A Man on an Island Ch. 07

Sylvia took Cale's hand, "I shouldn't have said anything just now. She's been on her own a while and she's lived through it. She's coming here and I hope that we can give her a start at least, and she's there and she has a car. The two of them aren't fools, and Siobhan knows the way, day or night, she knows how to get here, snow or not. I'm sure they'll be alright."

"Well, from what I got from her emails, Sam's got a truck with four wheel drive. So if they take their time and grind along where they have to, it'll be better than a car," Cale said hopefully.

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"This is fucking awful," Siobhan said as they cleared the city, "Do you think we can --"

"Yes," Sam said as she flexed her shoulders a little, "I can get us through this as long as nobody else on the road gets stupid, and even if they close the road, I've got GPS software on my notebook there that'll show us alternates if that happens. Right now, I want to hang a right, ... here," she said as she did just that, "There's a coffee shop about a block this way on the right. I want to get something hot to slurp on now, because I know that chain of stores always closes early on Christmas Eve. "

She chuckled a little bitterly and shook her head, "I've got this image in my head about coffee shops being places where people who don't have anybody might go on Christmas Eve. They'd go because they don't have anything better, but they might hope to see someone there who is in the same boat. Of course, those stores are open all night every other night, but it's always pissed me off a little that on the nights when a lonely person might have a little hope because it's Christmas, they're locked out. Then again, I'd guess that the staff wants to have Christmas themselves."

"It sounds to me as though I'm traveling with a bit of a romantic -- or have you been one of those people before?" Siobhan asked.

"I was," Sam nodded, "I am, I guess.

Sometimes I make up little stories in my head; little romances which don't involve me, really. I started doing that because I felt really alone for a long time. I'd find a bit of change and walk over to one of those places sometimes. I guess that in the back of my heart, I had a hope that I might meet somebody there one time."

She looked over a little sheepishly to be admitting something that she's always held as a private thing to herself. "It never happened, though I did get hit on a lot, mostly by people that I'd never even want to talk with, or I'd end up talking to a cop who'd stopped in for a coffee to get through his shift and he'd see me and decide that I just needed to be hassled for nothing. But most of the time, I'd sit there alone, nursing a cup of late-night coffee and looking around. Almost every time, I'd see people there and in about a minute or less, I was having my little stories being spun in my head, starring the people that I was looking at."

She looked over, "Well everybody needs a hobby. That's one of mine. It's free but for the price of a cup of coffee."

Siobhan smiled, "I think that's kind of charming, myself. I just make up stories which are probably based on the ones that my mother told me when I was a kid. She always told the most amazing tales to me from out of the past. I've really missed that since I've been gone."

They pulled into the lot and Siobhan pulled the parka on as she got out to trudge inside with Sam. There were a few young guys their age there who felt that they had to make some sort of comment over Sam and the way that she was dressed, but she made no reply as they waited their turn at the counter.

"Oh no," Siobhan said when Sam reached into her pocket, "You're driving me home and the least I can do is buy the coffee."

As they were leaving, the men tried to follow and the insults began to head down well into stupid, Sam was about to set her coffee onto the hood of her truck when the one with the biggest mouth took a step forward and landed on his face. The snow-covered slush which they stood on had turned to rough and slippery sheet ice. Whenever any of them tried to move, they fell and usually very hard -- hard enough to knock one of them cold for a minute and for the first one to bloody his nose.

Sam wondered about it, since where they were standing, it was just as it had been before and it wasn't that cold to flash-freeze. They'd just walked over that same area. Sam turned and unlocked the truck, "Come on, Siobhan. I can't watch this much longer." The men slowly got to their knees and crawled back to the coffee shop sidewalk.

Siobhan turned to walk back and she looked a little different to Sam in a way. "Are you alright?" she asked, and Sam nodded, her smile returning instantly.

Back in the truck, they sat for a minute, just trying to get a quick sip or two from their drinks as they watched the snow flash past in the buffeting wind. "That's something I forgot about," Siobhan said, "the way that the wind can bite here."

