The Queen of Sleepy Eye (33 page)

Sleepy Eye, Minnesota

Was I speeding, Officer … ?” I read his name tag. “Holstad?”

He walks around the car and returns to lean on the open window. “Nope, you weren't speeding.” He lifts the bill of his cap to Mom. “Ma'am.”

I came clean. “I did weave over the line a bit. The statue of Linus intrigued me. ‘Peanuts' is my favorite comic strip. I relate to Linus. He's so sweet and wise.”

He looks in the backseat. “Are you just passing through or planning to stay a spell?”

“My mom … this is Francie Moberly, and I'm Amy Tanabe, a student recruiter at Westmont
Christian
College and mother of three children. I give to the Santa Barbara Policeman's Ball every year, and I don't even dance. Sam, my husband, donates flowers to
decorate the tables. He grows the most amazing orchids you've ever seen.”

“Amy, you're babbling,” Mom says. “Tell him about the car.”

Officer Holstad narrows his gray eyes at me. “Ma'am, may I see your license and registration, please?”

I release the seat belt to search the glove compartment. Mom pushes me away. “I can get it.” She finds the registration, finally, folded inside the map of Iowa.

“The car is registered to my mother,” I tell Holstad, handing him the papers. “We're here on a bit of a mission.”

Mom leans over me to talk to Holstad. “Look, policeman, sir, my daughter had nothing to do with stealing this car. She wasn't even born yet.”

“That's interesting.” He studies my driver's license. “California? Hmm. I'll just be a minute.” He saunters to his car where he fiddles with something below the dash, probably a laptop linked to every database known to man. Dread tiptoes up my spine.

“Is there a statute of limitations on car theft in Minnesota?” I ask Mom.

“How am I supposed to know?”

“You didn't check? Oh boy, this is going to be bad.”

Officer Holstad returns to the car all smiles. “Ladies, I can't tell you how happy I am you've finally returned to our fair little town of Sleepy Eye.”

“You don't understand, I've never—”

“If I had a key to the city, I'd give it to you.” He squats to talk to us eye to eye. “You see, I'm retiring next week, and you could say I've been waiting for you to drive into town for, let's see …”

“Fifty-one years?” I ask.

His smile disappears. “I would have resigned years ago if I'd
waited that long. No, Ole Swenson has been hounding me for twenty years.” He rubs his chin. “Yep, he started calling me right after I got my bars. His mind just sort of slipped into neutral, if you know what I mean. He calls every day, mind you, to report this very car stolen.”

“I can explain everything,” I say. “Mom, tell him.”

He stands, his hand resting on his substantial gun holster. “No, not yet you don't. There's a boatload of people at the station house who'd love to hear what you've got to say. Would you ladies step out of the car, please?”

I deeply regret not bailing on this adventure back in Barstow. “Can I call my husband? It will just take—”

“There will be plenty of time for phone calls after you girls have given your statement.”

I pull up on the door handle. The officer is nine feet tall. “Our statements? Are we in trouble, Officer Holstad, sir?”

Holstad ushers me to the cruiser with a hand to my elbow. “We'll have to hear your story now, won't we?”

Mom double steps to face Officer Holstad. “I told you, she had nothing to do with stealing the car. It was all my idea.”

“This is going to be better than I thought,” he says, tossing his pen and catching it.

His cavalier attitude irks me. “You know, sir, I've never gotten a ticket in all the years I've been driving. There was a parking ticket a few years ago, but I'd forgotten to put the juror sticker on the dash. Just a misunderstanding, you see. The defendant got ninety-six years for resisting arrest and endangering a police officer.”

Holstad opens the back door of the cruiser and motions for us to enter. A steel mesh separates the front seat from the back, but more troubling are the stains darkening the upholstery.

“Would you mind if Mom and I drove to the station in the car?” I ask, nodding toward the Pontiac.

A wry smile plays at his lips. “It's just a precaution, ma'am.”

“Maybe I should lock the Pontiac.”

He puts his hand on my head and presses me into the cruiser. “Auto theft isn't all that common here in Sleepy Eye.”

