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Chapter 2

Kat skidded through the kitchen, her ponytail loose and off center. Annabel paused above the omelet pan and regarded the fount of curls. ‘Your father did that, didn’t he?’

Kat shoved her stuffed polar bear into her backpack and climbed onto a counter stool next to Mike. Annabel slung the omelet onto Kat’s plate, then leaned over and readjusted her daughter’s hair tie with a few expert flips and tugs. She dropped the pan into soapy water, mopped the leak beneath the farmhouse sink with a foot-held paper towel, and moved back to finishing Kat’s lunch, cutting the crust off her peanut-butter – no jelly – sandwich.

Slurping at his third cup of coffee and watching his wife, Mike felt like he was moving in slow motion. ‘I’ll fix the sink tonight,’ he said, and Annabel gave him a thumbs-up. He noted the furry white arm protruding from his daughter’s backpack. ‘May I ask why you packed a polar bear for school?’

‘I have a report today.’

‘Another report? Aren’t you in third grade?’

‘It’s for that enriched-learning thing after class. I’m talking about global warming-’

Annabel, sarcastic: ‘No kidding.’

‘-and this isn’t just any polar bear.’

Mike lifted an eyebrow. ‘No?’

Kat pulled the white bear from her backpack and presented it theatrically. ‘This is no longer Snowball, my favourite stuffed animal. This… this is Snowball, the Last Dying Polar Bear.’ She removed her eyeglasses from their case and put them on. The round red rims added gravity to her expression. Not that she needed the help. ‘Did you know,’ she asked, ‘that polar bears will probably be extinct by the time I’m a grown-up?’

‘Yes,’ Mike said. ‘From that Al Gore movie. With the melting icecaps and drowning polar bears. You cried for two days.’

Annabel said, ‘Eat your omelet.’

Kat picked at the edge. Mike gave the nape of her neck a squeeze. ‘Want me to walk you to class today?’

‘Dad, I’m eight.’

‘So you keep reminding me.’ Mike tugged his sturdy cell from his pocket and hit ‘redial.’ A few rings, and then the bank manager picked up. ‘Hi, Mike Wingate again. Did the wire hit?’

‘Just a minute, Mr Wingate.’ The sound of keyboard typing.

As Kat and Annabel negotiated how many more bites Kat had to eat, Mike waited, drumming his fingers nervously on the counter.

It had taken him thirteen years to work his way from hired hand to carpenter to foreman to contractor. And now he was on the brink of closing out his first deal as a developer. He’d taken some ulcer-inducing risks to get here, leveraging their house and maxing out a handful of loans to buy a section of undeveloped canyon at the edge of town. Lost Hills, a Valley community thirty miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, had a number of advantages, the main one being that real estate was merely expensive, not obscene. Mike had carved the land into forty generous parcels and built a community of ecological houses that he had named, uninventively, Green Valley. Not that he was a diehard ecofreak, but Kat had shown an interest in environmental stuff from an early age and he had to admit that those futuristic computer-generated photos of Manhattan flooded due to sea-level rise scared the hell out of him.

The state’s offer of green subsidies had helped the houses sell quickly, the cash from the final cluster of sales due to be wired from the title company this morning. This wire would get him out from under the bank – finally, entirely – after three and a half years and meant they’d no longer have to eyeball their checking-account balance before deciding to go out to a meal.

The bank manager’s breath whistled over the line. The typing stopped. ‘Still nothing, Mr Wingate.’

Mike thanked him, clicked his cell closed, and ran the sweat off his forehead with the heel of a hand. The little nagging voice returned: What if, after all this work, something did go wrong?

He caught Annabel looking at him, and he said, ‘I shouldn’t have bought that stupid truck yet.’

She said, ‘And what? Duct-taped the transmission together on your beater pickup? We’re fine. The money’s there. You’ve worked hard. So hard. It’s okay to let yourself enjoy it a little.’

‘And I certainly didn’t need to drop eight hundred bucks on a suit.’

