by Gary Parker
Trey’s tone notched up a bit. “It’s a waste of time,” he said. “A wild goose chase.”
“Probably, but I have to do it.” She had a fresh thought. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“I don’t have time. You know that. We have to finish the house, and if you’re not going to be helping...” He let the implication hang in the air.
“It’s half a day,” she said, exasperated at his lack of support.
“It’s a useless trip,” he said between clenched teeth. “We both know it.”
“I would think you’d want me to find out all I can about my dad!” Allie’s frustration boiled over.
Trey walked faster, and when he spoke, he sounded like a parent talking to a child, formal and stiff. “I am certainly supportive of you knowing as much as possible about your father. But what I cannot fathom is why now, two weeks before our marriage, you suddenly find yourself in the throes of what even the most spontaneous person would surely see as a useless pursuit.”
Allie tried to figure out a way to make him understand, but nothing came to her. Trey believed in the tangible, not the transcendent, and no matter what she said, he wouldn’t change his mind. He’d already declared her collection of events mere coincidences, and nothing she could say would convince him otherwise.
“I have to go,” she said, looking at him again. “That’s all I can say.” He stopped again and stared at her as if watching an alien to see what it would do next.
“What if you find him?” he asked.
“What?”
“Take this to its end point, what you see now as its best conclusion. Suppose you do find a clue that leads you to your dad?”
Allie studied her shoes and his question. Surprisingly, she hadn’t really thought much about the end of a successful search. “I... I’m not sure,” she said. “I’d talk to my dad... I know that, but... after that...”
“Exactly. You’re so illogical. You’re heading off to Knoxville in hopes of discovering information to reach a father you don’t even remember except through a picture you uncovered a few days ago, yet you’ve not thought about what you’ll say when and if you find him. The fact is—and I’m sure I’m right on this—you haven’t even thought about what you’ll do if Mr. Mason gives you an address for your father today. Have you? Are you going immediately to see him?”
He waited for an answer, and Allie didn’t like the sensation of being put on the spot, not one bit. A note of anger rose in her throat, yet she had to admit Trey had called it correctly. She hadn’t planned anything past the visit with Chase Mason. If he told her something that might take her another step closer to her dad, she didn’t know for sure that she would take that step. Especially not now, so close to her wedding.
“Did you ever consider that maybe your father doesn’t want to be found?” Trey asked.
Allie noticed a little smugness in his face. “Why wouldn’t he want to be found?” she asked.
“If he wanted to be found, why hasn’t he come home?”
“Maybe he didn’t want to be found, but he does now.”
Trey chuckled and walked again, slowly this time. “Yes, you’ve told me all about the signs. The universe is talking to you, sending you mysterious messages. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do... it’s Twilight Zone time in Harper Springs, North Carolina.”
“You don’t have to make fun of me.”
Trey glanced over at her. “I’m trying to show you how silly you sound, that’s all. Your naïveté has gone far enough, don’t you think?”
She hesitated; perhaps Trey had it right. But then he spoke again and made her so mad she wanted to spit.
“Your dad is gone,” he said. “It’s time to put him in the vault, behind you, forever.”
Allie rebelled against the words. She could never put her dad behind her, at least not until she walked this last path to try to find him. This time she stopped walking. “I’ll be back this afternoon,” she snapped.
“Go on, then!” Trey said, waving her away.
Allie reached for his hand, concerned by his anger. “Don’t be mad.”
“Of course I’m mad.”
“But you’ll forgive me?”
He wiped his brow. “We’ll go to dinner tonight,” he said.
“I’ll call you soon as I get in.”
“I’ll be working at the house. Mother wants to see it as soon as we’re finished with it.”
“I’m sorry I can’t help you today.”
She kissed him on the cheek and left the track and headed to her car. She and Trey had dealt with disagreements before; they could certainly deal with this one.
Allie found Chase Mason’s house—a two-story, white farmhouse with a wide porch—before noon. It nestled snugly into the hillside of a tree-lined valley about twenty miles southeast of Knoxville. A gravel driveway lined by a white picket fence and an eclectic mix of budding trees led to the house, and a yellow dog of questionable breeding wearing a big grin with sharp teeth greeted her as she pulled to a stop. Before she stepped out of the car, the house’s front door popped open, and a man the size of a pro linebacker stepped out. He wore blue jeans, tan work boots, and a blue long-sleeved shirt. A white baseball cap with “Volunteers” written in orange covered dark hair that touched on his shirt collar. Allie opened her door, and the man met her as she climbed out.
“Chase Mason,” he said, extending his hand.
“Allie Wilson.”
His hand felt like granite, the calluses thick in the palm. Allie dropped his hand and gazed around the place. A freshly painted red barn sat to the left, a stone well to the right. The air smelled clean—slightly moist and alive with the fresh growth of the fields around the house. A light breeze played with her hair.
The dog edged toward her, but Chase eased him away with a boot. “Come on in,” he said, indicating the house.