I spread tissues on the seat to protect my jeans from whatever unthinkable fluid stains the seats. Mom refuses the tissues I offer. She shifts roles and becomes a tour guide, even though most of the businesses on the main street are empty. “That used to be Peterson's drugstore. My friend, Lynette—and boy, was she a homely little thing—she and I shared Cokes there every Friday after school. Oh, the dime store closed. They had a small fabric department in the back. I bought remnants to make skirts and blouses. I did all of the sewing by hand. There's the butcher shop, and the library, and Larsen's Department Store. I bought my first bra there.”

“Mom,” I plead.

“What? Every young woman has to have a first bra. I'm sure the fine officer knows that, don't you Mr. Policeman, sir?”

“Not my department,” he says tight-lipped.

Officer Holstad turns right and parks in front of a blockish building completely devoid of ornamentation. It seems the people of Sleepy Eye are sensible above all else. I can't open the back door from the inside.

Officer Holstad leads us down a hallway lined with glass-walled offices. “Hey, Hanson,” he calls to a woman reading a magazine in front of a telephone. “You gotta hear this. Meeting in the break room. Nelson! Hang up the phone. We got us a couple suspects here. Bring your steno pad, Olson. We're taking a statement in the break room.” He turns to us. “You ladies won't mind if I get my wife down here,
will you? She works at the nursing home where they put Ole Swenson, Carl's old man.”

“The more the merrier,” Mom says. “We do have a plane to catch in Minneapolis tomorrow.”

“We should be done by then.”

“Johnson, get these ladies something to drink. I'm running out to Golden Acres to pick up Helga.” He points at Johnson's nose. “And don't you dare start without me.”

Johnson weighs about sixty-five pounds. His holster is empty. I could take him if things go bad. Holstad heads back down the hall to retrieve his wife. I follow him. Excuse me,” I say to Holstad as he pushes through the door. We stand by his cruiser. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

He stands with hands on hips. John Wayne was less imposing.

“The disappearance of the Pontiac is related to a rather personal issue for the son of Ole Swenson. Is Carl the kind of person who would want a roomful of city workers and their families to know about his past?”

Officer Holstad sighs heavily and turns to go back inside. “Probably not.”

* * *

MOM PULLS ME into a stall in the station's ladies' restroom. She whispers, but there's desperation in her voice. “You were right. You have to meet Carl by yourself.”

I should be relieved. I'm not. “Wait a minute. You promised—”

“You made me beg.”

“Please, Mom, I need you with me.”

“I'm not being vindictive … to you. To Carl, well, that's another story. My motivation, and I'm not proud to admit it, was to show Carl
just what he missed by not marrying me, but that attitude doesn't honor Christ, and it certainly doesn't reflect my love for Chuck. I just can't go.”

The restroom door opens and closes. A pair of sturdy shoes and thick ankles stop in front of the stall. “Officer Holstad sent me in here to remind you ladies that your meeting with Carl Swenson is set for three, so you better finish up whatever the two of you are doing in there.”

I open the stall door. “We aren't doing anything. We're talking.”

Mom pulls the stall door closed. “And I want to pray for my daughter … alone.” Mom embraces me. Her hair tickles my nose. “Jesus, our precious Savior, give Amy a big, fat portion of your grace to see her through this meeting with her father. You are her sufficiency in all things and her true Father. I pray that Carl won't be a poop. In Jesus' name, amen.”

I kiss Mom's cheek. “You're sure you won't come?”

“This is your day,
fofa.
”

* * *

OFFICER HOLSTAD GIVES me directions to the park where I'm meeting Carl. I park the Pontiac in front of a dapper colonial where I can observe the man who is my father and gather my courage to meet him. I feel myself sliding back through time. I'm seventeen and his absence has eroded a gaping hole in my heart. I grip the steering wheel to steady my hands. “Stay with me, Amy, old girl.”

Carl sits on a bench near the bottom of a long grassy slope. Before him, Sleepy Eye Lake is etched by a fickle breeze that leaves the surface both serenely glasslike and racing toward the far shore. There's nothing serene about what's going on in my chest. My heart pounds with the urgency of the rippling water. It's not too late to shift the
Pontiac into reverse and resurrect my fantasies of a nice Portuguese father who died, as young people do, tragically. H comes to mind, and a familiar ache grips my heart. I rest my head on the steering wheel.

