Chasing Forgiveness

  Everything that could possibly remind me of Mom is gone, and the room is like a skeleton. Empty hangers line the closet like thin iron ribs.

  The furniture is gone—the big antique chest of drawers, and all the delicate porcelain people that danced in frozen poses on top. The oak night tables. All that’s left of the bed are four dents in the carpet where the brass posts used to be.

  And there, piled on the floor, are all of Dad’s things. They’re not stacked, not folded, but thrown into a pile. Shirts and pants and shoes and socks and bottles of after-shave and books. It is as if some monster had eaten everything in the room, then coughed back up the things that belonged to Dad, and I think, Why has Mom done this? This isn’t something someone just does accidentally or without thinking. She knew what she was doing—and she must have known how miserable it would make us feel when we saw it. She knew, but she did it anyway.

  My mom used to be the best mom in the world.

  How could someone so wonderful be so mean on purpose?

  I want to ask her why. I want her to give me some good reason that I can believe, but she is not here, and I haven’t seen her for two weeks.

  It’s as if she and Dad have spent so much time hurting each other over the past two years, they can’t stop. It’s like a sickness that goes back and forth between and is never going to end.

  I’m crying now. Sobbing—really sobbing—and it makes me mad. I’m only glad that Russ and my other friends aren’t around to see me act like a stupid baby.

  Dad opens the door to Tyler’s room. His clothes and toys are gone, and his bed is stripped down to the flowery fabric of the mattress.

  And I think, What if they’re not at Aunt Jackie’s? What if they’re nowhere? What if they just up and ran away to live in Brazil or some weird place where we’re never going to find them? It makes me cry harder, and I can’t catch my breath.

  I hate her for doing this to Dad.

  No!

  I hate him for making me believe we would ever be together again. I hate him for lying to me.

  No!

  I don’t hate either of them. It’s this house I ought to hate or the people buying the house, or Tyler, or myself, but not Mom and Dad. Never Mom and Dad.

  Dad comes over to hug me, but that’s not what I need. I don’t know what I need, so I push him away, and when I do, he starts crying, too.

  “I believed you!” I scream at him through my stupid baby tears. “I believed we were all gonna be together again. You promised, Dad. You promised.”

  “We will be, Preston! Just give me some time. I won’t break my promise, Preston. You watch! I won’t.”

  His face turns beet red, like he’s holding his breath. His face is so red, I figure blood is going to start coming out of his eyes instead of tears. And then, when I glance over at the mirror, I see the same shade of red in my face, too.

  “I promise,” says Dad again. “I’m not gonna let this happen to you,” he says. “To us. To all of us.”

  But the truth is out, and he can’t change that. It’s been out for weeks now, but I just didn’t want to see. He can’t stop Mom any more than he can stop the day from turning into night.

  “We’re going out, and we’re going to find them, Preston,” he says real slowly. “And everything will be all right . . . believe me.”

  But now I can’t believe him any more than I could believe in Santa Claus.

  • • •

  When Dad and I arrive at Aunt Jackie’s, she tells us that Mom left early that morning.

  “Come in and sit down, Danny,” says Aunt Jackie. I can tell that the look on Dad’s face troubles her. I can’t help but think that this is all because of me. If I hadn’t cried before . . . If I hadn’t yelled at him . . .

  “We were just having lunch,” she says. “Please, Danny, let me fix you something to eat. You, too, Preston.” She gently takes Dad’s arm and tries to draw him farther into the house.

  Dad shakes his head and won’t move any farther than the foyer. “Is she with him?” he asks.

  Aunt Jackie can’t lie. She sighs. “Why should it matter, Danny? Why should it matter at all?” I can tell that Aunt Jackie is frustrated at having to be in the middle of this whole thing. She probably wishes that she could be anywhere else in the world right now, like I do.

  “Was he here?” asks Dad. “Did he come in this house?”

  “No,” she says. Dad pushes and pushes, and finally gets Aunt Jackie to confess where Mom went.

