Only Son (33 page)

He found a letter, the envelope addressed to his father, but not in Seattle or Santa Rosa. In Portland.

Sam pulled the letter out and read it. The date was May 18, 1975:

Sam read the letter again. His dad never told him that he'd coached for a grammar school. He'd never told him about living in Portland either. And who was this Eve?

He slipped the letter inside its envelope, then glanced once more at the photos of his dad and the pretty brunette: “
quite an attractive pair
.” He checked the back to one of the photos. “
Cannon Beach, May, 1976
,” it said, in his dad's handwriting.

His dad was supposed to have married his mom in 1976.

Click
.

Sam froze for a second. Then he heard it again—the key in the front door.
Oh, shit, he's home…
.

Shoving the photos and letter in the back pocket of his jeans, he grabbed the grocery bag and hauled it over to the desk. The rip along the side widened and more junk spilled out. But he crammed the bag inside his father's desk anyway. The top was still taped up. He'd replace the bag tomorrow, while his dad was at work. And if his dad pulled out the bag between now and then, maybe he'd think he ripped it himself.

The chain lock rattled.
He's trying to get in
.

Frantically, Sam picked up everything that had fallen out of the bag: a postcard; more photographs; and the folded-up page from some newspaper. He stuffed them inside his shirt.

The doorbell
.

He shoveled the old bills on top of the bag. There was no time to care if they were in any special kind of order.

He heard the doorbell again, then knocking.

Sam shut the drawer. Turning, he smoothed out the wrinkles on his father's bedspread. A photo fell out of his shirt. He scooped it up, and, on his tiptoes, hurried into his own bedroom.

“Sam?” his father called from the other side of the front door. He rang the bell again.

Emptying out his shirt, Sam threw everything under his bed. He quickly undressed, and heard the chain lock rattling again.

The shower water was cold, but he stood under it for only a moment. Turning off the water, he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself. He was dripping wet when he opened the door for his father. “God, I'm sorry,” he said, still a little out of breath. He clutched the towel around his waist. “I didn't hear you. Were you out here long?”

His father smiled tightly. “Only about ten minutes,” he said, brushing past him. He set down his briefcase. “For God's sakes, Sammy, I'm not going to let you see
Psycho
again if you're this worried about taking a shower in the apartment alone. The dead bolt is more than enough security. You don't need the chain lock. I was about ready to break the door down.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Well, no harm done, I guess,” his father said, hanging up his trench coat in the front closet. He strolled into the kitchen and examined the mail Sam had left on the breakfast table for him. “So how was the last day of school?” he asked. “Did Mitzi like her present?”

Sam shrugged. “Yeah. She liked it okay.” He held on to the towel and stared at his father.

“Who was your Secret Santa? What'd you get?”

“Ellen Shriver. She gave me a paperback,
The Catcher In the Rye
.”

“You've read that already, haven't you?” His father loosened his tie, then opened the cupboard.

“Yeah, but it was your copy. Now I've got my own.”

He grabbed the aspirin from the shelf and shook a couple of pills into his hand. Then he looked at Sam. “What is it?” he asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Sam blinked. “Like what?”

“Like I'm sprouting horns or something. Is anything wrong?”

“No, of course not,” Sam replied.

“Don't you think you ought to dry off and get dressed?”

“Oh.” He glanced down at the puddle he'd made on the floor. “Oh, yeah, sure.”

Sam retreated to his bedroom and dried himself off. The corner to one of the photographs stuck out from under his bed, and he pushed it beneath the dust ruffle with his toe. As he stepped into his undershorts, his father passed by the open door and went into his own bedroom.

“I hope you haven't been in here today,” he called.

It took a moment for Sam to answer. “No, I haven't, Dad.” He put on his shirt and listened. His father was opening the closet door. Hangers rattled.

Sam reached for his pants. He heard a drawer squeak open.

“
Sam?
”

“Yes?” he called back nervously.

“How's about doing your tired old dad a big favor and running to the video store for me? I feel like
It's a Wonderful Life
tonight. How about you? Or do you already have something cooked up with Craig?”

“No, the movie sounds great, Dad,” he called.

Wandering into his bedroom in a T-shirt and baggy striped undershorts, his father handed him a five-dollar bill. “Thanks. Don't go out until after your hair's dry.” He kissed Sam on the forehead, then went into the bathroom and shut the door. A minute later, Sam heard the shower start up.

 

The video store was just two blocks away, and when Sam returned with the movie, his dad was getting dressed. If he suspected something, he certainly didn't act like it. They phoned for pizza and ate in front of the TV. Sam had seen the movie so many times, he knew most of the lines by heart. His father said some of them out loud with the actors. But Sam was quiet. He kept wondering why his father never told him that he'd been a gym teacher in Portland. And then there was that brunette woman in the photographs. Was she his real mother? Was she Eve or maybe A.M.?

