CHAPTER 16
Cory
She grows more agitated with every turn of the city block, but I’m lost. Not literally, but in every other sense of the word. We’re making no progress, I can’t think of any other routes to take—funny how even after a decade, driving these roads is second nature—and the nursing home gave us no direction. What kind of nursing home doesn’t keep better track of their residents? It’s a revolving door of negligence, that’s what it is. We stopped at the home first, right after leaving the restaurant, where a large African American woman told us in short, choppy, wet syllables what happened. Apparently sometime during the walk from the cafeteria to the rooms, Sam’s father wandered through the open side door when no was monitoring him. The door, usually armed with an alarm to prevent this sort of thing from happening, had been left open by a man hired to install new security cameras along the hallways. The irony of this is not lost on me—kind of like the idiot who robs a home and posts a snapshot of the event on Instagram—but I kept all quips to myself. Jokes usually fizzle on people facing mounds of grief and missing fathers.
We’ve been driving fifteen minutes since we left the home, and I’m anxious. I hate not being able to solve problems on a quick timeline.
“Turn here.” Sam’s arm shoots to the left, blocking my vision.
I brush her arm aside and cut the wheel a sharp left. “Warn me next time. Plus we’ve already driven this way twice.”
“Do it again. I have a feeling he’s close.”
He isn’t close. Nothing is close except a gas station and a tattoo parlor. “You’ve said the same thing down every street we’ve driven. There’s no one here, unless your dad had a sudden need to ink a skull and crossbones on his forearm.”
The finger she’s gnawing on drops into her lap. “Is that supposed to be funny? Because right now nothing is funny to me, Cory.”
“No, it isn’t supposed to be funny. I just think circling the block over and over is a waste of time.”
She nails me with a glare, one of many in the last few minutes. “What would you have me do, give up? We have to find him before…” A threat of tears chokes her words, and she leans her head back. “God, I’m so sick of crying. How much more do I have to take?” She whispers that last part like a frustrated prayer, then looks out the passenger window.
I swallow, feeling like the jerk that I am. Charm is my fallback, the kneejerk reaction of living too long in the spotlight. It always works, without fail. Flip a switch and light up the room with a grin, and people do what I want.
It always works.
Landing hard on my butt in the normal world of middle-America isn’t something I’m prepared for. There was a time, but that day is passed. Time to remember some things.
“I promise you don’t have to take any more from me, especially not the crap I keep dishing out. Sorry, it’s a side effect of—” Just then a blue city bus parked down the street catches my attention. There’s nothing abnormal about it, a common sight for anyone who lives around here and finds himself either close to the university or the local mall. But I can’t escape the feeling that hits me, the feeling when you know you’re right about something with no valid reason to believe it. It grips my gut and twists around. So I pull to a stop behind it just as the doors close and it edges away from the curb.
Sam glances at me, drying her eyes with the back of a hand. “What are you doing? You’re going the wrong way.”
I stare straight ahead and attempt to ignore her. There’s a theory formulating here, and I don’t need her to distract me from it. Plus, I’ve wronged her in about a thousand ways and this time I really need to be right.
“Turn around. My dad isn’t going to be on that bus.”
My eyes roll before I can stop them. “Oh, but the tattoo parlor made sense to you. We’ve been driving in circles with no luck, I’ve been letting you direct us the whole time, and now it’s my turn. I’m going this way for a minute. Besides, I didn’t say he would be on that bus.” I also didn’t say he wouldn’t.
“Turn around,” she says. “We’re headed out of town.”
“I’ll turn around in a minute.” I swallow a sigh. Since I haven’t seen my mother in years and the rest of my family in even longer, I haven’t argued with a woman in a long time. I start biting on a fingernail because good lord she’s making me nervous. “It would help if you’d stop glaring at me and start looking out the window. He’s not in this car, so maybe you should be searching outside of it.”
I sound confident, cocky even. But in truth I’m trying not to sweat. I’ve never looked for a wayward father before, and I can’t afford to make a mistake. What if she’s right and I’m wasting her time? I won’t be able to live with myself if something happens to someone else she loves. Not if it happens while I’m driving the wrong way.
