Okay, so maybe I’m being a little bit melodramatic. I probably just look stoned. I turn on the water for the shower.
“I’m leaving the ice by the door,” I hear Sam say. I open the bathroom door just enough to reach my arm out and grab the bucket. I bring the whole thing into the shower, making the water as hot as I can. Then I close my eyes and press an ice cube over each one until it’s so cold it hurts. Sam would probably know a better way to do it.
When I get out of the shower, I can hear Sam and Dad talking in the outer room. Going over plans for the day. Discussing breakfast. I gather I have the option of either going back to my grandparents’ with my mom or tagging along with them. I guess they’d probably prefer to have the day to themselves; maybe there are things they want to use the time to discuss. Sam leaves late tonight, so this is their only real time together.
I decide I want to go with them.
In the car, Dad apologizes for the weather, as though he ought to have been able to arrange for it to be better. I’m sitting in the backseat, and every so often Dad glances at me in the rearview mirror, like I’m a little kid in a car seat.
If Eden were here, she would think it was sweet, the way Dad looks back to check on me. If Eden were here, I would slide my hand across the seat and press the side of my hand against hers. Then I would lace her fingers through mine, and squeeze.
Maybe Sam told him about what happened last night, how I cried. Maybe he thinks my dad would be happy to hear how we bonded, or maybe he thought he had to tell my dad because he was concerned. So maybe Dad is trying to see if I’m okay. Maybe they’ve discussed how I screwed everything up with Eden, and maybe they both think that, being older and wiser, they could give me advice to fix it. But neither of them says anything, so maybe Sam kept his mouth shut after all.
We’re on Main Street now. I’ve had this tour before, more times than I can remember. When I was little, I loved it. We have pictures of us standing outside my dad’s high school, or at the playground where he learned to swing, climbing up the slide he spent his childhood sliding down.
Sam is taking the tour seriously. You can tell he wishes he could take notes, or that he had a way to record my father’s narrative. Maybe Sam’s a journalist—I never asked my dad what he did for a living.
“Hey, Sam,” I call up to the front seat. I have to repeat it again, louder, to get a response. “Sam!”
He twists his neck around to see me. “Yeah?”
“What do you do?”
“For a living?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m a doctor,” he says, and turns back around, like no further explanation is needed. Not what kind of doctor he is, or whether he works at a hospital or has a private practice. I lean against the window, the glass cool on my forehead, and I close my eyes and imagine that right now Eden is sitting on her bed, reading the new biography of Teddy Roosevelt—no, Marie Antoinette—that she probably just picked up at the bookstore. The book is big and heavy in her hands, so she shifts on the bed, sitting up now with the book on her lap. She bites the nail on her right thumb, her lips just grazing the freckle below her cuticle. When her hair falls into her face, she pushes it back. Maybe she even knows that I’m watching her, just like she knew the difference between a boy who really didn’t love her and a boy whose emotions were so ragged he couldn’t pick out which of the things he was feeling was what he felt for her.
“We’re here,” my dad says triumphantly from the front seat.
The car has stopped. Dad and Sam are pulling on their coats, opening their doors. I didn’t realize this was going to be a park-and-walk kind of tour.
I’ve been here plenty of times before; it’s the land where my dad’s grandparents had their farm. Dad’s parked in the driveway of their old house. My dad and his parents lived there until he was three.
“Brandt Farm,” my dad says proudly, stepping up the path toward the house. Sam and I follow behind him. The wet ground feels heavy under my boots. I feel like I’m on a tour at a national park or something.
Dad goes to open the door.
“Dad,” I call to his back—Sam and I are walking much more slowly—“You can’t just go in.”
“Why not? No one lives here.”
“Yeah, but it’s not your house.”
“Sure it is.”
I shrug. I guess he feels like since his family owned it, since he lived here once, since he still calls the land Brandt Farm, it still belongs to him.
The inside of the house feels like it has nothing to do with anything going on outside; it just smells wet and empty. You can’t tell it’s Christmastime; you can’t even tell it’s wintertime. Even though it’s obviously uninhabited, I feel like we’re trespassing.
Dad’s giving a tour. “That was my parents’ room. My crib was right there.”
“How can you remember where your crib was?” I ask.
“I just do.”
Sam’s being quiet. He doesn’t seem uncomfortable inside the house.
“The land’s actually still good for farming,” Dad continues. “But of course, there’s no one to farm it.”
“What do you know about whether land is good for farming?” I ask.
Dad shrugs, smiling. “Not a thing, I guess.”
“Well, then how do you know?”
“That’s what they told me when I bought the land.”
“You bought this land?”
He nods. “Of course.”
“What do you mean, of course?”
“My parents couldn’t afford to keep it anymore.”
“So, you bought it?”
“Sure.”
