by Lacy Hart
“Got everything?” I said to him as I pulled my keys out of my pocket.
“Yeah, I do,” Adam said, glancing back at his friends. “You know, if you wanted to just go home, it’s fine. I can hang out with my friends and get a ride with them.” He glanced back at the group standing over to the side.
I was torn in what to do. I could see that Adam probably would rather hang out with his friends than me to celebrate, but I wanted to try to make this a moment we could share together and maybe get a little closer.
“Look, Adam,” I said to him, “if you would rather be with your friends, I totally understand that, and if that’s what you really want than I will go my own way. I just thought it would be fun to go grab some dinner and spend some time together.”
I didn’t want to make him feel guilty about wanting to see his friends, but I wanted some time with him as well. He looked at my face and could see I was willing to give him space if he wanted it.
“How about this?” he offered to me. “They are all heading to the diner. Can we go there and eat together, and then I can go hang out with them after we are done eating? This way we get time together and then I can hang with them.”
“Sounds fair to me,” I said to him. Adam ran over to tell his friends the plan, and I felt great that Adam was open to having dinner with me. When he came back over to me, I patted him on the back, and we walked together to the Jeep.
We got in the car and worked our way over to the diner, fighting with the traffic that only existed in Swanson when an event like this was going on. Adam and I talked briefly in the car, with me telling him how great it was to watch him play and how impressed I was with him, and him giving me one-word answers to my questions and statements. I was hoping the conversation would progress beyond this once we got to the diner.
I was lucky enough to snatch a parking spot in the diner since the place was crowded. Even though the diner had a large parking lot, most of the spaces were filled already. Sarah wasn’t kidding when she said they got busy on Friday nights. I glanced at my watch and saw it was nearly 10:30, so I knew Sarah would be working already. I was hoping she would have at least a second or two to say hello.
Adam and I walked up the steps to the diner and went inside. The diner was buzzing with people, and I saw that most of the booths and the counter to the right where I had been sitting were filled. I was disappointed, because this meant we would be sitting in the main dining room somewhere, and Sarah probably wouldn’t see us.
We got up to the register and were greeted a tall, older gentleman who gave us a big smile as we came in.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said to us as he picked up a couple of menus. “Two of you this evening?”
“Yes, just the two of us,” I said to him as I saw him looking to the left and then to the right to see if he could find a spot for us. Just as he was about to decide, I saw Sarah come walking by with a tray of food in her hand. She caught my eye and smiled when she saw me and stopped to talk to the gentleman looking to seat us.
“Doug put them in my section,” she said to him as she then whisked herself away into the dining room.
Doug nodded and waved to us to follow him. We made our way through a maze of tables and booths towards a back room I had not even seen the times I had come in. Tables were filling the center of the room, and booths along either wall on the side. Doug seated us at one of the booths to the left and handed us the menus as we sat down.
“Sarah will be right with you,” Doug said to us with a smile. “Enjoy your meal.”
Doug walked away, and a busboy appeared within seconds with two glasses of water for us. Adam grabbed his water and drank most of it down quickly before he picked up the menu to see what he wanted. I noticed he kept glancing up over the top of his menu to look into the other dining room. I took a quick turn around to see his friends sitting at a large booth along the far wall in the other room. I looked back at Adam and smiled.
“Well, at least you know where they are,” I said to him as I picked up the menu. I looked to our right, and there was a table of teenage boys and girls sitting at the table, laughing and carrying on. One of the boys pointed over at Adam, recognizing him. He yelled out, “great shot, Wilson!”
I could see Adam blush a little and nod over to the table.
“Do you know that kid?” I asked Adam.
“Not really,” he said casually. “They’re all sophomores at that table, so I don’t really know them well.”
“I guess you’re a celebrity now,” I told him jokingly.
“Yeah, right,” he answered.
A moment later, Sarah appeared next to our booth, greeting us with a smile.
“Whew, it’s crazy in here tonight,” Sarah said to us. “It’s nice to see you, Caleb. And this must be your son. Hi, I’m Sarah.”
Adam sat staring at Sarah with his mouth slightly open. He was looking back and forth between Sarah and me without saying anything. Finally, I nudged him with my foot under the table to break his spell.
“Yeah… Hi,” he finally got out. “I’m Adam.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Adam,” she told him with a smile. “Can I get you something to drink? I know your Dad wants black coffee, but how about you?”
Again, Adam looked caught off guard. “I’ll just have a Coke, please,” he answered.
“Great. I’ll be back in a second with your drinks.” Sarah walked away from the table, pausing at the table of kids just across from us to talk to them for a moment, before heading out to get our drinks. Once she was out of earshot, Adam, looked across the table at me with a stunned look.
