Looking into You

by Chris Fabry

  I spent the afternoon at a hotel on Oracle Road making several calls, including an extended one with Anna Waddel at Bethesda. It took me a while to find her and even longer to convince her to reveal what she knew. I told her I had no computer with me and no access to one other than the business office of the hotel, and finally she rattled off a list of information gleaned about David that surprised me. She had more tidbits about the man’s life than I could imagine, complete with what he now looked like, his marital status, and where he worked. The discovery that he was alive had sent my heart reeling. The news that he had married and had a family both comforted me and sent me on a path of self-pity. Why had things turned out so well for him? Why hadn’t he ever contacted me? The questions were endless.

  “How did you find all of this?” I said.

  “Treha had a name and your old picture. On the back we had a date and the mission organization. I matched his name with some info from the organization and then followed the bouncing Facebook posts and voilà—instant invasion of privacy. The only thing I haven’t found is a home address.”

  I thanked her and hung up with enough time to run to the grocery store to pick up something for the Howards. I settled for a fruit basket and flowers and found their home as the sun set red over the Catalina Mountains. I had no idea the sunset in Tucson could be so breathtaking.

  Charlie met me at the door and I fell in love. He was so warm and inviting and had no questions, just a smile and a hug and a wide-open heart. His eyes bugged at the fruit basket and he ushered me inside. Miriam had stopped for chicken on her way home. She gave me a hopeful look with raised eyebrows as Treha walked down the hall. My daughter didn’t make eye contact, but you can’t have everything.

  As the meal began, I thanked them for opening their home to me on such short notice. I had barely tasted the chicken when Treha spoke.

  “Why did you lie to me about him?”

  “Your father?”

  She nodded without looking up.

  “Treha, I was told that he had died. This was shortly before you were born. I had no reason not to believe the news.”

  “Oh, dear,” Miriam said, her face pained.

  I explained what my mother had told me, the mix-up of names and then the deliberate hiding of the truth from me, though I didn’t say specifically who had hidden the truth. Thankfully, Treha didn’t ask.

  “So this was as much of a shock to you as it was to Treha,” Miriam said.

  I smiled ruefully. “Shock is a kind way to put it. All these years I’ve lived with his memory, with thinking of him as a young man. I can close my eyes and see his face, his smile, trapped in time. I thought he would always be that age.” I tried to catch Treha’s eyes, but she still wasn’t looking at me. “Treha, now I understand why you would leave, why you felt like you didn’t want to speak with me. I don’t blame you. I thought you were having second thoughts about me being your mother.”

  “Did you ever try to make contact with his family?”

  “No. Maybe I should have. At the time, I believed the love of my life was gone. And the baby that had been conceived from our relationship was leaving. I’d never felt so alone in my life.”

  My daughter picked at her chicken as if trying to decipher some kind of complex word puzzle hidden between the wing and the breast. Miriam watched her intently, and it seemed she was gauging whether to interject a question or remain quiet.

  “Then he still has no idea about me,” Treha said.

  “We thought it best—your grandparents and I—not to tell anyone. Looking back, that was selfish.”

  Treha stared at her plate. “Do my grandparents want to see me?”

  I smiled at her and tried to put a good face on it, but I was sure she could tell I was hesitating. “As I told you, my father isn’t well. He doesn’t understand much. My mother cares for him. I know they’ll be excited to meet you. I would love to take you there. But I know we need to work things out between us.”

  “What’s there to work out?” Charlie said. Miriam touched his arm and he looked at her. “What? Did I say something I shouldn’t have?” He turned to Treha. “You thought your mother lied and you ran from her. Now you know someone told a lie, but it wasn’t Paige. Your mother was a victim of someone else’s lie. End of questions. End of anger toward her. Right?”

  All I could hear was the clink of silverware on plates. And somewhere in a back room of the house, a talk radio station. And a passing jet heading for the stratosphere. And a dog in someone’s backyard. And my heart pounding.

  “I think we need to let Treha process this in her own time,” Miriam said.

  I made a sound of agreement. Then my daughter spoke.

  “Charlie is right. I don’t have any reason to be mad. You didn’t lie to me. You didn’t know my father was alive. I still can’t understand why you didn’t contact me. But you’re here now.”

  I nodded. “Yes. I am. I’m here for the long haul. No matter what. For as long as you’ll allow me in your life, Treha.”

  Treha stood. I thought she was going to run again, but she stayed. I wiped my hands with a napkin and glanced at Miriam. The woman shrugged and I stood. Treha looked at me and her eyes captured my heart. My wounded, wandering-eyed child stood before me and opened her arms.

  I embraced her, held her, and the feeling was better than I imagined. It was different than at Bethesda. There, I had unveiled myself to her on my terms with my agenda. Now I was being freely embraced on her turf, by her choice.

  When Treha pulled back, I saw pleading in her eyes. I thought she might ask me to return to Bethesda with her, to help her face the school and finish the semester. But instead, she said words I never expected to hear, words I had never considered.