‘You’ve got a photo shoot with the governor, honey. We can’t have you show up in ripped jeans. Besides, you can wear it again at the award ceremony. Which reminds me’. She snapped her fingers. ‘I need to pick it up from the tailor this morning after class. Kat’s got that back-to-school checkup this morning. Can you take her on your way in? Meet back here at lunch?’

In the past year, their schedules had gotten more complicated to coordinate. Once it had become clear that Kat and third grade were getting along, Annabel decided it was time to go back to Northridge University for her teaching degree. State-school tuition was manageable, as long as they bent the budget here and there.

Mike flipped his phone open and checked the screen in case he’d missed the bank calling back with good news. He rubbed a knot out of his neck. The stress, still holding on. ‘I don’t know what was wrong with my old sport coat.’

Kat said, ‘I don’t think anyone wears plaid jackets anymore, Dad.’

‘It’s not plaid. It’s windowpane.’

Annabel nodded at Kat and mouthed, Plaid.

Mike had to smile. He took a deep breath. Tried for a full exhale. The money was already at the title company. What could go wrong?

Annabel finished at the sink, tugged off her rings, and rubbed lotion into her hands. The engagement ring, a fleck of pale yellow diamond that he’d scraped together two paychecks to afford, gave off a dull sparkle. He loved that ring, like he loved their nice little house. The American dream distilled into two bedrooms and fifteen hundred square feet. Having money come in would be great, sure, but they’d always known to be grateful, to appreciate how fortunate they were.

Annabel reached for his hands. ‘Come here, I got too much lotion.’ The light from the window was pouring over her shoulders, bronzing her dark hair at the edges, and her eyes, picking up the frost blue of her shirt, looked translucent.

He raised the cell phone, framed her in the built-in camera, and snapped a picture. ‘What?’ she said.

‘Your hair. Your eyes.’

Annabel rolled her hands in his.

‘Gawd,’ Kat said. ‘Just kiss and get it over with already.’

The Ford F-450 gleamed in the garage like a spit-polished tank. The four-ton truck guzzled enough diesel to offset whatever help Green Valley was lending the environment, but Mike couldn’t exactly haul gear to a construction site in a Prius. The truck was extravagant – irresponsible, even – but he had to confess that when he’d driven it off the lot yesterday, he’d felt more delight than seemed prudent.

Kat hopped into the back and stuck her nose in a book, the usual morning procedure.

Pulling out of the driveway, Mike gestured at the roof-mounted TV/DVD player. ‘Stop reading. Check out the TV. It’s got wireless headphones. Noise-canceling.’

He sounded like the brochure, but couldn’t help himself; the new-car smell was making him heady.

She put on the headphones, clicked around the channels. ‘Yes!’ she said, too loud since the volume was cranked up. ‘Hannah Montana.’

He coasted up the quiet suburban streets, tilting down the sun visor, thinking about how nervous and yet excited he was about today’s photo shoot with the governor. They passed a jewelry shop, and he looked at all the glimmering ice in the storefront window and thought that once that wire hit, just maybe he’d stop by and get something to surprise Annabel.

As they neared Dr Obuchi’s, Kat’s face darkened, and she tugged off the headphones. ‘No shots,’ she said.

‘No shots. It’s just a checkup. Don’t freak out.’

‘As long as there are no needles, there will be no freaking out.’ She extended her hand with a ceremony beyond her years. ‘Deal?’

Mike half turned, and they shook solemnly. ‘Deal.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

‘Have I ever broken a promise to you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But you could start.’

‘Glad to see I’ve built up trust.’

Her mouth stayed firm for the rest of the drive and all the way into the examination room, where she shifted back and forth on the table, the paper crinkling beneath her as Dr Obuchi checked her reflexes.

The doctor finished the physical and eyed Kat’s chart. ‘Oh. She never got her second MMR, since Annabel wanted me to spread out the vaccines.’ She tugged at a lock of shiny black hair. ‘We’re late on it.’ She fussed in a drawer for the vial and syringe.

