The Ramblers by Aidan Donnelley Rowley Page A

to time, their calls strained and halting and full of hurt that neither of them seems to be able to unpack. She can’t shake the feeling that she’s abandoned him.
    â€œI’m going to catch an early train on Wednesday,” she says.
    â€œI told you I can handle the house,” her father says now. “You don’tneed to come. I know you’ve been busy with the travel and with Henry. I can handle it and I don’t want to burden you with—”
    â€œDad, stop, ” she says, aware of a trace bitterness in her voice, biting her lip. “I’m coming home. I want to, okay? If you can pick me up at the station, great. Otherwise, I’ll catch a cab, or call Jack, or something . . .”
    â€œI always pick you up,” he says.
    â€œYou didn’t last year,” she says quickly, immediately regretting this unnecessary barb. Why must she always bring up the past?
    â€œI have to work on Wednesday, but if you get in before eight or eight thirty, that’ll work.”
    â€œI think there’s a 5:57 or 5:47. I’ll be in before eight. We can have dinner together, or—”
    â€œGood then.”
    â€œHow are the Giants playing?” Clio asks. It’s a foolish, insipid question, but it’s all she’s got. They’ve perfected a collective cowardice, grown skilled at talking about everything other than what matters.
    â€œOh, not so well. Nice to take a break from the packing, though. Having myself a Heineken that Jack brought by. I’m looking forward to seeing you,” he says. “It’s been too long.”
    It’s been too long. A dagger. Always.
    â€œYeah, you too, Dad,” she says before hanging up. She looks down at her phone and then up at the trees, the sky, city strangers out and about, doing their Sunday stuff. A bolt of determination hits her: This time, things with her father will be different. She will go home and see him and they will talk. They will get somewhere.
    Clio stands and walks down to the sidewalk. She begins her well-worn route back to the hotel, cutting through by the Hayden Planetarium. She walks by the Nobel statue and heads west along Seventy-Ninth. When she reaches Amsterdam, she feels herself slowing. A surprisingsense of calm falls over her as she takes in this little corner of the world that’s become so familiar. She’s come to recognize certain people and certain dogs. Down the way, ruddy-faced men stumble euphorically from under the neon harp of the Dublin House, the charming sliver of a pub where she and Henry had drinks on their first date after he walked her through the construction site for the hotel.
    That night. She remembers it so clearly, how easy it was to talk to him, how he was a gentleman but also fun. He walked her back to the San Remo and handed her his very own copy of E. B. White’s Here Is New York, telling her: Read this and you will understand. She wasn’t sure what she was meant to understand and didn’t ask but it was all very clever; this ensured that she would see him again because she’d have to return his book. She promised to read it, and this made him smile and he took her face in his hands, bent down and whispered words she wouldn’t forget. Just think, days ago, I didn’t know you. Time is a funny thing.
    And then their first kiss. A simple kiss, a wispy tease, barely there at all. He pulled away and stood quietly, his tall silhouette stark against a wallpaper of trees and spring night sky. And Clio just stayed there on the sidewalk, smiling. He walked away into the night, making it only as far as the corner before turning back to see if she was still there. She was.
    He’s it, Smith said later after all the Googling. Clio fought her on this. There was no it . It was a fiction, a fairy tale, a fallacy. It was what got people in trouble. But Smith wouldn’t budge. She held firm. It, I tell you.
    She stayed up and read Here Is