by Shaun Plair
“You sure you know where we’re going, Sydney?” Dad asked from the passenger seat of the white cab.
“Yep,” I said, “almost there.” I had given the driver directions that made sure we wouldn’t pass by Rock Bridge. The school was one place I didn’t want to revisit.
“Right here, Highland Oaks,” I told the driver, and he turned the steering wheel sharply, leading the cab into the neighborhood that had begun and ended my chances in Greensboro. “Take the first right, and it’s the first house on the left.”
The driver didn’t speak, just listened. He was hefty and had dark skin, with dark black spiked hair above a pair of thick glasses that covered his face.
“Right there, the big tan one,” I confirmed.
“You sure about this, Syd?” Dad asked. “You don’t think you’ve bothered her enough?”
“I just feel like I should say something.” I said. “Shouldn’t I?” As I eyed the house in front of us, noting her black SUV in the driveway, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Well we’re here,” Dad said. “We’ll be back in five,” he added, speaking to the driver.
I pulled my door open, and my white sneakers hesitantly met her white driveway. The bushes swayed alongside the steps that led to her front door. That tall, wooden door I wouldn’t forget. I noticed Dad stepping from the cab.
“I can go by myself,” I said.
“You’ve done enough by yourself.”
“Really?” I shot back at him, crossing my arms, letting my jaw fall.
“Just let me do this with you, Syd.” Dad moved closer to me, and before I could retreat his arm was over my shoulder, leading me to the steps. We climbed them, one, two, three, four, then Dad leaned forward to press the doorbell. It rang, and I awaited the bark I knew would shoot out of the black-mop dog.
“Just a minute,” I heard her call. Before she finished the words, two pink slippers flopped from around the corner and into the view I saw through the glass windows alongside the door. I lifted my hand to wave at Dr. Gomez, and she hesitated before proceeding forward to open the door.
“Ana …” Her eyebrows scrunched as she glanced between me and my father’s eyes.
“Actually, it’s Sydney,” I said. “This is my dad.”
“Hello,” he said, “Sydney just wanted to apologize.” I shot Dad a fast glare and his lips pressed together before he licked them.
“Yes,” I said. “I honestly thank you for calling, and I’m so sorry to have caused any trouble.”
“Would you two like to come in?” she asked, which surprised me. The black mop ran into the living room while she opened the door wide.
“No, no,” Dad rushed to say.
“It’s really no trouble.”
“No, I just wanted to say I’m sorry, we’ve got to get going, the cab’s waiting for us.”
Dr. Gomez looked past us to see the spiky-haired man jamming to some song we couldn’t hear in the driver’s seat of the cab. She nodded, and blinked. “Okay, well, thank you.”
“Thank you,” I said, and Dad was already down the steps. I turned to leave.
“Um, Sydney? Sir?”
“Yes?” I answered, turning back toward Dr. Gomez to find tears welling in her eyes. “Is something wrong—?”
“I just …” She let her head fall into her left hand before quickly lifting it back up, and sniffling. “You might be my niece.”
My father crossed his arms, standing at the bottom of the steps, facing us both.
“What?” I said, pulling my thumbs as far into my hands as they would go.
“My mother gave a daughter away before I was born, I just, I didn’t want to give you any false hope.” She wiped away another tear. “I feel horrible.”
“You were related to Cynthia?” My dad had called from behind me. His voice cracked as he spoke.
“I don’t know,” Dr. Gomez answered, “I’m just saying.”
“Well thank you, miss, but Sydney and I have got to get going,” Dad called. “Come on, Sydney.”
“Thank you, Dr. Gomez,” I said.
“Just, just take my number,” she answered, handing me her business card. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Okay,” I said. Dad was standing by the cab, pulling his door handle and yanking the car door open.
“Bye,” I said to Dr. Gomez as I shuffled down her steps and toward the car.
“Goodbye.”