"It's not ever like this where you were?" Sam asked.

Siobhan shook her head, "The wind blows and it can blow hard in Yorkshire sometimes, but it's never like this, with that cutting edge to it. I think it's more civilized there."

Sam looked up from her coffee with a smirk, "They've even got civilized wind there?"

"Not really," Siobhan chuckled, "but I hoped that saying that might get that dark cloud off your eyebrows. Those were just assholes back there. They're the same, no matter where you go."

"Yeah," Sam sighed as she pressed the clutch pedal to the floor to shift into first gear, "I guess they must be."

"My mom didn't tell me too much when I spoke to her on the phone," Siobhan said, "Just that there was a person who would drive me up. You're looking for work there? It's been years since we had anybody there. I guess I was just a kid the last time, and it's winter now as well. "

Sam shrugged, "Your mother is Sylvia?"

"Yes," Siobhan nodded as they pulled out, "Mom said something to me about a man named Cale. I remember that my grandmother and great-grandmother told me about him. He was my mother's boyfriend a million years ago when they were like eighteen. It sounded like a heck of a nice story to me back when I heard it."

Sam checked her side mirror and changed lanes to make her right turn at the lights, "I don't know anything about that, but Cale is my father. Come to think about it, "she said with a shrug, "I don't know all that much about him, either. My parents split up pretty much before I was born. My mother used to tell me all kinds of things about how he left her high and dry and how he was an asshole in a million different ways. I clued in a lot later that I maybe wasn't hearing both sides of it.

By about the time that my mom was diagnosed, I never said anything to her since she had her own plate full right then, but I decided that maybe he'd been trying to tell me his side when I yelled at him for leaving. I was just a kid back when I did it and I didn't really know any better. I was just throwing what I'd been told forever at him. It was all that I knew.

She shrugged, "Now I know a lot more, but it's still not very much. My mother could often be a howling bitch, and with nobody else around to yell at for her own unhappiness, she gave it to me. Now, I don't think that I can fault him if he did leave her. Back then, he tried to tell me that he didn't leave -- that she threw him out. I think I believe him now, but it doesn't change anything.

My shitty luck, I guess, but now it's easier for a father to get sole custody. He paid the support and never missed once in eighteen years. Now I have all of his letters to me over all of that time. My mother never let me see them because they might show that he wasn't such a bastard -- not the way that she was telling me he was. But she kept them all and I don't know why she did that.

I haven't seen him in a few years now. I don't know what we might make of any relationship between us anymore. But I know that he could take all of the abuse and still care enough about me to tell me that I can come and live with him out of the blue, so I mean to try to have at least something with him if I can."

She looked over at Siobhan, "If you can remember, do you think that you could tell me a little of what you were told? We've got a way to go and right now, I wouldn't mind hearing a little of anything about him."

"I only ever heard his name once in a while from my great-grandmother," Siobhan said, "I know that just after I left to go to England, my mother sold him the land where our family built the first house. It was an old abandoned farmhouse the last time that I saw it, but Mom says he's fixed it up quite a lot since. What does he look like?"

Siobhan had said it in that way to look for something in Sam's face and she saw it when a small smile flickered across her lips before it disappeared.

"I think," Sam began, "that if everything works out for them as a family and if the man's not a bastard, a little girl kind of falls in love with her dad for a little while when she's small. To her, he's big and strong and there just couldn't possibly be a more handsome man in all the world. That all changes of course, but I think that's the way that it's supposed to be for a little while.

I didn't have that, but I had someone who -- though he wasn't right there, he never went away much farther than he was. It always felt like he was not far off. I used to hate him for that, but after a while, I found that I used to see him for a moment if there was anything that was open for parents to come to -- like a Christmas play -- things like that.

He'd stop if he could to say hi, and he knew that there was nothing that Mom could do to stop him, since it was a public place and he was my father, so he had a right to go and watch if he wanted. I guess he just called up the school and found out when things like that were being put on. I remember that my mother wanted to have something sworn out against him, but her attorney talked her out of it. It took me a while, but I had the idea that he did care and that he was never very far away."