  “She’s driving to L.A. She’s meeting Warren at the convention center.”

  Dad starts to turn red again.

  “Danny,” says Jackie, “just leave it alone. Let it go!”

  And I wonder what she means by “it.” Let their marriage go? Is that what she means? How can she say that? I begin to wonder if Aunt Jackie’s more on Mom’s side than on Dad’s. Why do there have to be sides at all? I don’t want to be on anybody’s side. If I’m with Dad, does it mean I have to be against Mom?

  “Did she take Tyler with her?” asks Dad. Aunt Jackie doesn’t answer, and that’s answer enough for Dad. Of course she took Tyler. I try once more to picture the three of them together—Mom, Tyler, and Weavin’ Warren Sharp—but I can’t. My brain is far too small to imagine it.

  Would Weavin’ Warren give Tyler an autographed football? I wonder.

  Would he let Tyler try on his helmet?

  Would he hold Mom’s hand in front of Tyler?

  “Did you see what she did to our house, Jackie?” says Dad. “What she did to my things?”

  Aunt Jackie looks away. “Just because she’s my sister doesn’t mean I know or understand everything she does, Danny.” Aunt Jackie tries one more time to get us to come in and eat, but Dad won’t oblige. He says a polite good-bye, stalks out, and I get sucked along in his wake.

  • • •

  I know Los Angeles now. I know the ins and outs of the streets and can read them like the lines on my palm. I’ve learned this in one afternoon, and when I close my eyes I can see the whole city sprawled out in front of me.

  Dad is crazy this time.

  “There are only so many limousines in this city,” he says. “Especially in this part of town.”

  “How do you know they’re in a limo?” I ask.

  “Because I know,” he says. “Either they’re in a limo or a Ferrari. Stinking creeps like Warren Sharp always have limos and Ferraris.”

  But I figured it couldn’t be the Ferrari. It’s a two-seater; where would Tyler sit?

  “Probably a limo,” I tell Dad.

  We’ve circled the convention center at least twenty times already, going down different streets, speeding back and forth through downtown Los Angles with the determination of people who actually know where they’re going.

  In front of the Museum of Science and Technology, we pass an old plane sitting right out in the middle of the pavement beneath another suspended high in the air from a pole. Maybe they took a plane. Does he have his own plane? If he does, that’s probably why Mom likes him. A plane and a Ferrari and a limo.

  There are more dented Chevies and wrecked Volkswagens around us than there are limos, but Dad doesn’t notice all of that. He is a man with a mission, and I don’t think he’ll sleep until his mission is accomplished. I worry about him. I worry about him a lot.

  “What do you think of Warren Sharp?” Dad asks out of nowhere.

  “Me?” I ask, stalling.

  “Yeah, what do you think of that creep?”

  What do I think? Warren Sharp is what every American kid dreams of becoming. He’s God’s gift to football. He’s fast; he’s graceful. He’s everybody’s hero. He was Dad’s hero until a few months ago. Now he’s just a black man who screwed up his life. I’ve heard Dad curse him a few times under his breath lately. He never was prejudiced before.

  What do I think of Warren Sharp? How would you feel if Superman flew down from planet Krypton and said to heck with Lois Lane because he discovers that the fi
nest woman on this planet is your very own mom? What would you do if he suddenly flew away with her to the Fortress of Solitude, or wherever it is that Superman is supposed to live? Do you hate Superman for it?

  What do I think of Warren Sharp?

  “I hate him, Dad,” I say. “I hate his guts.”

  “Good,” says Dad.

  The white limo we’re following stops at a fancy restaurant and drops off a fat man with gray hair. Dad floors the accelerator around the sleek white car, nearly creaming the people next to us. He makes a U-turn and heads back toward the convention center. We’ll never find them this way.

  “That’s the fifth limo, Dad,” I say.

  “Five less limos we’ll have to follow,” he answers.

  Dad turns to me, then back to the road, and that one glance is enough to make my teeth start to chatter.