I picture myself driving to the Minneapolis airport to leave the Pontiac in extended parking. Clearly, more than a smidgen of Minnesotan sensibility courses through my veins, thanks to Carl Swenson, which explains why Mom and I see things—
everything
— differently. I couldn't leave the car in extended parking any more than I could walk away from an opportunity to meet my father.

Lord, strengthen me by your example to love Carl Swenson no matter
what happens.

I feel good about this prayer. Love is the currency of God's kingdom. I'm rich that way, a true gazillionaire. I can meet this man, hear his voice without deflating like a pricked balloon, and walk away knowing I'm loved by my heavenly Father and a whole slew of people who think I'm terrific. Carl is only a man, the donator of twenty-three chromosomes toward who I am. He could be a very nice man. In fact, he probably is. I hear the Minnesotan winters make a man appreciate life. There's a good chance he sings in the church choir. Maybe I got my musical talent from him. Cruel people don't go to weekly practices to stand before a church full of people to sing. Perhaps he doesn't go to church. Maybe he's tone deaf. That's okay. Lauren's tone deaf and she loves me.

Then why am I still sitting in the car?

Carl is a big man—thick around the middle, broad at the shoulders, tall sitting down. The sun glints off his wavy hair. That answers the question about my unmanageable mop.

Thanks a lot, Carl.

He shifts. His right leg bounces. Are butterflies river-dancing in his gut too? Does he think I'll show up at his Thanksgiving table?
That I want a piece of the Swenson legacy? An apology for fathering me? A push on the swings?

I smack the steering wheel with my palm. “Don't overanalyze this. Just get out of the car and be nice to the man.”

I can do that.

I open and close the car door noiselessly. Why I think I must surprise him, I'm not sure, although it would be a shame to drive all this way to have him bolt across the lawn into the trees. Or would it? As I near, I see his hair is mostly silver with remnants of blond, and someone has pressed creases into the sleeves of his golf shirt. I don't iron Sam's shirts. I suppose if he played golf … no, I would never iron a golf shirt. I like the soft pebbliness of Sam's shirts, of him.

Carl turns toward the sound of leaves crunching under my feet. There are my big nose and eyes right in the middle of his face. Another mystery solved, only
his
head is big enough to do my features justice. He looks great. Fatherly. Very Norwegian.

He stands. “Amy?”

I morph into an Avis counter girl. “There's your car. Mom …
Francie
wanted to deliver the car herself, but I … well, she's waiting at the police station. Thank you for not filing charges.” I hold the keys out to him. “I filled the tank in Springfield.”

“Can you sit with me for a minute?” He extends his hand. It's smooth and doughy, yet strong. “I'm Carl.” He wipes off the bench with a hankie from his pocket. I thank him and sit on the edge of the bench, rod-straight, ready to flee. I beseech the woman in me to act her age.

“Have you had a good life?” he asks.

“Yes, I have. And you?”

He studies my face.

“I don't look like my mother,” I say.

“You're lovely. I suppose you're married and have children.”

“I'm a grandmother.”

He frowns, doing the math no doubt.

“I was eighteen when my first daughter was born, and no, I wasn't married.”

“That must have been difficult for you,” he says, squinting into the sun.

“Loving my daughter was easy. Forgiving myself proved much tougher.”

“Then we have something in common.”

“We do?”

He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Your mother was a brave girl, Amy. I gave her money and a map to a doctor in Minneapolis who would take care of our little mistake.” He raises his eyebrows to emphasize the word
mistake
. “My parents were out of town, so I let Francie drive the Pontiac and face the procedure alone. I told her I had something else to do, probably something terribly important like a lake party or a pick-up softball game. In reality, I can't remember what was so important. Maybe it was nothing at all.

“When she didn't return with the car, I panicked. The Lord knows I ran every conceivable story through my head to appease my father, but I knew I would have to face him and tell him what I'd done. So I did the only manly thing left to me: I ran away to join the army.