She remembered what Siobhan had asked, so she just said, "To me, he's still that same man, as big and strong and handsome as he was when I was little and wanted him to be there for me. He never had much of a chance to tell me as much as I could see that he wanted to when I'd see him, but he taught me anyway.

My mother told me not to ever take shit from anybody -- but she didn't tell me how. He spent his whole monthly visitation time with me one afternoon telling me not only how, in more ways than just yelling, but he also taught me when to keep my mouth shut and wait. He only got to see me once in a while. Mom usually had something come up to prevent his visits."

She smiled a little as she checked her mirror, "What he taught me was what I did back there in the coffee shop. If I'd used my mother's way, I'd still be there screaming and I'd get thrown out for it and feel like I'd been wronged. If I'd only used one side of what he taught me when he could, I'd be in the back of a police car again, and at least one of those assholes would be in an ambulance. I've done it before. But I used the other thing that I learned from him instead. Maybe the biggest thing that I learned from him was how to keep my temper from running me.

It feels weird to say this about my own father, but he is good-looking, the way that I remember him and he's built pretty good if he still looks as I recall. He's got brown hair that looks blondish sometimes, and he's not one of those loud men. He never says a thing that he doesn't mean, either." She looked over, "That's about it. Why did you ask?"

Siobhan smiled, "I just wanted to hear about somebody else's dad. I don't really remember a time when I didn't at least dislike mine a lot. Anyway, this is what I was told," she said as she began to relate what she knew of an old romance.

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He was looking at the bare lower end of a female from the front, and marvelling at the shape of her mound. It caused him to smile a little, seeing as there was no upper torso above that -- she just ended in a flat surface.

They'd gone into town for some Christmas shopping and Cale was managing that all-important duty of pushing their shopping cart around and watching Sylvia's purse as he tried to keep her somewhere within his field of view. He watched her as she went, a lovely woman in tall boots over well-fitting jeans under a heavy knit hooded poncho made of dark green wool. He looked down into the cart and smiled to himself. If he didn't know her and he was walking down the aisle in the opposite direction, she'd probably have given him whiplash as she passed.

The thought surprised him, because he wasn't a twenty year-old man anymore -- not that she was twenty either, but still ... He looked around a little after that. They were in the women's wear section of a national department store chain which was having its store-closing sale as it prepared to rebirth itself into a whole new store under the colors of its new corporate owner's flag. Sales abounded, as did deep discounts and everything was for sale, even the store fixtures.

Which was why he was looking at undressed mannequins standing in a group like a small flock of half-there flamingos or something.

He saw three men snap their heads around as Sylvia passed by not seeing them as she hunted for bargains, though one of them did try to strike up a conversation. Cale went back to marveling at the naked mannequins or portions thereof until he heard her smiling call to him. He pushed the cart over dutifully and regarded her with raised eyebrows.

"What size T-shirt do you wear these days?" she asked with a smirk.

He shrugged, "They keep changing the size designations around. I can usually fit into an XL if it's not cotton, though that's usually tight. A 2XL is better for my neck and my arms, but they're often too loose everywhere else, why?"

"Ok," she said, "what size fits you the best here?" she poked him in the stomach with her finger.

"Cotton, and 2XL if it's been washed at least once," he said, and she nodded coyly so he thought it best not to ask.

"Why were you smiling at the mannequins?" she asked angelically, "Did you see something that you might like in a white plastic woman with no head who will always feel hard and cold? They're for sale, you know. I could get you one for Christmas if I get to video what you do with it."

The look that he saw in her face was about killing him in his efforts to keep his own face straight. "I was just wondering, that's all," he replied, "There are three bottom halves here, and one more or less complete one -- headless as you said. They've got price stickers on them. The top halves are 70 bucks and the bottom halves sell for 90. I was thinking that the top parts are more popular for some reason, since there's only one of them left.