  “Will you take me to my father?”

  I searched her face, and before I could think it through, before I could weigh the consequences or ramifications, I said, “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Paige

  We stopped for gas in Deming, New Mexico. Charlie had told me of a shortcut that would take some time off the drive. Instead of going all the way to Las Cruces, we could head northeast to Hatch and hit I-25. “They grow some awfully good green chiles in Hatch,” Charlie had said. Treha said she wanted to stop on the way back and get some for him.

  I used the restroom and bought some snacks and a cup of bitter coffee to keep me awake. The drive so far had been beautiful, though desolate. Places in eastern Arizona looked like the back side of the moon, or like John Wayne could come riding down one of the arroyos and cross the interstate in front of us and no one would blink.

  For the most part, Treha sat in silence. I asked questions—if she wanted to listen to the radio, if she was too hot, too cold, needed to stop—but she seemed disinterested. So I turned the radio on low and kept quiet, resisting the urge to fill her silence with my chatter.

  In the afternoon we made it to Albuquerque and I hit the regret stage. Why had I chosen to drive this distance in the small, noisy Toyota rental car? We could have flown to Colorado on a two-hour flight that would have put us within an hour of David. Somehow I’d thought this extended time alone would be good for us, and Miriam had agreed, but now I was second-guessing.

  We drove another hour north and found a hotel hidden from the interstate in Santa Fe. The young man at the front desk wore a white shirt and tie, and he had an earring and hair tied in a ponytail. He smiled, glancing at Treha, and named a few nearby restaurants when I asked for a recommendation. When he said Chipotle was in walking distance, Treha asked if we could eat there. I was just glad she had a preference. He pointed the way and we walked, stretching our tired bodies.

  “Did you see how that young man smiled at you?” I said as we crossed the parking lot.

  “Men don’t see me.”

  “I think he did. He thought you were cute.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Not for sure, not unless I ask him. You wait here, I’ll go back.”

>   Treha grabbed my arm and I grinned as we kept walking. “You are a lovely person, Treha. You have to start believing that. You have to gain some confidence and pretty soon you’ll be able to look up instead of down.”

  “So you don’t like who I am.”

  “I love who you are. You don’t have to change for me to love you. But since I’ve lost my classroom, at least for the time being, I might as well use my teaching ability to help you become all you can be. For example, you don’t have your driver’s license, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want one?”

  “I don’t need one. Miriam got me a state ID.”

  “But at some point you’ll want to learn to drive, right?”

  “It scares me to even think about.”

  “I was scared to come find you. I was scared to let anyone know I was your mother. So if I can do this, you can get your license, don’t you think?”

  “You’re older than me.”

  “Don’t let your youth hold you back. I’ll help you. I’ll bet Charlie will too. You’ll be surprised how much the world will open up when you’re able to drive. Able to go anywhere you want anytime you want.”

  “What if I fail?”

  I shrugged. “I think failure is the exit ramp just before the town of success.”

  “Who said that?”

  “I did, didn’t you hear me?”

  “I mean, whose quote is that?”

  “It’s nobody’s—I made it up. And it’s true. You take an exit, it’s the wrong one. You turn around and get back on the highway. Sometimes when you fail, you’re a lot closer to your destination than you think. The failure helps you understand this.”

  “That sounds like something I would read in a book.”

  “Think of it this way. What’s the worst that can happen if you fail a driver’s test? You go back and try again.”

  “I don’t want to feel embarrassed.”

  “Treha, life is failure. One after another. If you never fail, it means you aren’t trying enough new things.”

  “Is that what you believe or what you live?”

  “It’s an intellectual proposition most of the time. But every now and then I have to actually live by it.” I stopped her outside the restaurant. “We have so much to walk through together. So much to live. I don’t want to miss anything, Treha. Not the failures or successes or anything in between.”

  Treha stared at me, her eyes moving slightly from side to side, then turned and walked inside. I took a breath and followed.

  I figured we’d eat in the restaurant, but Treha wanted to go back to the hotel, so we got our food loaded up in a brown paper bag and walked back.

  “How much farther do we have to go?” Treha said as we crossed the lobby.

  “Colorado Springs is about five hours away. I figure we can get a good night’s rest, have some breakfast, and hit the road. We’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Do you think he’ll remember you?”

  “I hope so. I’m sure he’ll be a little surprised to see me. And more than a little shocked to meet you.”

  We rode the elevator to the third floor and returned to our room. Two double beds and a view out the window at Santa Fe that was almost as good as the Catalinas at the Howards’ house.

  Treha sat on the bed and ate while I spread out a napkin on the round table in the corner. I spoke my next words to the wall as I opened the aluminum lid covering my food.

  “Treha, I want to suggest one more time that we let him know. I don’t think it’s fair to him or his family that we just show up. Somehow it feels cruel.”

  “Is that why you drove instead of flying?”

  I turned to her. “What?”

  “Did you choose to drive so you could have more time to change my mind?”