I feel her icy stare but refuse to meet her gaze. Despite her protests, I can’t shake the feeling I’m onto something. I dismissed that feeling once before years ago, and I’ve been paying for it ever since. If only I had gone with my gut back then.
I run a hand through my hair. Better to leave the past where it belongs. You might not be able to run a paintbrush over unpleasant memories, but you can certainly cover them in a black cloth and pretend they don’t exist.
The bus passes a car dealership and turns right, and now I remember where we are. Sam’s right; her father isn’t on that bus, but one runs this same route every half-hour and I have a feeling he was on it. We’re approaching our last turn when her phone rings. I’m grateful for the sound, mainly because for a minute anyway, it will keep her from talking to me.
“You found him?” she says into the receiver. “But how did he get there? How did he even know where it was?” She nods, pinching the space between her eyebrows. “Okay, we’re not far. Tell them we’ll be right there.” She ends the call lowers the phone to her lap. Holding it there, she keeps her eyes closed for a second.
“They found him. The police are with him, waiting on us to get there.” Her voice is so quiet, I have to lean in to hear it.
“Get where?” I know what she’s going to say before the words come.
“He’s at the cemetery.” She looks at me, out the window. “I don’t understand how he…” Her voice trails off as we pull up next to it and park. “You knew?”
We’re here. The cemetery. I have no idea how I knew. Sometimes you just have a feeling, and that feeling hasn’t failed me yet, even when I often fail it.
“I had a feeling. Not sure why.” Sam studies me while I purposely take in the scene in front of us.
Two police cars are parked in front of us. Across the grass, two men in uniform are standing next to a frail, elderly man who is hunched a bit at the waist. He’s wearing wrinkled khaki pants and a plaid button up like the quintessential Midwestern man wears, and his hands are shaking back and forth; I can see them from here. He looks older than seventy four, but I guess that’s what they say about the mind. A strong one keeps you young. A weak one…
He looks much older than seventy-four.
A tear rolls down Sam’s cheek. I see it before she steps out of the car. Unsure of my place, I remain behind the wheel, taking in the scene with a knot of admiration growing in my core. This woman seems to take care of everything and everyone. She faces the challenges that life keeps delivering her, and she does it all alone.
But who takes care of Sam? The question rolls through my mind as I watch her bend eye-level with her father, speaking to him in a way that draws him in.
I watch as he nods and turns away, then pats his hands together.
I watch as he grows agitated and tries to walk the other direction.
I watch as both policemen work to guide him back around, then begin to lead him down the hill toward the car.
I watch as she takes over, wrapping an arm around his shoulder like a mother might do for a child.
I watch her hand come up to catch another tear, then move to the other side to swipe at one running down the other cheek.
I watch the way her shoulders sag as though the weight of the entire world rests on them, and maybe it does. And that’s when I know. No one takes care of Sam, because there’s no one left in her world to step into the position. There’s a wide open vacancy and no one clamoring for the job. So I think. And think. And continue to watch.
I watch for what seems like hours, though only minutes pass. It hurts, this scene. So much so that I feel my own emotion welling up and demanding a way out. It’s been a long time since I cried, so I force it back down where it belongs, thinking all the while that Sam’s father has Alzheimers. He’s frail. He probably won’t remember this day. He probably won’t remember Sam and he sure as heck won’t remember me. That’s enough to depress anyone. No wonder I’m emotional.
Not that it matters.
None of it matters.
The only thing that matters is that Sam’s father is right here in front of me, and he doesn’t know who she is. Time is running out on them, while my own father is healthy and happy and living a normal life in my childhood home. I pushed him away nearly a decade ago, along with my mother and brother. Every year my mother tries to get me home for Christmas, Easter, birthdays, anniversaries. I’ve put her off every time, blaming a work schedule that’s never been quite as busy as I claim. Consequently, I haven’t seen my family in a decade, and suddenly it seems like the most foolish thing in the world.
Especially because as I watch Sam hug her own father, I can no longer remember why.