“What for?” I ask. Sam is still quiet, staying close to the walls while my father and I stand in the middle of what used to be my grandparents’ bedroom.
“I didn’t want to lose it.”
“But why?”
“Your grandfather grew up here, and his father before him, and his before him. It’s Brandt Farm. My family has owned this land for so long that the street outside is named after us.” I knew that: Brandt Way.
“But no one lives here; they could have sold it to someone who could use it.”
“I can use it.”
“Is this your way of telling me that you’re uprooting us to Ohio?”
Dad smiles. I think he appreciates that I’m making a joke.
“It’s important to keep a piece of where you came from,” he says. “A big piece is better, if you can find one.”
I don’t say anything, but I look at Sam. I wonder if he feels connected to this farm any more than I do. My name may be all over it, but Sam is the one who was born in Troy, and both of his birth parents grew up here. By the time I was born, my father had been in New York, married to a New Yorker, for years.
“Let’s take a walk out back,” Dad says, holding his arm out to Sam, gesturing toward the back door. And it seems that there is so much about my dad I never knew before. I never knew how important Ohio was to him; I always assumed he’d felt lucky to get out, to have made it to New York. The life in which he had this other son seems intricately connected to this life where he bought emotionally significant real estate. And that life really isn’t separate from the one he leads with us in New York.
It’s stopped raining, and Sam and I fall in step next to each other across the backyard. My dad walks ahead of us again, up the hill behind the house; I know where he’s headed.
“Sam,” I whisper, “this is his favorite part.”
“Huh?” Sam says blankly.
“He never gets tired of this joke.”
“What joke?”
“He thinks it’s funny to show people the outhouse.”
Sam stops walking; so do I. And then he starts laughing, so much that I laugh, too.
“Your dad has a strange sense of humor.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say, and I look up at my dad. He must’ve stopped when he heard us laughing, because he’s looking down at us now. And he’s smiling so
softly that I think he’s actually going to start to glow.
When we’re finally back in the car and pulling out of the driveway, my dad rolls down his window, takes a breath, and says, “Smell that?” I think he’s making another outhouse joke, but he continues, “It still smells like my grandmother here. Isn’t that something?”
We drive in silence for a little while, and as we pull off the highway toward the Days Inn, he says quietly, “You see, I know my parents won’t be here forever. I just want there to always be something that connects me to this place.”
And I know he means more than the place where he grew up, more than the place where Brandts have owned land for generations. He also means the place where Sam was born. And Sam must know it, too, because he rests his hand on my dad’s shoulder, just for a second, after Dad says it.
The Lone Star State
All four of us—Dad, Mom, Sam, and I—drive Sam to the airport. I think my dad didn’t want to be alone after Sam left. I guess it’s possible that this will be the last time they ever see each other. Like maybe, having found his biological father and seen his biological town, Sam might be done with us now. Maybe, but I don’t think it’s likely.
“Do you have your ticket and your ID?” Dad asks Sam. The four of us are standing just outside of security, saying good-bye.
“Dad,” I say before Sam can answer, “they’re in his hand.”
My dad looks down at Sam’s hands. “Oh. I didn’t realize.”
“No worries, Rob,” Sam says. They both look and sound more nervous than they did when Sam walked into my grandparents’ house yesterday.
Dad’s staring at Sam’s hands now; he reaches for the empty one and holds it up next to his, and smiles.
He lets Sam’s hand go and says, “ ’Cause they hate when you slow the line down looking for your ticket and your ID.”
“I know, Rob,” Sam answers, smiling.
“Well, anyway.”
“Anyway,” Sam echoes.
“Well, Sam. I really hope—I hope that you got what you—that is, I tried to show you—I mean that it was really something—”
Mercifully, Sam interrupts, “It was wonderful, just wonderful, to meet you and your family, Rob.”
Dad smiles and looks Sam straight in the eyes. “It was very nice meeting you, too, Sam.” I can see he’s tearing up, and I take a step closer; I don’t know why—do I think my dad is going to fall or something? But he surprises me by putting his arm around me—one around me, and one around Sam.
He takes a deep breath. “Yes, it was very nice.… Nick,” he says suddenly, turning and looking at me, “why does your jacket smell like cigarette smoke?”
I don’t say anything. I look at Sam; I’m trying not to laugh. But Sam keeps his cool.
“That’s my fault, Rob,” he says, a sorry tone in his voice. “I smoked in our room last night.”
My dad turns to face Sam now. “But, Sam, you’re a doctor.” He sounds disappointed, just as though he were scolding me. But I’m not jealous, because Sam looks over my father’s head, to me, and he smiles. This is something just between us.
Sam looks back at my dad. “Don’t worry, Rob, I’m quitting,” he promises.
“Well, good,” Dad answers, and over his head I grin at Sam. Stevie will like this story, I think; Stevie will like Sam.
