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“You know, I thought I’d only have to have this conversation once,” Deb said, a bit sad, on the top lanai under an umbrella, out on the balcony just off the sun room.
Both the upstairs and downstairs lanai doors were open and all the windows that they could open were open in an effort to help the paint fumes from Steve's new bedroom to escape the house. (“Are you sure the fumes aren’t going to hurt you, Deb?” “Oh please, it’s not like they’ll kill me. It’s the tumor that’s going to get me.” “Well, it’ll make me feel better if we get you outside.” “Well, by all means, let’s enjoy the breeze.”) Joan and Charlie were playing happily, racing each other from one end of the lanai to the other, making a bit of an obstacle course around chairs and umbrellas and Jack. Jack was in his (what Charlie called) “baby jail,” which was basically his movable play pen, enjoying a nice nap in the fresh air and shade of the umbrella over their heads.
Mary had taken Grace and Nahele for lunch, all of them needing a much needed break from painting.
“…a conversation about paint fumes?” Danny asked.
She grinned, rolling her eyes a bit, “No.”
“Then what conversation?”
She leaned forward, resting her arms on the table (and Danny grimaced, they never sat up here and the grime on the table betrayed that fact) and looked way too serious.
“Once the kiddos are back and we’ve eaten lunch, you and I are going for a drive.”
Danny felt himself sit up straighter. She was so stern and morose and you don’t really say no to a dying woman, “Where are we going?”
“That’s up to you,” She said, sitting back. That was so vague and ominous and Danny wanted to ask, but then Joan ran up to her and asked if she could count the seconds of their next race and she was all smiles. Mary may be her niece, but Joan was her grandbaby. Deb couldn’t say no to her grandbaby. They sat up there, counting seconds on race after race and then after lunch, they went for a drive.
“So,” Danny said, starting up the engine and backing up out of the driveway. “How am I supposed to know where we’re going?”
She grinned. “I want you to take me to the most beautiful spot on the island.”
Danny sat for a moment, wondering what this was about. He thought about that, about where the most beautiful spot on the island was. He had been all over, in the valley, halfway up a mountain, on top of skyscrapers looking down on the whole city, but only one place came to mind.
He joked first, “Other than the back beach?” He asked, throwing a hand back, thumb pointing towards the house.
Deb grinned at him, “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” He said, putting the car into drive. “It’s a little bit of a drive, though.”
“Wonderful,” She said.
They drove in the silence of the wind coming through the open windows. Every so often Danny would glance over at her and catch her staring out the window enjoying the sights. Past fruit stands and past neighborhoods. It was only a few minutes in, and Danny had barely gotten on the highway when he realized he should take the long way around, instead of the shortcut through the tunnel under the mountain. The long way, as to allow her to enjoy the view of her home. Past cliffs that went straight up suddenly and past palm trees that hung heavy with coconuts. They took the 83 around the edge of the island. She’d have a nice view of the ocean on the way home, but she was content with looking inland. This was part of the most beautiful place Danny knew, you know. This drive along the edge of everything was part of it.
Eventually the road started inclining upward, and they found themselves at a lookout, nothing more than an exaggerated bit of shoulder with a stone railing.
“Why this place?” She asked as he pulled in.
“When I first moved here, I hated it here,” He told her. She looked confused. Danny couldn’t blame her. “I didn’t know my way around, and didn’t know where anything was, and I ran out of gas, about…” He turned over on his shoulder, “…a hundred yards that way.”
She laughed.
“I walked and made it to this place…” He trailed, looking off towards the water through the windshield. He wiped at his face, remembering. “…I was so angry. At the world, and my ex-wife, and a thousand things I didn’t have any control over, and-“ He laughed for a moment. “-the gas was just one more thing and…” He trailed, eyeing her. “Come on, let’s enjoy that breeze.”
They sat on the stone for a bit, bird watching. Danny didn’t know exactly what she had wanted to come to his favorite spot for; shouldn’t she be visiting all of her favorite places?