In spite of Trey’s warning about lunatics, something in Chase immediately made Allie comfortable, and she quickly followed as he led her inside, the dog trailing. Her heels clicked on the hardwood floors as she walked through the entryway and into the den. A stone fireplace with a small fire burning filled the wall opposite her. A simple but well-crafted wood cross hung on the wall above the mantel. A variety of antique furniture decorated the room—a grandfather clock as tall as Chase in one corner, two different china cabinets, a sideboard, a hat rack, a rolltop desk—each of them carved with inlaid wood and festooned with brass handles.
Chase pointed her to a sofa that looked like an antique, and she sat down. A stack of books lay on a table by the sofa, and she quickly scanned the titles—a couple of novels, a book of poems by Robert Frost, a hardcover copy of a Bible.
“You want something to drink?” Chase offered. “Water, juice?”
She waved him off. “I’m good.”
He sat in a rocking chair, pulled off his hat, and placed it on his knee. His hair, thick and a little curly, sprang out and framed his blue eyes. Allie studied his face—a square jaw, a thick forehead, broad cheeks—a solid man in every respect. He looked about her age, maybe a couple of years older. She scanned the room for signs of other people but saw none. No pictures of a wife or children anywhere.
“Thanks for seeing me,” she said, not sure how to start the conversation.
“You sounded a little tense last night,” he said, his eyes gentle, about the only soft thing on him.
“I am. There’s a lot going on...”
“Yeah, a wedding is about as tense as it gets.”
Allie wanted to ask him if he had a wife but felt it inappropriate, so she kept quiet. Chase’s dog dropped down at her feet as if visiting with his best friend. Chase cleared his throat, and Allie again felt stumped about what to say.
“I guess you think I’m a little nutty,” she finally said. “Trying to find my dad this close to my wedding.”
Chase laughed. “Weddings can make people more than a little nutty,” he said. “That woman in Atlanta who ran away from her fiancé the w
eek of the wedding... now, that’s nutty.”
Allie laughed and again wanted to ask him about a wife but didn’t. “My fiancé is a psychologist,” she said. “He thinks it’s normal for a person to want to put missing pieces together before such a major event. He says that’s what I’m doing.”
“Sounds about right to me, I guess.”
Allie wondered if she should tell him about the odd events of the last couple of weeks, then decided, why not? She’d never see Chase Mason again after today; what difference did it make if he thought her strange?
She leaned forward. “Do you believe in signs, Mr. Mason?”
“Call me Chase.”
She nodded. “Do you?”
“What kind of signs?” He fingered the cap on his knee.
She quickly told him everything that had happened. It sounded weird coming out, and by the time she finished, her face had turned a little red with embarrassment and she half expected Chase to laugh and ask her to leave. To her surprise, he did nothing of the sort but instead shoved on his cap, stood, reached for her hand to help her up, and told her to follow him.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Upstairs,” he said.
She dug in her heels, and he stopped, turned, and smiled. “I’m not going to take advantage of you,” he said. “What’s upstairs?”
“Perhaps the crumbs you need to follow as you take the next step in this journey you’re on.”
“What kind of crumbs?”
“Interesting ones, based on what you’ve just told me.”
“So you do believe in signs?”
Chase smiled again, and his eyes sparkled. “Let me ask you a question,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Do you believe in God?”
Allie dropped her eyes, suddenly ashamed for reasons she couldn’t quite explain. “I’m not sure,” she said. “That’s honest,” he said. “I respect that.”
She stared at him, expecting judgment but saw none. “I take it you do,” she said.
He nodded. “These ‘signs’ you just told me about—how else do you explain them?”
“Trey says they’re a bunch of coincidences.”
“A coincidence to one person is a miracle to another.”
“So you have a better explanation?”
“Sounds to me like the Lord is trying to tell you something.”
Allie shrugged, not sure what to believe. “But why now?” she asked. “If that’s true, and I’m not at all certain it is, the timing couldn’t be worse.”
“Maybe the truth is that the timing couldn’t be better but you just don’t know it yet.”
Allie saw no merit to that possibility.
“Come on,” Chase said. “Let me show you what’s upstairs.”
“Will it lead me to my dad?”
“Only time will answer that.”
Her curiosity overcoming her caution, Allie followed Chase as he led her to a large sunlit room facing the front of the house. A four-poster bed of ancient origin filled the room on one side. Intricate swirls of inlaid wood decorated the foot and head of the bed. A wooden washstand with a marble basin in the center stood by one side of the bed, and a nightstand with curved legs, small clawed feet, and more inlaid wood framed the other. A simple rectangular trunk—the plainest piece in the whole room—sat at the foot of the bed.
“This furniture is gorgeous,” Allie said, admiring the craftsmanship of the pieces. “The pieces downstairs too.”
“My grandfather made all of it,” Chase said. “Everything in this house.”
“Wow!”
“Yep, he was a carpenter, same as me.”
“That explains the calluses on your hands.”
“I earned every one of them.”
“Are you as good as your grandfather?”
“No way, but I’m still learning. Maybe someday.”
“Where’s your workshop?”
“In the barn; I’ll show you later if you have time.”
