The furnace is dormant for summer, a run-of-the-mill American Standard. There is some rust on the belly of the oil tank, like the barnacled hull of a ship. The maintenance dates go back fifteen years, but this tank is older than that. It’s a workhorse, John thinks of telling the clients, but knows they won’t appreciate the meaning of this. To him, looking at the tank is like looking at a stalwart old man, a veteran of important wars. These machines are the pumping heart of the house; everything else is frivolous and disposable in comparison. He hears snippets of discussion on the other side of the wall, Lori’s voice, small and obsequious. “Definitely, definitely.”
He recalls the evening he and Lori talked over drinks at Charley’s. She’d confided in him some garden-variety disappointment with her husband, and he’d complained about some small failing or other of Diana’s. They’d sat together amicably in the tavern’s wooden booth, pints of amber ale between them, the tableau dimly lit by a wall sconce. There had been a warmth to their rapport, made possible by the relative mildness of their grievances, and when they parted, it had been with the lightness of friends returning to safe and familiar quarters.
After Diana’s sudden departure, John hired his own lawyer out of the yellow pages. The lawyer assumed that John would request custody of Bethany, and he hadn’t contradicted this. He knew he would have a case. Diana had abandoned them both without warning, without a hint to her whereabouts, leaving father and daughter as awkward housemates.
The strange thing was that Bethany hadn’t complained. Day after day she came home from school as if nothing had changed. She sat across from John at the dinner table, Diana’s empty seat at her side. As her eyes lowered to the microwaved lasagna on her plate, John felt certain that she knew where her mother was. They were in secret contact, he surmised, and Diana was bracing for battle. One night, when John could no longer stand watching his daughter’s prim, calculated motions at the table, he cleared his throat and heard himself tell her that he did not intend to fight for custody. She was old enough to decide for herself, and that was what he expected.
Over the following weeks, he felt himself on trial. He made genuine overtures to his daughter—offered to take her shopping for summer clothes, to host an end-of-school party for her friends—but feared that these efforts seemed forced and transparent. He wanted to remind Bethany of the way she’d squealed in delight when he lifted her into the air as a child, but he sensed the powerlessness of nostalgia against the new barrier of womanhood she’d erected. This, he imagined, was the loss felt by every man who’d ever raised a daughter into adulthood, been through that tragedy. Bethany responded coolly to his efforts, and finally he let them drop.
The days seemed to accelerate then, jerking out of his grasp like a violently unspooling fishing line. And then, last night, he had the phone call from Diana. Abruptly, after weeks of silence, her voice. Bethany was going to pack some things, she said, and come stay with her.
“What do you mean, stay with you?” John asked, his voice tight. “Where are you?”
Diana sighed through the receiver. “What does it matter, really.” Her tone was no longer resentful—just tired.
After dinner, Bethany came out of her room with an overstuffed duffel bag.
“That’s a big bag” was what John had said. She smiled, a shadow of wistfulness at the corners of her lips, and tugged the bag behind her.
“Here, let me take that.”
He carried his daughter’s bag out of the house and onto the porch. Diana’s Impala was waiting in the driveway, its headlights shining in their faces. Bethany hugged John guardedly, and he returned the hug in the same way, so that there was a gap of several inches between them. Then she went out to the car, her figure silhouetted. For a moment, after the passenger door slammed shut, the faces of mother and daughter were briefly illuminated by the interior ceiling light. Then the light faded, and the car backed out of the driveway into the dark.
It is this image that returns to John as he stands between oil tank and furnace. He can still see the faces aglow in the car, already like relics, unreachable.
Lori pokes her head into the mechanicals room. “You okay in here?”
John ignores her winking, confidential tone. “Fine,” he grumbles.