Tea for a Falling Empire

His number one concern was convincing his daughter to quit her job and move back home.

His second concern was keeping his dog from passing out, but Scottie was resilient. The terrier insisted on sitting outside even in the winter, but luckily for Mark, there was an unexpected heatwave in the middle of January. It was nearly sixty degrees, and he could comfortably sit at one of the metal tables outside Empire Tea and Coffee in his spring jacket. Scottie was almost sixteen, which meant he was a geriatric canine, and he had a habit of fainting. There wasn’t much Mark could do about this, but he told himself that if he brought along Scottie’s favorite water dish and kept it filled with only bottled water, maybe the dog would stick around until Katie agreed to move back.

Then he could let him go and start a new chapter. A chapter that looked like the earlier chapters when Mark was a single dad raising a rowdy daughter on an island. Back then, he didn’t have time for a dog. He worked most nights parking cars at the Marriott, and during the day he’d sit by the phone waiting for Katie’s school to call and tell him he had to come pick her up, because she was being disruptive again. She didn’t take it well when her mother left, which was understandable, but the barking and wall-banging Mark’s father had used to keep him in line as a kid had no effect on Katie whatsoever. Mark remembered calling his dad to express his confusion that the parenting passed down to him seemed so fruitless only to be met with laughter.

“Mark,” his father said, between the chuckles, “Didn’t anybody ever tell you that girls are different?”

Miraculously, Katie had managed to get through high school, but warned him that she had no interest in college. She did, however, have a fascination with leaving the island as soon as possible. She and two girls she’d worked at the Beach Club with over the summer were going to get an apartment in Boston, and while he did the song and dance of acting worried about her, secretly, he was ecstatic. He worried that if his daughter became one of those kids who never left, he’d end up despising her. Now, he knew that was simply the way some parents feel about their teengers, and that it wanes as they get older, although distance certainly helps.

A month or so after Katie left, another one of the valets mentioned that his dog had puppies and that there was one that might not make it.

“A real runt,” the guy said, “Didn’t even give him a real name. We’re just calling him Scottie, because it’s obvious enough.”

Mark wasn’t sure why he said what he said, but he told the guy that if the runt did make it, let him know. He might want a dog.

He didn’t actually want a dog. Maybe he was just making conversation. Either way, the runt survived, and seventeen years later, Scottie was laying on top of Mark’s feets breathing heavily. The vet said Scottie was riddled with attachment issues. If Mark left him alone for even an hour to go to the store, he’d get anxious and pee all over the apartment. It was like taking care of a kid again or an elderly parent. At least when Katie moved back, she’d be a full adult. Capable of taking care of herself. He didn’t expect she’d want to live with him again, but she’d most likely have to stay in her old room for a few months until she got on her feet. It wasn’t easy to find a job on the island that wasn’t in hospitality, and she had no background in that.

“You wanted whole milk, right,” Katie said, putting down his coffee first, and then her own, “You’re the last person I know who still drinks whole milk. Not almond, not oat--whole. Although, I think oat is passé now. I don’t know. I drink tea, so.”

She was in town for the week, because he’d told her that he was going to have a minor medical procedure and he needed someone to check in on him and take Scottie for a walk. That wasn’t a total lie. He was going to have some dental work done, but it wouldn’t require an entire week of recovery. He just needed enough landing room to sell her on moving back. Part of him thought it might have been smarter to try and convince her over a weekend. Two great days and she might fall in love with the place the way a tourist would. A week, and she’d see the cracks in the facade the same way she had when she was growing up. Very few places look romantic on a Monday. It was a lot easier to sell a place on a Saturday.

“You know, Dad,” she said, dipping the bag as steam popped off the top, “You could have rested after your surgery at my place in Boston. It’s a lot bigger than your apartment.”

“What would I have done about Scottie?”

“We’re allowed to have pets. There’s even a concierge service that would have walked him for you while I was at work.”

“A concierge like a hotel?”

“Uh,” she said, taking her first tentative sip, “Sort of, but in the actual sense of the word. Like, anything I need, they’ll do--within reason. But dog walking is definitely within reason.”

Mark could feel Scottie’s little heartbeat even through his shoes. There was no way he’d ever turn him over to some glorified doorman. Why would Katie even suggest such a thing? While he preferred this new, mature version of her that had developed over nearly two decades, there were moments when he almost wished for the wild child back. This Katie was almost robotic at times. Years in corporate America had left their mark. She sometimes spoke to him as though he were a quick meeting that she was forced to take in between important tasks on her agenda.

He was very proud of his daughter for managing to achieve success without even a community college degree, but while graduating from an ivy league could make a person into a snob, it turned out succeeding without one could inflate one’s ego just as much if not more.

“I was going to have this conversation with you at the end of the week,” she said, “But we may as well rip the band-aid off now. Um. Yeah. I’d like you to come live with me.”