My parents and I don’t leave right away. We watch Sam head toward the security line, and I realize there is something I need to ask him before he goes.
“Wait one sec,” I say to my parents, and I trot away from them.
“Hey, Sam,” I call, and he turns around.
“How’d you make it right?” I ask.
“How’d I make what right?”
“In high school, when you broke up with Catherine, when you told her your love was a joke. How’d you get her back, after saying something so awful?”
Sam smiles at me. “I called her house a lot, woke up her parents at all hours. I did it so many times that I had to find new ways to say I’m sorry.”
“That’s all—you called her?”
“Well, it wasn’t easy—I called until my fingers could punch in her number without looking, like I was reading Braille. And I had to throw in the occasional grand gesture—but yeah, it worked. I told you, Nick, she was smarter than I was.” He grins. “Still is.”
And as I walk back to my waiting parents, I know that this is definitely not the last we’ll see of Sam.
And I don’t mind. I’m actually kind of happy about it.
Phone Calls and Other Life-Altering Events
We don’t talk on the ride back to the Days Inn. It’s raining and I lean my forehead against the window, even though the glass is wet and cold. It actually feels very calm in the car with my parents, like we’re all kind of relieved that’s over with. Not because it was so bad, but because Sam isn’t some idea anymore. He’s just a man, with flaws like cigarette smoke, walking down the Jetway now, making his way home.
I thought my father would be sad to see him go, but he’s smiling. My mom is smiling, too, and maybe so am I. Maybe there is a different kind of love that I didn’t know about before: I knew about the filial kind that comes out of being a family; the romantic kind that you fall into; the kind that you have with your best friend that you would never admit to out loud. But there is also something else, something that my dad felt for thirty years, some kind of connection that must come when you’ve had a child, even if you never knew him. Maybe my father felt some kind of chemical-reaction-type love so that he needed to meet Sam, needed to know that he was okay. Maybe I felt it, too, some blood-pull that made me need to know who Sam was. And now that we do, maybe there will be some other, some more peaceful kind of feeling to take its place.
I can feel my phone vibrating against my leg, tucked away in the pocket of my jeans. I know it’s Stevie calling, to find out why I haven’t called for over twenty-four hours. But I couldn’t very well have called Stevie last night to let him know that I wouldn’t be calling him because I was sharing a room with Sam. And I don’t think I can pick up the phone now, either, since it feels like I’m not supposed to break the warm silence that fills the car.
It all began, when you think about it, with a ringing phone. Sam calling during Wheel of Fortune; me picking up, thinking it was a telemarketer. And it all started when I called Eden, inviting myself to her house to study, imagining what her bedroom looked like, picturing how white her stomach would be when she stretched her arms over her head.
At the motel, my parents head for their room, and I head for mine. The sofa where Sam slept is still made up like a bed, and I sit on the edge of it. It feels strange to sit on someone else’s bed; it feels strange to have the room all to myself; one night, and I’d gotten used to sharing it. But now I have the privacy I need to make the call I’m about to make.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and rest it on the bed beside me. I get up; take off my coat, my jeans, and my sweater; go into the bathroom and brush my teeth, splash some water on my face. I’m getting ready for the call like I’m getting ready for bed. ’Cause I know that this may take a while.
The screen on my phone says four missed calls, all from Stevie. This would be easier if at least one of them were from her, but it’s not like I’ve given her any reason to call me lately.
I dial the number, deliberately not picking it from speed-dial. I like the feeling of knowing the number by heart, like the sound of the buttons clicking under my fingers. When the phone rings, once, twice, I think of Sam.
I wonder what Sam must have been thinking, that first time he called our house, hearing the phone ring—and I remember that I let it ring a good four or five times before I finally picked up. He must have been wondering what the voice on the other end was going to sound like. Would the right person pick up? Would his voice be gruff, deep, warm? Maybe he’d have an accent. Or maybe this wouldn’t be the right number after all; maybe he moved, or the adoption registry might have gotten it wrong,
or Sam might have written the number down incorrectly. Or maybe no one would pick up. Or maybe, worst of all, the person on the other end wouldn’t want to talk at all.
That’s what I’m scared of, as I listen to the phone ring, as I imagine Eden getting up from her bed to pick the phone up from her desk, looking down and seeing that it’s me who’s calling. She might not want to talk to me. But I know I’ll keep calling until she does. I’ll make this right. Because she was right, just like Sam’s fiancée was right: We’re the lucky kind.
It all begins with a ringing phone.
There is no one thing that’s true. It’s all true.
—Ernest Hemingway,
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Many, many thanks to my friends, family, and teachers at Random House Children’s Books, at the Gernert Company, and at home.
I am I because my little dog knows me.
—Gertrude Stein
In Memoriam
Sara Jane Gravitt
The Lucky Kind Page 14