Chapter 20
Rays of sunlight stumbled down through the blinds in front of the large window that illuminated our new kitchen. I sat on a stool at the small bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. I held my cell phone in my hands, and glanced down to examine the brown tiles beneath my swinging feet.
“Who do you keep texting?” Dad spouted between crunches. He stood next to me, chewing on a spoonful of Raisin Bran.
“Just a friend, Dad.” The phone clacked on the counter as I sat it beside my bowl of disappearing Frosted Flakes. Even the sound of crunching cereal sounded different in Richmond.
“You still talk to your friends from home?”
“No.” I could have ended it there, but he was actually interested. I added, “He’s my friend I met in Greensboro.”
“Oh,” Dad said. He gobbled another spoonful and crunched three hard crunches. “He?”
“Yep.” I slurped up some milk to hide my smile. And I wondered how hard Eric would smirk if he had heard us.
“I see.” Dad picked up his bowl and tilted it so his own milk slid down his throat. He swallowed and wiped his mouth and I remembered how Mom used to do that for him.
“Let’s get going,” he said, laying his napkin on the counter. “Movers will be here at three.” I followed him out our front door to head to the big white box of a U-Haul truck that waited for us in the parking lot.
The night before it had been completely dark, and I had yet to see Virginia in the light. But this morning the sun shone brightly through holes in large white clouds, and I could see my new home for the first time. Home. Trees with thin trunks and branches reached up to welcome whatever might fall from the skies. Their leaves began to turn darker, and some lined the ground by their roots. Our tan stone, one-story apartment building faced the road, with a wide parking lot in between. And in that lot, in a spot in front of our unit, Dad was hopping into our rented truck. So I climbed in beside him.
Dad cranked the ignition while I buckled myself in the large passenger seat.
“It’s all right, huh?” He glanced across the front of our complex.
The apartment was so much smaller than our old house. A one-story place with two bedrooms and two bathrooms inside. It housed a quaint kitchen area with a glass door in the back that led outside, and a living area barely big enough to fit a sofa and a recliner if we still wanted a television. Absolutely nothing like the house in Georgia. And it would be just me and Dad … alone.
“Yeah, it’s nice,” I said.
Seeing that I had buckled in, Dad shifted gears and began to back out of our spot. We were off to spend the day buying what would fill the new apartment. Dad set the budget, but I picked out the furniture that would fill the limited space left in the apartment. I got to choose our curtains and our bedspreads, posters for my room and paintings for his.
The week prior was spent back in Georgia, packing up and moving out. Day by day, Dad and I would speak a little more; my anger with him dwindled. He told me that Dr. Gomez had emailed him, had found his information online somehow. He told me she’d asked for permission to contact us, and he’d given her his number. The girls from Rock Bridge had been texting and calling nonstop, and all I could think to do was answer their questions with more lies. A mix-up with an old friend had gotten Ana into trouble with the law. I figured the identity that had made such an impression on Rock Bridge deserved to go out with style. But Eric, Eric I told the truth. I told him my name was Sydney Collins and that I had moved to Richmond, and that the worst part about it was that I had found a real friend in him,
just in time to have to leave.
So last night we drove the trip to Richmond and moved into the new place. It was a shock to walk into the new setting, but it was a needed change from the empty box the house in Georgia had become.
I even started to look at my father with a little pride again. I watched him take control of our situation and make changes that would benefit us both, and I finally started to see my old rock taking his form again.
We drove the truck full of the furniture back to the complex, hoping it would help our new space become a home. Stepping out of the truck, Dad reached and dug into his pocket for the door keys.
“It’s a bit of a change, isn’t it?” he asked with eyes eager for my response.
“Yeah. But I think it’s good.”
He nodded. “Any requests for dinner?”
I would have loved some of Mom’s pork chops. “Chinese?”
“Sounds good to me.”