  Used to be when Dad smiled, his blue eyes were inviting and friendly, but now they are hard and frosty. And there is something else in there, too.

  I’ve seen a lot of scary movies. Things about people being possessed by the devil. Hollywood has all these neat special effects: pea-soup vomit, or heads spinning, or horns popping out of people’s skulls and their tongues turning into snake tongues. They get better all the time.

  But you know what? I think they’ve got it all wrong. If it really were to happen, it wouldn’t happen like that, because the devil’s much too smart. It would be small. Almost secret, almost impossible to see. If someone had the devil in him it would look exactly like the way my father looks now, as we drive around the Los Angeles Convention Center over and over and over again.

  6

  THURSDAY

  I’m not sure exactly what day it happened, but I know it was a Thursday. I’ll always remember it was a Thursday.

  3:00

  School was lousy today. I had an English test—the kind where you have to write a lot of long answers to short questions. I couldn’t concentrate on it—my mind just wasn’t on school. I probably didn’t do too well.

  I wait at my grandparents’ house for Dad. He should be here any minute to pick me up so we can help time runners at Grandpa’s track meet.

  I like watching the high-school track meets. I get to be on the field with my dad while he times, and I don’t have to sit in the stands. Someday I’ll be down on the field, and I won’t be just helping my dad time—someday I’ll be running, and all those people up in the stands, they’ll be cheering for me. But right now, I’m happy to be down there on the field with all the track stars.

  Since all of Grandma’s furniture is out being reupholstered today, I sit out on the floor of the living room to wait for Dad. He’s supposed to be here at about three-thirty. I do some homework, and glance up at the front door every time a car pulls onto the street.

  Wouldn’t it be a trip if Mom came to visit just as Dad pulls up? Then they’d have to talk. They’d have to talk about Weavin’ Warren Sharp, and about the house at the beach, and about why Mom is still living with Aunt Jackie.

  I’ve been trying not to think about last Sunday, when Dad went on his wild goose chase around the convention center. I’m kind of glad we didn’t find her that afternoon. Dad was being so weird about it, I wouldn’t have wanted to see them. It would have been embarrassing to see Dad yelling at Mom in front of Warren Sharp and all those people at the convention center.

  But then, Dad’s not any better now than he was then. Maybe I don’t want them to talk about it right now.

  Maybe I oughta stop worrying. Maybe Grandma Lorraine is right.

  Don’t you worry about a thing, Preston, Grandma Lorraine told me. These things always work out for the best. Your mom and dad are just going through a difficult time, and with God’s help this will all work out and everyone will be much better for it. Everyone will have learned, because God doesn’t give anyone a problem that they can’t deal with.

  Sometimes, when I close my eyes and it’s real quiet, I think about God and Grandma Lorraine. She seems to know a lot about that stuff, and I wonder whether she learned it or if it’s something some people are just born with.

  3:30

  I’m bored with homework now, so I just lean against the wall in the empty room and rest. There are so many cars driving down the street that I give up trying to guess which one is going to be Dad. Instead I just try to figure out what kind of car is going by, by the sound of the engine. I don’t look out the window to check if I’m right, so I guess I’ll never know.

  Across the large living room, Grandma begins giving a piano lesson to a girl with long hair, whom I recognize from school. I think she has a crush on me. Sometimes I think all the girls in school have crushes on me. Sometimes they come and wait in front of the house on their bicycles. My dad calls them the Prestonettes. It’s really annoying.

  Grandma’s student plays slowly, and she keeps missing notes. Finally she begins to play something that sounds a lot less lame. I’ve gotten used to bad piano playing by now, on account of Grandma always gives lessons and usually the people who she gives lessons to are really lousy at it. I guess that’s why they need lessons.