James Stewart and Donna Reed stared dreamy-eyed at each other during the school dance. “He never really dates anybody except her,” Sam said. They sat on the couch, their feet up on the coffee table. “You'd think he'd at least give Violet Bick a tumble while Mary's away at school.”

His dad chuckled. “Too busy with the Building and Loan, I guess.”

“You ever have any girlfriends before Mom?” Sam asked, with a sidelong glance at his father.

“No one serious.”

“
What'd you wish, George?
” Donna Reed asked. She wore an oversize bathrobe, and James Stewart sported an undersize Number 3 football jersey and padded pants.

“Well, not just one wish. A whole hatful, Mary…I'm shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet, and I'm going to see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon…”

“But he never gets out of Bedford Falls,” Sam remarked. “You ever feel that way about Santa Rosa? Getting out, I mean.”

“Sometimes,” his father said, staring at the screen.

“But you didn't move away until after I was born?” Sam asked—ever so casually.

“Mm-hmm, except for a couple of years away at college.”

“You went to school in Portland, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you went back to Santa Rosa after you graduated?”

“That's right.”

“And you didn't ever move away again?”

His father sighed. “No, not until I came up here with you. Sammy, what's with the questions? Don't you want to watch the movie?”

“Yeah, sure. Sorry,” he muttered. But instead of looking at the TV, he glanced back at the picture on the wall behind them. Now Sam knew that the “wedding portrait” was just one of many, many lies.

At one-thirty, Sam switched off the portable TV in his room. Suddenly, everything seemed so quiet; all he heard was the wind howling outside, and tree branches scraping against the living room windows. The bedroom was dark, except for a small oasis of light around his bed from the nightstand lamp.

He crept out to the dim hallway and glanced at the closed door to his father's room. He was asleep. Sam felt as if the whole city was asleep right now—and he was the only one awake.

Ducking back inside his room, he quietly closed the door. He pulled out what he'd stashed under the bed—some photographs, a folded-up page from a newspaper, a couple of postcards, and the letter he'd already read. He set everything on top of his pillow—under the light.

Most of the photos were of his father and the brunette woman—or just her alone. Sitting on his bed, Sam examined the date his father had scribbled on the back of each one. The earliest was August, 1973; the most recent was dated May, 1977—just a month before Sam was born. Sam turned the photo over: the lady was standing by a tennis net, a racket in her hand. The skimpy white dress she wore displayed her trim, very unpregnant figure.

Sam sighed. Well, she wasn't his mother; that much he knew. But obviously, the dark-haired lady was involved with his dad for several years, right up until the time he was born.

More than just involved. One of the postcards was almost definitely from her.
ALOHA
, it said on the front, across the belly of a homely Hawaiian lady in a grass skirt and lei. The card was addressed to his father—in Portland again:

The second postcard was to “
Mr. & Mrs. C.D. Jorgenson
,” at the same Portland address. The front of it bore a picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “
Dear Carl & Eve
,” it said in tiny print. Sam didn't read the whole thing. He got halfway through the day-by-day description of a tour through Europe, before he realized that the postcard did nothing but confirm that his father and
Eve
, the tennis lady, were indeed married—right up until a month before he was born. Yet if the date on that tennis picture was correct, Eve was not his mother.

Then who was his mother? And what had his father done to her?

Sam became aware of the faraway cry of a siren. Then it got louder. Closer. He sat up straight on the bed. The siren's volume was blaring now, and it seemed to pass just below his bedroom window. Then the sound faded away again—as quickly as it had come. Holding his breath, Sam listened for any noise next door in his father's room. Had the siren waked him? He stared down at the stolen “evidence” in the pool of light around his pillow. Sam wondered if he should pull the bedspread over it. But he waited, afraid the tiniest movement would carry into the next room and tell his father that he was up. He listened to the branches, still rubbing against the windowpanes in the living room. No other sounds. Even the wind was silent.

After a few minutes, Sam finally decided it was safe. He reached for the folded-up news clipping. It was worn and yellowed. The creases seemed ready to tear as he carefully unfolded a whole page from the
Seattle Times
. He read the date along the top:
“Saturday, November 1, 1977”
—a few months after he'd been born.

Sam scanned over the headlines, but he didn't see his father's name. There were two pictures—one of a slimy-looking man, the defendant in a murder-rape case. The other photograph was larger: a somewhat frumpy woman and her baby. “
BEFORE THE NIGHTMARE
,” the caption read. “
Paul McMurray took this photo of his wife, Amy, and their son, Edward, two weeks ago
.”

He looked at the headline: “
INFANT BOY ABDUCTED IN PORTLAND
.” For a moment, he couldn't breathe. He thought of his father, asleep in the next room. And he glanced at the photo caption once again.