“What’s the matter?” I said to him.
“How does she know you?” Adam asked with surprise in his voice.
“I’ve been in here a few times at night when I couldn’t sleep. She works late at night, so we’ve been talking.”
Adam sat back and smiled at me and chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, Dad,” Adam said to me, still chuckling. “But by the look on your face, I can tell you like her.”
“What are you talking about it?” I said, mindlessly flipping through the menu.
“Dad, there’s nothing wrong with that, you know. She seems nice, and she’s pretty.”
“I… I guess so,” I stammered. “I hadn’t noticed that closely.”
Sarah came back to the table with my coffee and Adam’s Coke, placing the drinks in front of us.
“So, what can I get you gentlemen tonight?” she asked, turning and giving me a smile.
Adam turned to Sarah to order. “I’ll have a cheeseburger, medium, and fries, please.”
“So polite,” Sarah noted as she wrote down the order. “You’ve raised a nice boy, Caleb. What can I get you tonight? A BLT again? Or should I pick something else out for you?”
I could feel my body getting warm and saw Adam looking at me with a grin.
“I think I’ll have the grilled chicken sandwich tonight, Sarah” I answered, closing the menu. “With French fries, please.”
“You got it,” Sarah noted. When she finished writing the order down, she turned to me and said, “It’s probably a good idea to keep it light tonight anyway so you can be ready for our run in the morning. I’ll go put this in for you guys.”
Sarah walked off and turned the corner, and Adam’s smile got even wider.
“You’ve been running with her in the mornings?” he asked with a raised voice.
“Keep it down, please, Adam,” I begged him. “No, tomorrow is the first time we’ll run together. But I have… walked her home a few times while I am out on my run.”
“Way to go, Dad,” he said to me, holding up his glass of Coke as a toast. “Are you going to ask her out?” he asked me after his sip.
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know if I should,” I replied, suddenly feeling very sheepish about the whole conversation.
Adam’s face turned serious for a moment.
“Da
d, you know it’s okay for you to want to see someone. Mom’s been gone for two years now. You don’t have to be by yourself all the time. She… she wouldn’t have wanted that for you,” Adam said solemnly.
I looked over at Adam and realized I was impressed by him in many ways that night. He had shown himself as a great athlete, a leader of his team, and as a smart, insightful, and caring young man.
“I know, Adam,” I said to him quietly. “It’s… it’s just hard for me, I guess. We’ll see how it goes. For now, we’re just friends,” I said, even though in my head I had already thought beyond friendship.
This was the best Adam and I had connected in a very long time, and I was relishing the moment. I wanted to try to do whatever I could to keep it going, but I could see Adam kept looking over at his friends or getting text messages from them so that he kept looking down at his phone.
“You know,” I said to him, “It’s okay if you want to go over and sit with your friends,” I told him. “I know it’s a big night for you.”
“They can wait until after I finish my burger,” he said to me, smiling up at me. I felt even better after he had said this to me, making it obvious that he wanted to spend time with me just as much as I wanted to be with him.
We continued to talk like we never had before, with him telling me all about school, basketball, how he was still deciding about colleges, what he hoped to do this summer, and more. We even talked about planning a trip in the summer, going up north or out west, so he could see parts of the country that he had heard about but never visited. I learned more about him in those ten minutes or so than I knew in the entire seventeen years before, which made me feel guilty that we had never done this before.
I think Adam could see the look on my face that I was feeling bad about it all.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, polishing off the last of his Coke with a slurp.
I looked up at Adam and said, “Adam, I feel badly that… that I never got the chance to spend time with you growing up, to get to know you better. And then, even after what happened to your Mom, I wasn’t there for you like I should have been. I’m sorry about that.”
Adam peered back at me, unsure of how to react. He finally broke the silence.
“Dad, don’t feel bad about it. Sure, there were always times where I wished you were around more. I even complained to Mom about it when I was younger – how you were never there to go on vacations with us, to show up at school stuff, family parties, or games – and she always explained to me that you would have wanted to be there if you could, but your job was important not just to us but to a lot of other people, people we would probably never meet. When I got older, I understood all of that better. There… there was a time after Mom died… that I was mad at you, mad that you were home and then you were gone, and we never got to talk about any of it, and I was left on my own to deal with it. That was hard for me. Aunt Linda made things a little easier, but if you were here…”
I could see Adam was getting teary-eyed, and he quickly wiped his eyes before he thought I or anyone else would notice.