Mark’s mind flashed to seventh grade. A short story his teacher made them all read around Christmas time about a magpie? Where a couple each sacrifices something for the other making the gifts they buy each other essentially worthless. The message was that they were supposed to realize the real gift was the love they shared for each other or some crap like that. Mark just thought the whole thing seemed cruel. That’s how he felt about this little twist. Even though Katie didn’t know it, there was something about her offer that felt insulting.

“Katie,” he said, “Why would I come live with you? I’m--I’m not some old man. I’m not even sixty.”

“It has nothing to do with being old,” she said, smiling at him the way she must smile at interns right before she tells them to go pick up her lunch, “It’s just a matter of sense. I have a giant condo in one of the nicest buildings in Boston. You’re still parking cars and living in an apartment without heat, Dad.”

“What do I need heat for? It’s sixty degrees in January.”

“That’s the least of what’s wrong with the place,” she said, back to dipping the bag again, probably a nervous habit, “Dad, I can provide you with a very nice life.”

“I have a nice life, Katie.”

“Well,” she said, tilting her head a bit as though that would soften the blow, “That’s debatable.”

He could have brought up his proposal as though it was some kind of hilarious coincidence that they both were thinking the same thing, but the inverse. The reverse? What would it be called? He could have used it as an example of how alike they were. They thought alike. They came up with the same plans. That was always what was going to make this so difficult. Katie was as stubborn as he was, if not worse. He opted to skip mentioning that she had beat him to the punch, and dive into the final part of what was going to be a much longer pitch.

“Katie,” he said, “The world is so scary right now. I mean, look around. This weather in January?”

“Dad, please don’t become one of those guys who gets obsessed with the weather.”

“I’m just using it as a--”

“Besides, it’s cyclical. The planet heats up and then it cools down. That’s normal. You need to stop watching so much MSNBC. It’s rotting your brain.”

It might have been his imagination, but he thought he felt Scottie’s heart skip a beat. Was his daughter a conservative now? When did that happen? Politics hadn’t been something she was raised with, but that’s only because he thought it went without saying that they were liberals. Her father was a working man. Not just a working man, but a working man from New England. A man who lived near the water his whole life. She had grown up watching the coastline slowly edge closer and closer. She’d seen the arrival of the red seaweed and the dwindling snow days. Now, she was sitting here with him telling him that none of that was real? Or that it was all some kind of natural cycle?

He told himself to stay the course. This couldn’t devolve into an argument about politics. He needed to get her closer to him, not further away.

“Weather aside,” he said, “There’s a lot going on in the world, and I’m not sure a city is where you should be--where anybody--should be riding things out.”

Katie looked like she was going to laugh at him. It could also have been disdain. He’d never seen his daughter look at him with disdain. Pity, sure. All children pitied their parents in some way, but this was different. She was looking at him as though he were actually stupid.

“Dad,” she said, “What do you want me to do? Go live on a farm somewhere?”

“No,” he replied, already sensing what a bad idea this all was, “I want you to live here.”

“Here here? As in, here on the island?”

“Yes.”

“Just so we’re both on the same page,” she said, pushing her tea aside so she could lean forward and whisper to him in case anybody nearby heard what a moron her father was, “You want me to leave my six-figure job--”

“You can work remotely, right?”

“And my beautiful condo in a building that has a two-year waiting list to get into, and all my friends, and--and--and my life really--you want me to do all that, because--what? Cities aren’t safe?”

When she framed it like that, it did seem to be a silly suggestion. Mark was embarrassed. He still thought of Katie as the reckless sixteen-year-old who was always looking for a new bad habit. He thought about her out in the big bad world, where you didn’t need to look for trouble. It was all wrong place, wrong time now. And there would be fewer and fewer right places and all the times would be wrong. It never occurred to him that Katie had learned to be careful. More than careful. Privileged. That she might know how to dodge danger now, because she’d always have a heads up. She’d be able to see it coming from her condo way up in the sky.

“Let’s just forget it,” he said, “You stay where you are, and I’ll stay here. Seems to be working out okay for us now. If things get crazier--”

“They’re always going to get crazier, Dad. That’s how the world works.”

Listen to her telling her father how the world works. Now he was the one laughing disdainfully. She didn’t even seem to notice. She was typing something out on her phone, and he could hear the whoosh of an email being sent.

“By the way,” she said, not looking up, “How’s Scottie doing? He looks a little worn down.”

Mark looked down at Scottie. He didn’t seem worn to Mark, just tired. He’d had a good life. As good of a life as Mark could provide. The only thing he could repay him with was constant companionship, but he was delivering on his end of the bargain. As sleepy as Scottie appeared, if Mark got up to use the men’s room or walk back to the car, Scottie would come to life and start whimpering. He didn’t want to be apart from him. If Mark was being honest, he didn’t want to be apart from Scottie either. This grand plan to woo Katie back to the island might have just been a way to prevent the inevitable. One day Mark would be alone, not old, but not young, and with nobody and nothing to nurture or protect.

“Scottie’s going to be fine,” Mark said, watching Katie fire off another email, “He’ll be just fine."