  I wish Mom were here to play piano. Grandma plays really nice, but she always seems to play songs from church. Mom plays songs that I know from the radio. Maybe not my favorite songs, but she plays them so nicely I like them anyway—and the way Mom sings! Her voice has won contests ever since she was a little girl. She could have been a singing star if she wanted to be, but she’s not the kind of person who likes to be the center of attention, although she often is. When Dad fell in love with her way back when they were young, I think it was her voice that he fell in love with first. But I can’t remember the last time Mom sang for Dad.

  Don’t you worry about your mom and dad, Grandpa Wes told me. They’ve always been sort of . . . dramatic people. It’s too bad you and Tyler have to be stuck in the middle—but just think about how good things are when things are good. Remember, Preston, the good times always outweigh the bad times two to one.

  4:00

  Dad is never late. Never. That’s one thing about him, he’s on time to everything, and he never makes people wait. I figure maybe he forgot, and that’s why he’s half an hour late to pick me up—but Dad never forgets things either, especially something as important as a track meet. Maybe something happened, like he had a flat tire. I try to remember whether the spare in the back of our Rover was flat or not. If it was flat, then he would have had to get towed to the service station and get it repaired, and that would take at least a half hour, wouldn’t it?

  Then how come he hasn’t called?

  Well, he’s embarrassed about it. After all, he always says he knows everything about cars, so he’d be embarrassed about going to a service station for something as simple as a flat tire. That’s what happened.

  Across the room, the musical scales go up and down, up and down, as the girl finishes her lesson with Grandma. A car pulls up into the driveway.

  Finally! I get up to answer the door. Grandpa Wes will be pretty upset with us—they’d have been short one timer and probably had to start the meet without us. We’ll have to hurry.

  But it’s not Dad.

  The girl’s mother is at the door, come to pick her up after her piano lesson. I let her in and look down the street, but Dad is nowhere to be seen. I could ride to Grandpa’s school on my bike—maybe Dad went right there, thinking I was supposed to meet him there. . . . But he knew he was supposed to pick me up.

  Maybe he was in a bad mood and just didn’t want to have me along today. Would he do that to me? Probably not, but lately I don’t know what he’s going to do or how he’s going to be.

  I like your dad, Russ told me. I think you did the right thing staying with him when your parents separated. You only really need to be with your mom until you’re like eight or so. Then it’s better to be with your dad, because dads are stricter and help you grow up better, you know? You’re lucky. I hope I get to live with my dad when my parents break up for goo
d.

  4:30

  I gave up sitting in the living room—at least in the den I can watch TV. I watch a recording of an old All-Star game. I like watching old games, because you don’t have to worry about who’s going to win. You can watch for the sheer pleasure of the game. It’s like watching reruns of your favorite show.

  Maybe Dad finally found Mom, and they’re sitting talking things through, like they’re supposed to. That would be important enough for Dad to just forget about the meet. If that were the case, I could forgive Dad for missing just about anything.

  I never really understood Danny, I once overheard Uncle Steve say to Grandpa Wes. But then, I never really understood Megan that well either. Who knows—maybe Danny’s right. Maybe they were meant for each other, and it’s just a matter of working out the kinks. Or maybe they’re not. Maybe they just got married too young.

  5:00

  Grandma bastes the roast she has cooking in the oven. We’re having somebody over for dinner tonight, I think. Some homeless girl Grandma met through the church.

  She peeks into the den. “Where’s your dad?” she asks. “Weren’t you supposed to help Grandpa at the meet?”

  “I don’t know where he is,” I say. By now I’ve given up trying to figure out where he went. Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Mom and Warren Sharp who were going to run away to Brazil after all. Maybe it was my father. Maybe he just took a plane and flew away. Would he do that?

  Grandma thinks for a moment. “Well, the best laid plans . . . ,” she says, which I believe is the beginning of a saying, but I’ve never heard it finished, so I don’t know.

  Mommy and Daddy really don’t have to fight so much, Tyler once said. They should just play Ping-Pong or Nintendo or something every time they feel like fighting, and whoever wins gets their way.

  6:00

  The All-Star game is halfway over. Dinner is almost ready.