“Adam, I know it was hard for you, and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t know how to process it all myself, let alone how to help you with it too. I’ve been trained for so long to put emotions aside and focus on the tasks at hand, that I think part of me lost sight of how to do the things you needed – I mean, we needed – to cope. Your Mom was always that part of me, that part of our family that took care of that. When she was gone, I don’t know, I just couldn’t. But… I want things to be different now, okay? I am trying to do things differently, for you and for me.”
Sarah came over to the table and put the plates down in front of us, breaking up the conversation some. We both sat back in the booth, trying to shake some of the emotion of the moment we had. Sarah must have noticed what was going on.
“I’m sorry to interrupt guys,” she said as she delivered our food. “Can I get you guys some refills on drinks?”
“That would be great, Sarah, thanks,” I said to her. I looked up at her, and I could see on her face she recognized what we were talking about.
“Okay, let me check on my other tables, and I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told me, hoping to give us some space.
“Before we start eating, Dad,” Adam said, “I just want to say I know you’re trying Dad, and I know it’s all been tough for you – with Mom, leaving the Army, working through what you need to work through. I was trying to give you space just like you were doing with me. I am glad that things are getting better.”
We both smiled at each other.
“Okay, enough of that stuff,” I said to him. “I’m starving, and this sandwich looks good.”
Adam and I both tore into our food. Watching a seventeen-year-old in action when he is hungry is a sight to behold, and his hamburger and French fries seemed to be gone just as quickly as Sarah had placed the plate down. I still had more than half of my sandwich left when his plate was empty, and he started helping himself to some of the fries on my plate.
Once we were done with our meals, we both sat back and took a deep breath, almost simultaneously, causing us both to laugh. Sarah came over and saw the empty plates and began to clear them for us.
“Boy, I guess you guys didn’t like the food,” she said sarcastically. “Can I get you some dessert?”
I looked over at Adam to see if he wanted anything. I could tell by the look on his face that he wanted to go see his friends now, but he didn’t want to disappoint me if I wanted to hang out more for dessert.
“I think Adam is going over to join his basketball buddies to celebrate their victory, but I would love to have a piece of cherry pie if you have any,” I told Sarah.
Adam slid out of the booth and stood next to Sarah.
“It was nice to meet you,” he said politely to her. He then gave me a quick wave and walked over to the booth where all his friends were located. I saw him slide in next to the girl from the picture, and everyone at the table started giving him high-fives and laughing as soon as he sat down.
“I’ll go get your pie for you,” Sarah said to me as she turned and walked back towards the kitchen.
I looked around the diner and saw that it seemed even busier than it was before. The noise level was higher than when we had walked in, and the tables and booths were filled with teenagers and college kids, all enjoying their Friday night of freedom. It seemed like most of them were all eating the same things as their were plates piled high with French fries, onion rings, burgers, nachos, chicken tenders and the like.
Sarah came back with a huge slab of cherry pie for me with a generous helping of whipped cream.
“I don’t know how you deal with all this,” I said to her, raising my voice a bit so she could hear me over all the loud conversations and laughing.
“You get used to it,” she said to me. “I barely even notice it now, except when you hear some the shrieks the girls let out occasionally.”
Almost on cue, there was an ear-piercing shriek from the table just to my right, and Sarah looked over to see what the commotion was. One young girl was shrieking and laughing with her friends as one boy had soda coming out of his nose.
Sarah turned back towards me, laughing.
“That’s my niece, Lizzie,” she said to me, pointing to one of the young girls who was laughing the loudest.
“You don’t look old enough to have a niece that’s a teenager,” I said to her.
I could see that Sarah blushed a little. “Thank you for that,” she said with a smile. “My older brother is a bit older. I was 11 when Lizzie was born.”
“That’s the brother you live with, I assume?” I asked.
“It is,” she replied. “James owns Miller Plumbing here in Swanson. He’s a good guy, and it’s fun to live with Lizzie. James was out of the house as I got older, so I never had any siblings around. Lizzie is kind of like a little sister to me.”
There was another shriek from the table as a glass of
soda spilled this time.
“I better go,” Sarah said to me, rushing over to the table to help clean the mess and try to calm the kids down before the mess got bigger.
I sat and enjoyed my piece of cherry pie. It had a nice brown sugar crumble topping to it, and it was cooked perfectly. I slowly savored each bite, looking around at all the commotion going on. Just as I was finishing up my piece of the pie, Sarah came back over to the table, this time with someone right behind her.
“Caleb, this is my brother James, and my niece Lizzie,” she said to me.
I stood up from the table to shake James’ hand. James was in good shape, fit and trim, and you could tell he took care of himself. He had a firm grip and calloused hands that obviously worked hard each day.
