny little stone statue, like a small dragon pretending to be a turtle. La Tarasque: both the name and the sentry of Daisy’s parents’ house.
Erik turned up the drive, his chest pounding hard. He parked, switched off the engine and clutched the steering wheel another nanosecond. Then found his balls and got out of the car. He straightened his shoulders and told his heart and stomach to knock it off. He was only seeing Daisy’s parents for the first time in thirteen years. After he’d walked out on their traumatized daughter and ignored her as she descended into a near-suicidal darkness.
No big deal.
“Welcome back,” Daisy said, closing the passenger door.
To Erik’s staring eyes, La Tarasque looked unchanged. A beautiful farmhouse with a front porch that wrapped around both sides. Black shutters neat against grey shingles and a sunny yellow door. Three gable windows along the second story roof.
Joe Bianco was sitting next to one, hands clasped in his lap. Looking like a small Buddha.
“Dad?” Daisy said, laying a hand across her eyebrows and squinting into the sun’s rays.
Joe freed one hand and raised it. “Hello.”
“Dad, what are you doing?”
“I’m laying an egg, what does it look like I’m doing?”
“Are you stuck up there?”
Joe flicked a thumb over his shoulder. “Ladder fell over.”
“Where’s Mamou?”
“At her book club.”
“You were up on the ladder alone? Are you insane?”
“Bon dieu de merde, this is going to take forever.”
“You don’t have your phone with you?”
“It’s in my tool bag.”
“Where’s your tool bag?”
“Hanging on the ladder.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Dad. How long have you been sitting there?”
“Stop asking him questions,” Erik said.
“Thank you, Erique,” Joe said. “Perhaps you can get me the hell down from here before my wife returns? I’ve already pissed once off the roof and I think I splattered the patio.”
Erik had already started walking around the side of the house to the back where, sure enough, the long extension ladder was lying on the ground.
Here we go again, he thought.
Daisy helped him get the ladder righted and braced properly against the roof.
“All set,” Erik called, getting a foot on the bottom rung and his hands on the struts. To Daisy he said, “How about you give me a minute?”
Daisy glanced up at the roof, then back at Erik.
“I got this,” he said, and leaned to kiss her. Shaking her head and muttering, she walked off around the corner of the house.
Joe started scooting down the roof’s incline on his butt. “Not one of my brighter ideas, hé?”
“At least it didn’t fall while you were on it.”
“Let’s not talk about that.” Carefully, Joe maneuvered himself backward and, with Erik’s guidance, got his foot on the top rung.
“How the hell did you plan to do this yourself?” Erik asked, the sheer idiocy finally sinking in.
“Shut up.”
Erik closed his teeth around his tongue, shaking his head. He stepped aside as Joe neared the lower rungs, keeping one hand on a strut until Joe had both feet on the ground.
Joe whacked one hand against the other and brushed off his jeans.
“Laying an egg,” Erik said. “Good one.”
“You like that? I had a couple hours to think up my lines. And reflect on my life in case my wife found me.”
He seemed a little shorter than Erik remembered. The hair was all silver grey, combed back from a peaked hairline, and he was sporting a goatee. He took hold of the ladder as if to bring it down, then stopped and pointed at Erik.
“Not a word of this to Francine.”
“No, sir,” Erik said.
For a moment they stared at each other. Then Joe’s pointing hand reached out and his palm came onto Erik’s face with a firm, familiar pat. Thumb and forefinger taking hold of Erik’s ear and tugging.
“I’m sorry,” Erik said.
“I know,” Joe said. “But you showed up just in time, Franci would have killed me. Now let’s put this ladder away and get the piss off the pavers.”
“Dad.” Daisy was calling from the side of the house. “The patio is like a latrine.