The Chinese food was pretty bad but we ate it, mutually deciding that our first mission was to find a good Chinese place. Cable wasn’t installed yet, so we watched an action movie from the 80s that played on one of the two channels we could watch without it. The mediocre acting and mockable one-liners made us chuckle while I pushed sweet-and-sour chicken down my throat and watched Dad’s eyebrows smush at the cheesier lines.
I started to get into the movie some though, and didn’t notice him falling asleep until the end of it. I looked at him, each tired limb fallen limp in our new recliner, and my chest grew warm. I had washed the blankets that were my bed in the shack in Greensboro, so I picked one of them out of my luggage and laid it over him. He stirred, but didn’t wake as I pulled it up to his chin. I exhaled, and left to spend the first night in my new bed. By dim light, I slipped into the bed and under a new lavender comforter. The sheets felt cold, and a bit stiff, but it gave the best hug I had felt in over a year.
When the next morning came, Thursday, I woke to the sound of a phone ringing. I glanced at the clock to see “6:54” shining in bright red light. I fumbled for my cell, and upon seeing the caller’s name in large font on my screen, I hurried to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Hey … Sydney.”
“Hey Eric.”
“Sorry it’s early, were you asleep?”
“Yeah,” I cleared my throat. “it’s fine, how are you?”
“I’m okay.” I didn’t reply yet, waiting for him to elaborate. “So, how are things?”
“Um, better, for sure.”
“Good. How’s Virginia?”
“It’s nice so far.”
“And the new place?”
“Well, it’s not quite as comfy as the shack, but, it’ll do.”
Eric laughed, then only chuckled, then exhaled loud enough that I heard it through the phone. “When do you start at the new school?” he finally asked.
“Next week. Should be interesting starting fresh … again.”
“Much better this time, though.”
“Yeah, I hope so.”
“So what are you doing Saturday?”
“Um, we should be pretty much unpacked by then, so probably nothing. Why?”
“Richmond’s about three and a half hours from here, right?”
I smiled behind the miles between us. “That’s what Google Maps says.”
Chapter 21
“So you two met a few weeks back?” Dad clenched his fist as he sipped my homemade coffee from yesterday’s Starbuck’s mug.
Clearing his throat, Eric responded, “Yes sir.”
“And you drove all the way up to Richmond to see Sydney?”
“I wanted to see that she was doing well.”
“I see.” Dad took another sip. “And your mother knows you’re here?”
“Yes sir, she understood, after I explained the situation.”
“The situation?”
“Just that I really, really, really wanted to see, uh, Sydney.”
I watched Eric fidget, glossy black hair set free by the rare hoodless polo he was wearing. He glanced at me as I forbid my smile and turned anxiously to my father, just in time to find an interrogating gaze that willingly met mine.
“All right then,” Dad said. “Be safe. And don’t go running off anywhere.” He stood from his seat at the table, scooting through the small space between the chair and the wall to prepare to exit.
“I’ll be back by eight. I expect you home by nine, okay?”
“Okay Dad,” I answered.
“Thank you, sir.” Eric added as he stood to shake hands.
Dad kissed my forehead, still a bit uncomfortable for me, but nice, and he trudged toward the front door, heading for his first grief therapy session—my insistence—and from there he’d be meeting with his soon-to-be-boss and boss’ wife for dinner. I watched him walking, posture a bit straighter than I’d seen in a while, and swallowed the threat of tears down with one last sip from my own coffee mug.
Eric and I walked out of the front door and to Eric’s car, the small, gray vehicle jumpstarting my mood for a day with him. Meanwhile, Dad fumbled through his keys before finding the one for the van.
“Love you, Syd,” he said with his back to me, key twisting in his driver seat door.
“Love you, Dad.”
Dad backed out of his parking spot as Eric opened the passenger seat door to let me into his car.
“You still look the same,” he said.
“It’s only been a couple of weeks.”
We rode over a few roads before his GPS system announced that we had “now reached our destination.” I opened the door, fighting a breeze, and stepped out to view a line of tall trees with green leaves only beginning to fade.