Kat’s eyes got big. She stiffened on the table and directed an imploring stare at her father. ‘Dad, you swore.’

‘She prefers to get ready for shots,’ Mike said. ‘Mentally. A little more notice. Can we come back later in the week?’

‘It’s September. Back to school. You can guess what my schedule looks like.’ Dr Obuchi took note of Kat’s glare. Unwavering. ‘I might have a slot Friday morning.’

Mike clicked his teeth together, frustrated. Kat was watching him closely. He put his hands on his daughter’s knobby knees. ‘Honey, I’m wall-to-wall with meetings Friday, and Mom has class. It’s my worst day. Let’s just do this now and get it over with.’

Kat’s face colored.

Dr Obuchi said, ‘It’s just a prick. Over before you know it.’

Kat tore her gaze from Mike and looked at the wall, her breath quickening, her arm almost as pale as the latex glove gripping it. Dr Obuchi dabbed some alcohol on Kat’s biceps and readied the needle.

Mike watched, his discomfort growing. Kat kept her face turned away.

As the stainless-steel point lowered, Mike reached out and gently stopped the doctor’s hand. ‘I’ll make Friday work,’ he said.

Mike drove, chomped Juicy Fruit, and tried to keep from checking in with the bank manager for the fourth time that morning. As they approached Kat’s school, he rolled down the window and spit his gum into the wind.

‘Dad.’

‘What?’

‘That’s not good for the environment.’

‘Like if a bald eagle chokes on it?’

Kat scowled.

‘Okay, fine,’ he said. ‘I won’t spit any more gum out the window.’

‘Snowball the Last Dying Polar Bear thanks you.’

He pulled up to the front of the school, but she just sat there in the backseat, fingering the wireless headphones in her lap. ‘You’re getting some award thing for the green houses, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘From the governor?’

‘I’m being recognized, yeah.’

‘I know you care about nature and stuff, but you’re not, like, really into it, right? So why’d you build all these green houses?’

‘You really don’t know?’ He angled the rearview so he could see her face.

She shook her head.

He said, ‘For you.’

Her mouth came open a little, and then she looked away and smiled privately. She scooted across and climbed out, and even once she was halfway across the playground, he could see that her face was still flushed with joy.

Letting the breeze blow through the rolled-down window, he took in the scene. A few teachers were out supervising the yard. Parents clustered among the parked cars, arranging play dates, coordinating car pools, planning field trips. Kids whooped and ran and tackled one another on the grass.

It was a life he’d always dreamed about but barely dared to believe he could have for himself. And yet here it was.

He dialed, raised the cell phone to his face. The bank manager sounded a touch impatient. ‘Yes, Mr Wingate. I was about to call. I’m pleased to tell you that the wire came through just this instant.’

For a moment Mike was rendered speechless. The phone sweaty in his grip, he asked for the amount. And then asked the bank manager to repeat it, just to make sure it was real.

‘So the loan is paid off now, yeah?’ Mike said, though he knew he had just received enough to close out the remaining debt five times over. ‘Fully paid off?’

A note of amusement in the man’s voice. ‘You are free and clear, Mr Wingate.’

Mike’s throat was tightening, so he thanked the manager and hung up. He tipped his face into his hand and just breathed awhile, worried he might lose it here in the middle of the Lost Hills Elementary parking lot. It was the money, sure, but it was so much more than that, too. It was relief and pride, the knowledge that he’d taken a gamble and put nearly four years of nonstop effort behind it, and now his wife and daughter would never have to worry about having a roof over their heads and food in the refrigerator and overdue tuition bills tucked into the desk blotter.

Across the playground, her image split by the cross-hatching of the chain-link fence, Kat climbed to the top of a fireman’s pole and dinged the top bar with a fist. The sight of her made his heart ache. Her safe little world, composed of small challenges, open horizons, and boundless affection.

Late for work, he sat and watched her play.