Free In the Bag by Kate Klise

surprised.
    “Yeah, uh-huh,” he said. His eyes didn’t move from the TV.
    “What’d you do this afternoon?”
    “Uh, nothing really. But I want to do some stuff tomorrow. Hey, Dad, can I have some euros?”
    I gave him a stack of bills. At least he’d put on the new clothes.
    We walked from the hotel over to Plaza de Santa Ana, a photogenic old square filled with street musicians and tapas bars. I chose a restaurant with a nice crowd of locals.
    “I’m going to have wine with dinner,” I said as Webb and I seated ourselves at a small table near the back. “You can have a glass, if you’d like. It’s legal here.”
    “Enh, pass,” he said. “I’ll just have a Coke.”
    As we waited for our paella, I couldn’t help staring at Webb. For years I’d done my best to make sure he was cautious, careful, not too much of a risk taker. I wanted to help him learn to make smart choices, unlike his mother.
    But maybe I’d gone too far. Maybe I’d created a young man who was a coward—or worse yet, a dullard.
    “What’s the favorite thing you’ve seen so far on this trip?” I asked.
    He didn’t answer.
    “Webb,” I said. “What’s the best thing you’ve done so far in Madrid?”
    He still didn’t respond. He had a faraway look in his eyes. Somehow he wasn’t hearing the impatience in my voice.
    “Webb, dammit, I’m talking to you!”
    “Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking about something else.”
    Thinking seemed like a pretty generous word for it, I thought as I poured a second glass of wine from the carafe. With the alcohol came a depressing thought: Who am I to call anyone a bore? I’m a first-class ass.
    That stupid note was like a rock in my shoe. So what if I had slipped an admiring note in a woman’s bag? Was it such a goddamn crime? Part of me knew it wasn’t. But the other, more honest part of me wondered if it wasn’t the beginning of the end. Because it wasn’t just the note-in-the-bag debacle. There was also the fact that I clearly didn’t understand or appreciate the Love in the Postdigital Age exhibit. Maybe I was too old for this stuff. Maybe I’d lost my eye for modern art. Would I soon start defending the work of Thomas Kinkade and collecting keepsakes from the Franklin Mint? Did the fact that I’d so misjudged the appropriateness of a romantic gesture mean I’d lost my compass in that realm, too? Would I start pinching women’s asses in elevators—or frequenting Hooters? Was I turning into a pig?
    “Dad, don’t you think?” Webb was asking me.
    “What?” I said.
    “Just . . . everything,” he said, laughing and making a sweeping gesture with his hand. “I like everything here. Don’t you?”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    With the possible exception of myself.

CHAPTER 24
    Daisy
    P oor Coco.
    Normally I would’ve blamed the mussels. But I’d had them, too, along with two beers, and felt fine.
    Before she curled up on the futon to sleep, Coco had complained that her head was throbbing. Shortly before midnight, I heard her in the bathroom, rummaging through Solange’s medicine cabinet. I got up to check on her.
    “What do you need, honey?” I asked.
    “Aspirin. Tylenol. Anything,” she said, holding her head.
    Her skin was chalk white, but she didn’t feel feverish. I got some nighttime formula Excedrin from my bag and gave her two capsules. “Do you want a wet washcloth for your head?”
    “No,” she whimpered.
    “Go back to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
    She looked at me with her big, kitten-in-a-basket eyes. “Mom, I don’t think I can go to Madrid with you.”
    “Oh, Coco. We have to do this. I’m sorry. I really am, but—”
    “Mom, I can’t, ” she cried, her voice breaking into a kind of wail. “I will seriously throw up or pass out or something if I have to get on a plane.”
    My mind became a murky blur of dark images. I couldn’t let Solange down. I just couldn’t. But how could I drag Coco to Madrid if she really felt this