“I sat here, and it was the… the most frustrated with my life I had ever been,” He shared, trusting her. She didn’t have much of her life left, and she asked to spend it with him, of course he was going to trust her, to give of himself. “I sat here until it was dark and realized that… It was so beautiful that I realized that there were worst places I could be while my life went to hell,” He grinned at the ocean, and then at her. “I come here when life gets hard. It’s not the most glamorous bit of the island, but it’s beautiful to me.”
“Because it was the place where a new page in your life turned,” She filled in the blanks. “It’s beautiful because it has meaning to you.”
He nodded, and let that settle between them before, “So what conversation are we having?”
“This one,” She told him. She sat back then, eyeing him. It was like she was sizing him up, choosing her next words carefully. “I asked Catherine to do this once. Take me to the most beautiful place on the island.”
He didn’t expect Catherine to come up. His heart sunk, because here was the conversation about what was right and wrong and Steve deserved a good girl to make him happy and help him raise his boys and the part of him that had only just admitted he wanted a life with Steve ached at the thought his Aunt didn’t approve. Not everyone were his parents, accepting and loving of something beyond the traditional. Some people looked at a situation like his and Steve’s and turned up their noses. Danny should know, he was related to a few of them. But he didn’t think that Deb was that way, but maybe…
“She took me to a park,” She continued, closing her eyes to the breeze. “Beautiful, every place on this island is beautiful, but she took me to a park and told me a story about how she moved around a lot and how Hawaii was the most at home she felt when she wasn’t with her father.”
Yep, this was the ‘help him get her back talk.’ Danny braced himself, thinking about how Catherine was the last woman he brought to this spot, how she broke his best friend’s heart after lying straight to his face.
“But I don’t think that place meant anything to her,” She finished, staring off, like she wasn't quite talking to him.
“What?”
Deb shrugged and waved at him, “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I thought she was going to stick around.”
Danny let out a huff of a laugh. It was only a few months ago that she stood where they sat, looked him straight in the eye, and told him she wanted to stay. She was a rough spot Danny didn’t realize he had. He was mad on Steve’s behalf, mad his friend lied to him, and he was mad she left.
“You and me both.”
“But if she hadn’t left, you wouldn’t have what you have with my nephew,” Deb said with a grin.
He looked up at her, “We aren’t…”
She waved him off again, “Soon enough, then.”
Danny grinned despite himself. He knew Deb wasn’t so cruel as his doubts had him thinking. He preened at the declaration. She smiled at his small show of pride and he rolled his eyes because it was like he was fifteen and gossiping with Stella on the couch about boys. The fast dash of joy at the thought that being with Steve… was just around the corner made his face heat. Oh, if Grace could see him now she’d be jumping with joy. He was actually blushing, what the hell? He was a grown man and here he was... He was acting like a teenager at the thought that this... something... with Steve wasn’t just in his head.
“He seems happy,” She said, “With you and a bunch of kids.”
He shrugged, self-conscious, “Who’d’a thought?”
“I’m going to die soon,” She said suddenly. He wanted to reach out to her then, shocked at her change of topic, but she soldiered on, “I feel it. Not long now.”
Taking a deep breath in, he knew she was speaking the truth, he just had no idea how he was supposed to respond, he didn't know what sort of comfort he could give that would comfort her. There was a particularly strong breeze, and he thanked it, distracting him, if only for a moment.
“I need to ask something of you,” She said, that serious, somber look from earlier returning. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Of course,” He said with an aborted move to reach out to her. “Anything.”
“Mary and Steve are all that’s left of me. All that’s left that means anything, anyway,” She took a deep breath again. “I need you to make sure they are okay.”
He blinked in confusion. Did she not think he’d do that? Steve was his best friend. He opened his mouth to ask, but she must have taken the confusion on his face to mean something else.
“They had a tough childhood. Nothing compared to that oldest boy of yours, but still tough. Uniquely tough. This is going to be tough on them too.”
