Days of Awe: A Novel by Fox Lauren

Author:Fox, Lauren [Fox, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Family Life, United States, Women's Fiction, Contemporary Women, Domestic Life, Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, Literary
ISBN: 9780307268129
Google: AynqBQAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00RKO3TK2
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2015-08-04T05:00:00+00:00

Yesterday, after Cal and I left his mother’s apartment, we got back into his car. The slam of the doors echoed like a clap of thunder in the cavernous parking structure. “I was going to take you bird-watching,” he said. His voice was a little gloomy and defeated. It didn’t match the kind, optimistic man who’d pulled into this parking spot an hour before.

I had the briefest flash that maybe Cal was a serial killer, although if that was the case he was a mellow, nonthreatening one, the sort who introduces you to his elderly, racist mother before offing you. The kind-eyed, gentle type. Still, how well did I know him?

“Bird-watching!” I said, studying his face for signs of evil.

“Remember? That shirt you were wearing, and you told me about the baby birds…”

“I’ve never been,” I said.

“I have,” he said. “But not for many years. So I thought…” He leaned across me and went for the glove compartment. He had a nice smell, a little gingery.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“What?” He opened the glove compartment.

“Oh, phew!” I said.

He looked at me. He was holding a pair of binoculars by its string.

“I thought maybe you were a serial killer,” I said.

“You’re a strange lady.” He held the binoculars up to his face and looked at me through them. “Even stranger close up.”

I reached over and covered the lenses with my hand. “So…your mom’s nice,” I said.

Cal laughed. “I’m really sorry. For what it’s worth, she’s had a hard life. My dad died when I was seven. And my sister, Mary Claire, has had kind of a rough go of it, so that’s been very hard on my mother, too….” He trailed off.

“Did she remarry?”

“Nope.”

“She still wears her wedding ring.” I had noticed it, back in her apartment, a small diamond set in a thin gold band, sliding around on Vivian’s bony finger.

“Yep.”

“All this time?”

“She’s hard-core. She’s taught me a lot about grit. And loyalty. And she won’t be around for much longer, so…” He studied the binoculars. “And yet she makes me feel like garbage.”

“I hope Hannah says that about me someday.”

And there was that laugh again. I thought, I would not get tired of that laugh, and then I blushed, even though I had only thought it.

“Anyway, Isabel Moore,” he said, his voice regaining a little tug of hope. “Are you in the mood for a drive?” He pulled a little paperback from the pocket of his car door and held it up for me. A Birder’s Guide to Southeastern Wisconsin. The receipt was sticking out of the middle of the book like a floppy, waving hand, and my face went warm, there in Cal’s chilly Prius, at the understanding: that he had bought the book for us, for our afternoon, for this date.

···

Chris and I went out for the first time on the Fourth of July (which, in retrospect, may have confused my susceptible heart—fireworks on a first date!). He called me early, told me not to have dinner, that he was packing a picnic for us.

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