Allie nodded, and Chase stepped to the trunk, pulled it open, and picked a picture album off the top of the stack of belongings that lay inside. “These have been here awhile,” he said, handing her the album. “Have a seat and take a look.”
Allie’s hands trembled as she flipped it open and sat down on the edge of the bed. Chase took a spot a discrete distance from her. She eyed the pictures in the album, all of them carefully placed inside protective sheathing. Many of them contained images of her dad and Walt Mason when they were young—holding fish they’d caught, wearing baseball gloves, standing in front of all kinds of trucks, cars, and tractors.
“Before they went to Vietnam,” Chase said, explaining the joyous look in both men’s faces. “Not a care in the world.”
“That changed,” she said.
“For both of them.”
“But my dad more than yours.”
“I suppose so.”
She flipped a page and saw another picture of her dad, this one not in a protective sheath. He stood posed in front of a house this time, the same house where she now sat on a bed. A child stood on either side of him, one of them a boy wearing a football uniform complete with pads, the other one none other than Allie herself, white gloves on her hands.
Allie picked up the picture, examined the boy for a moment, then glanced at Chase.
“It’s you!” she said.
He laughed. “On my birthday,” he said. “Eight years old.”
“We knew each other?”
“Apparently so, although I didn’t remember it until you called.”
Allie brushed a hand through her hair, surprised at what she’d already discovered. She put the picture back, then opened another page of the book and sat up straighter. Another picture of her dad looked back at her; his eyes had noticeably changed. No longer did they sparkle with life and hope. They were now dark and somber, haunted and fearful.
“This is after the war,” she said, as certain of it as anything she’d ever said.
“Yes, the date is on the back.”
She took it out of the protective sheath and examined the date—May 1972, thirty-three years ago. “He was so young then,” she said. “But look at his eyes; they look ancient. Like he’s seen too much.”
Allie fell quiet, her mind busy.
Then she said, “I have to find out what happened to him in Vietnam. That’s the key to this.”
“I know.”
She flipped the page one more time. A last image stared back at her, and this one shocked her more than any of the others. It showed her dad again but much older now. He had gray hair, wrinkles at his mouth and eyes, a gaunt body, obviously wracked by the years and the despair he carried through them. He looked ill to her, like a man whose motor had pretty much run empty of fuel.
“When was this taken?” she asked.
“About a year ago, when he came through here.”
She faced Chase, and tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t understand,” she said quietly. “He came this close to home but never drove to see me and Mom?”
Chase reached for her hand but then stopped, stood, and walked to the window. The sun shone on his back, and Allie stared at him and felt more alone than ever in her life. For several seconds she stayed quiet, her eyes moist.
“He did come to see you,” Chase said.
“What?”
Chase shoved his hands in his pockets and faced her again. “I heard him and my dad talking,” he explained. “Uncle Jack told Dad he needed to square a couple of things away—needed to check on his family.”
“Before what?”
“He never said.”
Allie pointed to the picture. “Was he sick?”
“He never said anything, but he sure looked it.”
Allie tried to make sense of what she’d learned but found it more confusing. If her dad had come to see her and Gladys in the last year, why hadn’t she seen him? Another thought poked at her. Had her mom seen him but denied her the o
pportunity?
“Are you sure he came to see us?” she asked Chase.
“I know he said he wanted to. What happened after that, I can’t say. He left here for a couple of days, then returned for a few more, then left for good.”
“Any idea where he went from here?” she asked. “Yes.”
Allie jumped up. “Where did he go?”
“He went to Vietnam,” he said. “My dad too; they were gone close to a month.”
Allie froze, trying to make sense of it. Her dad had come to Knoxville after years of absence and may or may not have come to visit her and her mom. After that he’d headed to Vietnam. But why? Vietnam had destroyed him. Why go back to such a nightmarish place?
“Why did they go to Vietnam?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I never heard my dad say, and Uncle Jack never showed back up here.”
Allie rubbed her eyes, then decided what she had to do next. “I need to talk to your dad,” she said.
“If we can find him,” Chase said.
“What time is it in Europe?”
“I don’t know. Are they five hours ahead of us? Six?”
“I need to check.”
“I’ll have to reach my sister, see if she knows their exact location.”
“Can you call her now?”
“Phone is downstairs.”
Allie took a step back, and Chase moved past her and back down the stairs. She followed. In the kitchen he picked up a cell phone, pointed her to a chair at the table, then punched in a number. After waiting several seconds, he shook his head and punched the phone off.
“Voice mailbox,” he said. “I was afraid of that; she’s a high-powered lawyer for a firm in Knoxville. Might be hours before I can track her down.”
“I don’t have hours,” Allie said.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Chase said.
Allie considered her options and realized one big one still remained unexplored. “Your folks’ house,” she said. “Wonder if we would find anything there to help us with this?”
Chase moved to the table and straddled a chair, his eyes wide. “You want me to go snooping around my parents’ house?” he asked.
“Not snooping,” she said. “You check their mail already; we’ll just take a look around while you do that, see if we see anything interesting.”