I can't see any use for one, but if I had one, I think that I'd rather get the whole thing, but I don't need one for anything, and they're too pricey even if I did. A hundred and sixty bucks for a shape to stand up in a corner is a bit steep, I think."

Sylvia laughed as she came back to him with a gift for someone in her hands, "Believe me, the warm ones are even more expensive, even if you only stand them up in a corner." He was laughing and about to ask her what she'd meant when his phone rang. It was Siobhan, so he handed the phone to Sylvia.

She handed him back his phone a little later, "They'll be coming up to Highway 9 in a little while. Samantha said that they're taking it easy and careful, but that if the coffee place there is still open, they might stop for a quick bite and some coffee."

She smiled at him, "It's the strangest thing, but from the way that I heard them chatter and laugh through the call, it sounds like they're having fun. I kind of like that."

"What happened to the big sit-down talk that you were going to have with your daughter about you and Paul? You ended up telling her over the phone?"

"I couldn't help it," she said, "They've been talking. Somehow, between them, they've figured out that we're an item." She laughed, "Siobhan was thrilled. I find that I'm now really looking forward to Christmas and I can't wait to meet Sam."

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To Sam's pleased surprise, they got to the coffee shop with about a half an hour to spare before it closed early. A bowl of hot chili each and they were on their way, each one sipping an extra-large coffee this time. "We'll need it," Siobhan smirked, "this is about the last chance and we've still got a fair bit to go. What are you smiling about?"

"Us," Sam laughed, "this, everything. So your mom didn't deny it?"

"No," Siobhan chuckled, "She said that we were right."

"I can't believe that you just straight-out asked her like that. I think I'd have used a little lead-in at least," Sam laughed.

Siobhan shrugged, "My mom and I are like that -- in fact, my grandmother and even my great-grandmother are all the same way with me. If I ask a serious question, they always give me a truthful answer. Since it's not April Fool's Day, then we can take it as gospel that you were right, our parents are trying to make a go of it. They just didn't tell us that because neither of us was there yet and they'd want to say it in person. My mom even said it that way -- that it was family business. You might not understand that yet, but it's a serious statement in my family -- which you're now a part of or you will be soon."

She smiled then, "I can't think that it could have happened a long time ago without at least a little bloodshed, but right now, I'm kind of pleased, Sam. I like the thought that you'll be there for at least a while. It might sound a little dumb, but I'm finding that you're somebody that I'd like to get to know.

Of course, it feels pretty weird to be gaining a step-sister if this works for them, but I kind of like that too."

"You might regret that one day," Sam laughed back, "I can be a howling bitch too. I come by it honestly. This is kind of fun, though, suddenly finding that you've got a kind of step-sister when you're an adult and only learning about it like this. We'd better decide to at least be friends for now, my truck is way too small otherwise and it'll still be almost another hour, far too long to be cooped up with a psychotic whackjob like me."

She looked over and Siobhan sat there with a pleased smile, "Go on, I need to learn a lot about you. I have no intention to have the daughters of a possible upcoming marriage getting off on the wrong foot. I think it's our responsibility to help and not hinder." She'd said that in such an authoritative manner that she'd even surprised herself, since it sounded more ridiculous than she'd intended.

"I think you're a nutbar," Sam smiled.

"Correct," Siobhan nodded as she held up a finger, "That saves me having to make the admission. You're next."

"Well," Sam pondered as she negotiated the left turn at the lights to get them headed back North, "Alright, I sometimes compete in mixed martial arts competitions. I lose once in a while, but I never lose if I'm pissed about something or someone."

"You're joking," Siobhan said, "Really?"

"Yes," Sam said, deciding to add nothing to the statement, "You're up," she smiled a little wickedly, "Sis."

They laughed at that until Siobhan looked over, "Who's older?"

"What?" Sam asked, "Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" Siobhan smirked, "It's important to know. How old are you?"

They compared notes and Sam was older by roughly seven months. Siobhan was thrilled.

"Why are you so fucking happy about that? "Sam demanded, "If I'm the older sister and if there's an order of things, then I'd be ahead of you, and you'd have to make do with hand-me-downs."