“They have the same scars,” It was Danny’s turn to fill in the blanks.
Deb smiled slowly, “I knew you were the right one to have this conversation with, even all those years ago.”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes, “When Steve first learned I was sick, I asked him to send me someone handsome to take me home.” She grinned conspiratorially. “He sent Catherine, but I thought he’d send you. You were always the one he’d talk about when he called, and you were the one that Mary talked about after a visit.”
That settled a little funny. Steve had come to him about his Aunt’s bad news several Thanksgivings ago, upset, hurt, and desperate for the world to stop delivering blow after blow. Danny gave him advice, and it was advice that Steve followed, but Danny remembered wishing he could do more. The thought that Deb wanted to talk to him about all of this back then? That she saw her nephew’s life and picked Danny out as important? It felt telling. Like these feelings, the ones that crept up whenever Steve made a goofy face at Jack, or shared a silly inside joke with Grace, or looked at him with something Danny swore was more than friendship… that these feelings really were permanent.
He knew Steve was going to be a permanent fixture in his life, he was certain. The ‘how’ of it, now, that was still a bit up in the air. But Deb had seen it years ago, back when ‘more than friends’ was a wayward thought that Danny quickly dismissed as a startling fantasy that would never come to fruition. It was no longer a fantasy. Instead it was a possibility, just a few steps ahead of them, if they wanted to go down that path.
A few years ago he sat on this very stone and felt like his life was out of his hands. Here he was, in the same spot, in the passenger seat trusting Steve to drive. It was a choice, letting Steve drive, and he was so very thankful to Steve for giving it to him.
“Like this thing you’re doing with his father’s room,” Deb started. “It’s what I mean. Helping them move on. Both of them will just sit back and let things stew and not talk to each other and not deal with anything. I’m so worried they’ll end up like me and John did. I was so much older, had all these ambitions for my life… we just… lost touch with each other. I always wished…”
She looked so sad as she trailed off. He didn’t realize that losing touch with John would have been a regret for her. Danny wanted nothing more than to comfort her.
“I’m the oldest of four,” He said, emotion betrayed by his voice. Deb looked up at that, looking relieved he gave her a break in her regrets. “I’m the big brother, I’m the one that… I lost my little brother last year.”
“I’m so sorry,” She said instantly and Danny was so thankful.
He smiled, “I sat here…” He patted the stone beneath him, “...for hours after I came back from the funeral on the mainland. I sat here and Steve found me,” He gave her a sad little grin. “He knows me. He- That man… he-“ He sighed. “He got me through that. The guilt and the regret and the grief.” He swallowed a familiar, sad lump in his throat at the memories. He wiped at his face and looked up at her sadly. “I…”
“You feel like you owe him?” She asked, a bit guarded.
He let out another huff of a laugh, “He and I don’t have that kind of friendship. We don’t keep track of favors.”
He sat up straight, stretching his spine a little. He lost track years and years ago, of who saved who in the line of fire, of who owed who money, of who was supposed to buy who the beers next time, of who was buying the gas, of who was buying who lunch, of who was doing who’s paperwork, of who of who of who.
This bedroom was supposed to be his way of repaying Steve for everything he’d done for him… but maybe... maybe it was just for Steve’s sake because Danny liked it when he smiled. Maybe that should have been a clue.
“Family doesn’t do that,” He said, looking out over the water. That’s what Steve was, what this place was, what it had become to him. He sat on this cliff years ago and let some of his anger go. Steve picked and prodded at him until the rest of it was... not gone, but smoothed. He helped Danny make his hell a home. “Steve and I don’t do that.”
Deb studied him for a moment, thoughtful and satisfied.
Danny fidgeted under her gaze.
“You won’t let Steve and Mary forget each other,” She said, like it was a fact she was uncovering.
“Nah, they need each other too much,” He grinned at her.
That satisfied, sure look only intensified, and it lasted the whole trip home as she enjoyed the open windows, the sun on her face, and the view of the ocean as Danny took the long way home.