That Old Cape Magic

Laura,” Joy was saying. “I can help if—”
    “No, I should be fine,” he told her. “Mom actually left some money.” Though this wasn’t true, either, really. Her insurance had just about covered the hospital and nursing-home expenses, the cost of cremation. He’d sold a few of her books and given the rest away. Her laptop and printer and a few pieces of furniture had netted a couple grand. His father had left the world in about the same financial condition. Not much to show for a life, he couldn’t help thinking, though Thoreau would have been pleased. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.
    “Were you able to get Dad’s ashes from my office?”
    “Yes, but can we do that later?”
    “Of course.”
    Laura was waiting for them in the hotel foyer, her eyes full,Andy at her side. The expression on the young man’s face was frank puzzlement, and Griffin couldn’t imagine why until it dawned on him that halfway across the parking lot, without realizing it, he’d taken Joy’s hand.
    “Daddy,”
his daughter said, choking on the word, and Griffin was glad he could think of nothing to say because he was incapable of the slightest utterance.
    “I don’t have a doubt in the world about that boy,” Laura assured him as they entered the maze.
    She and Andy had just parted as if it would be an eternity before they saw each other again, and she now turned to wave goodbye one last time before her fiancé and her mother disappeared from sight. His daughter’s idea that the two of them go for a stroll in the maze seemed to surprise neither Joy nor Andy, and that made Griffin apprehensive. Had they all thought further about Griffin’s presence at the wedding and decided against it? Did Laura plan to explain this to him among the tall yews, far from witnesses, in case he objected or broke down in tears? But of course he knew better than that, so he took a deep breath and told himself to relax. Laura’s need for a private, father-daughter moment wasn’t about him or the myriad ways he’d failed her and her mother since Kelsey’s wedding. She was just a bride, and fatherly reassurance was part of the program. Enjoy it. Who knew how long it would be before his presence was deemed necessary again?
    “Andy’s terrific, darlin’,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder and feeling a wave of gratitude when she allowed herself to be drawn toward him. “It’s hard to imagine anyone more smitten, except for your old man, of course.” He meant this to elicit a smile, but it seemed to make his daughter even more thoughtful, and for a time they were quiet, turning first left, then right, then left again among the hedges, until he was good and lost.
    “I guess the one I worry about is me,” she finally said. “What if I end up hurting him?”
    “Why would you do that?” he said, feeling another wave of guilt. Would his daughter have harbored such self-doubt this time last year, or was it his doing?
    A park bench had been thoughtfully placed near what Griffin guessed must be the far end, and here they took a seat. It was darker in the maze, very little of the remaining daylight penetrating its black branches, and Griffin was visited by a childish, irrational fear that they wouldn’t be able to find their way out. Laura would miss her wedding and that, too, would be his doing. He took her hand, unsure whether he meant to dispense comfort or receive it.
    “Do you ever feel like you’re not who people think you are?” she said. “Like you’re pretending to be this person that people like? And the worst part is they all believe you?”
    “Only every day,” he admitted. “Unless I’m mistaken, that feeling’s what people mean by original sin. Only sociopaths are spared. Trouble is, if you take it to heart you’ll never do anything, never pursue any happiness, for fear of hurting people.”
    “I should ignore it?”
    “Everybody else does.”
    She seemed only partially convinced. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Grandma lately,” she said.
    That surprised him, and he paused before responding, half expecting his mother, who was, after all, right over the hedge, in easy shouting distance, to offer her own two cents’ worth. Perhaps the maze had confounded her. “Any idea why?”
    She shrugged. “Seeing her like that last December, I guess. All the tubes and the oxygen. She looked so tiny and all wasted away.”
    How well he remembered. It had been December when she visited, just a couple