  Smart girl. I shouldn’t have been surprised. “How did you come up with that theory?”

  “Am I right?”

  “Maybe. I guess I was hoping the drive would wear you down. You’d come over to the dark side of my viewpoint. But the main reason I wanted us to drive is so we could spend this time together, getting to know each other along the way.” I could hear longing in my voice and hoped it didn’t sound like desperation.

  “I don’t want him to know we’re coming. I want to see him first.”

  “But we don’t even know he’s there. He could be on vacation. He could be on a business trip. Why don’t you want him to know?”

  “I want to see his face.”

  “You mean his reaction to you?”

  “No. I want to see him before you tell him about me.”

  “But you have seen him. Anna said she showed you some of his pictures from Facebook.”

  “It’s not the same.” She put down her food and stared at the wall. Then she said, “I want to look at him and see if he is the kind of man who could love someone like me.”

  My breath left me and I put a hand on my chest. “Oh, Treha, I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet who couldn’t love someone like you, if they get to know you.”

  Treha held the biggest burrito I’d ever seen to her mouth. “Isn’t that what all mothers say?”

  I smiled. For that one moment, it felt like we were moving toward something new, something good, and something frightening at the same time.

  Getting ready for bed was a little awkward for us both. We watched some television, then turned it off and listened to the hum of the air conditioner on low, a masking noise that blocked out the traffic and our breathing.

  The room had been dark twenty minutes when Treha whispered, “Are you still awake?”

  “Yeah. I don’t sleep well when I’m not in my own bed. Even then . . .”

  “You have trouble sleeping?”

  “When my mind gets going, when I’m worried about something, it just takes over and I can’t shut it down.”

  “That happens to me, too. Have you ever read a book all through the night?”

  “Many times. Usually it’s something old. Jane Eyre. Middlemarch.”

  “Jane Eyre is my favorite. I’ve never read Middlemarch.”

  “You have to. Oh, Treha, we should get the audiobook and listen to it in the car. It’s just amazing. It’s long, but amazing.”

  “I’ve done that too. Read a book all through the night.”

  There was a lilt to her voice that made me want to respond, to ask another question and keep her going, pull her further out, but instead I listened, the darkness enveloping us.

  “But it doesn’t matter when I go to sleep; I always wake up at first light. It’s always been that way. Every day.”

  “I’ll bet you get exhausted,” I said.

  “Sometimes when I lose myself in a book, it feels like I’ve gone to sleep there even though I’m awake. It still feels good to get up in the morning because I know I get to go back into the story again. Back in that dream.”

  “I like that. It’s a good way to put it.”

  I stared at the red LED lights on the digital clock beside the bed until the numbers changed. When I closed my eyes, I could still see the numbers.

  Treha yawned. “When you were younger, when I was only a few years old, did you talk to me?”

  I turned toward her, even though I could barely make her out in the darkness. “Talk to you?”

  “Did you ever say anything to me? Out loud?”

  “I thought about you a lot and prayed for you, but I don’t know that I ever spoke any words out loud.”

  “I did. I used to talk to you. At night. I would be alone in bed. I couldn’t do it during the day when there were people around because they all thought there was something wrong with me. Like I was crazy. But at night I could whisper to you. Talk to you.”

  “Did I answer?”

  “Sometimes I would imagine a conversation between us. I would imagine what you looked like. And that I could crawl into your lap and sit and you would hold me.”

  Her revelation startled me and it took me a
moment to respond. “I’m sorry I never got to do that, Treha. I’m sorry I never took the chance.”

  “It’s okay.” I heard her shift in the bed, the covers rustling. “I used to take other people’s stories.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dreamed through the stories of the older people I met at Desert Gardens and their memories became mine. Dr. Crenshaw—he was one of them. When he was young, his parents took him to an ice cream shop and gave him to another couple. This was during the Depression and they were very poor and couldn’t keep him. So they gave him to this family in the ice cream parlor.”

  “How awful.”

  “It became something I imagined for myself. That I was walking in with you, holding your hand. You were like an angel in a pretty dress, and when you got my ice cream and sat me down, you told me to wait. And you walked out in the sunlight and never came back. That’s how I’ve always seen you.”

  I winced at the story. “Well . . . I’ve come back now, haven’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  I took a deep breath and a warmth spread through me, as well as unease. What I’d said about failure, that it was an exit ramp—I didn’t know if that was true or just something I’d come up with to encourage my daughter. Could I live it? Could I risk failure? I didn’t want to move too quickly, but here in the darkness I felt an opening, an opportunity.

  “Treha, can I ask you something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you just want to be held . . . when you were younger? Is that something that went away, or do you still feel like that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Not a good answer.”

  “I know you don’t like those words, but sometimes they’re the only ones I have.”

  “Okay. I can live with that. As a mother, I think I’m going to have to learn how to live with the ‘I don’t know.’”

  “Do you think I will ever be a mother?”

  “I hope so. I want to hold your grandchildren and read them stories. I want to see you walk down the aisle in a pretty white wedding dress.”