“Is this good?” Eric asked.
“It’s good.”
A wooden bench with nothing in view but grass and woods caught his eye when we left his car, and I sat a foot away from him on the bench. His legs were wide apart and he rested his elbows on his knees. Each of his fingers intertwined with its opposite-hand twin and hung between his knees as he scanned the horizon.
He shifted his gaze to me and said, “Things seem pretty okay, am I right?”
“Yeah, Dad’s made a lot of progress. I’m still getting there.”
“You’ll get there. Are you nervous about the new school?”
“I haven’t even figured out how to feel about it yet, to be honest.”
“What’s it called?”
“Walnut Creek.”
“Sounds … Virginian.”
“I know.” I laughed. “How’s Rock Bridge doing without me?”
“You’re kind of the talk of the school. Have the girls been texting you?”
“Yeah, here and there. It’s all a little too awkward for me, though.”
“Yeah, seeing as you lied to everyone for like a month.” He chuckled, then straightened himself so his back paralleled the back of the bench, resting his hands on his thighs.
“I feel bad,” I said. “Especially to you.”
“You told me the truth.”
“Except my name.”
“Yeah, you could’ve told me that.”
“I should’ve.” When I looked into Eric’s brown pupils, I saw they were already watching mine. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help more.”
I looked to his palm, facing upward now beside his leg on the bench. “How’d you get your mom to let you come?” I asked him, waiting for an emotion I could recognize to cross his face.
“Well it was pretty easy. She needed a ‘day off’ as she calls it. To mess around with Isaiah I guess.” His arms shot back to rest on the top of the bench back. “All of us were sent off to friends’ houses for the day, so … you know. Now I’m here.”
“At a friend’s,” I said, and chuckled, looking to the grass to hide my disappointment at the word. “Well I’m glad you came.”
“Me too. It’s only been a week but like, I actually … miss you. You know?”
&nbs
p; “Yeah, same.”
“Too bad you couldn’t have moved to Greensboro.”
He sniffed, and turned his head away from me, watching a bird pick in between a cluster of grass needles. He brushed his hand through his hair and exhaled before pulling his arms back to his sides. He met the stare I had fixed onto him, and of course, then came the smirk.
“Eric?”
“Yeah?”
I lifted myself and reset closer to him, erasing the gap between us. I brushed his hair with my fingers, and moved my face close to his so I could feel his short, warm breaths on my lips. And I pulled on his neck, pulling him closer until I could taste his lips. We lingered, lips pressed together for a long moment, before releasing and pressing together again. I felt his cheeks, his neck, his chest before pulling away. I exhaled, as did he. Biting my bottom lip, I watched the corners of his mouth turn up as his lips came together.
I shrugged and crossed my arms, leaned back on the bench, and said, “I pretty much like you.”
“Finally.”
He dropped me off at eight thirty. He hugged me, and gave one last smirk before I turned my key in our front door. Returning to the apartment, I heard the television giggling in the living room … a familiar voice sounding from its speakers.
“Dad?” I called.
“In here.”
I turned the corner to find him watching a miniature me, riding a Barbie jeep in circles around a garage. I was four then. The little me shrieked in excitement while Mom cheered me on. Dad was behind the camera, narrating and whooping, my mother jumping in excitement as I maneuvered the steering wheel.
From his new recliner, Dad chuckled as he watched the old us, shoes off and only a tank top where the collared shirt was before. I saw tears well in his eyes, just as they welled in mine.
“You know what, Syd? I get it.” He startled me with the sincere tone of his words.
“Get what, Dad?”
“Everything.”
“Yeah?”
“The time we all had together—it was a gift. Enough happiness for three lifetimes.” He looked at me, and then back at the television, eyes heavy with sour tears that begged to escape. “She must have… He had to know,” he nodded and glanced upward, “that we’d be alright.”
