Oceans Apart (20 page)

He struggled to find his voice. “Yes, Max. Go play.” He listened to their silly chatter as they headed up the stairs.

“How was your plane ride?” The voice was Elizabeth’s, less childlike, and more to the point. “I hate the turbulence.”

“Yeah. Me, too. But this one was great. Not too bumpy.”

“Hey, guess what?” Susan wasn’t about to let Elizabeth have the upper hand in the conversation.

Connor felt a pang at his daughters’ determination to make Max feel welcome. How would they feel if they knew the truth?

Susan was rambling. “And then I also have Lego sets that make a plane and a spaceship.” Her voice faded as she must’ve run ahead of the others, intent on showing Max her entire Lego collection.

“Wow, could I play with it?”

Their voices grew too distant for him to make out. Only then did he remember to exhale. He needed to find Michele, needed to talk to her and see what she was feeling, why she left the family and went up to her room. Why couldn’t she have made even a little effort that night?

But first he had something to do.

He crept into his office and opened the top drawer of his filing cabinet. Tucked behind a dozen manila files was a small stack of three picture frames he’d hidden years ago. He pulled them out, careful not to bump them on the cabinet. Then he looked at the one on top. It was a picture of him and his father, taken at his graduation from West Point. The photo was always one of his favorites because his father looked so proud of him.

He studied it now, studied the way his arm hung loosely around his father’s shoulders. The way his other hand was linked to his dad’s in a handshake to mark the moment. He pulled the frame closer, looked intently at his father’s eyes. There had been no sign 153

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back then, no hint that one day the two of them would walk away from each other forever.

No sign except the obvious.

His father had often been proud of Connor’s accomplishments, but he couldn’t remember once when the man had been proud of him as a person. Proud just to call him his son. A memory began to take shape, one from the year before their falling out. Connor had been helping Elizabeth walk along a gravel path through his parents’ backyard garden at the ranch in Cambria.

“What are you doing out there?” His father had barked the words from a distance, his hands on his hips.

Connor remembered smiling, wishing his father would smile back. When the man’s mouth remained slack, Connor spoke up.

“Helping my little girl take a walk, Dad. Wanna join us?”

“You’ll spoil her, Connor. She’s two years old; she can walk by herself.” He walked away, shaking his head and muttering something about independence and knowing when to let go.

The thoughts that ran through Connor’s head that afternoon were the same ones that ran through his head now. How could it be right to build independence in a relationship with a two-year-old? Didn’t love factor into the formula anywhere? And wasn’t that why he hadn’t ever felt close to his father? Independent, yes. But close . . . definitely not.

Connor pushed the memory aside and set the picture back in his filing cabinet. Next was a photo of his entire family, taken either his sophomore or junior year in high school. His mother was in the center, the way she’d been when she was alive. Her smile was vibrant and alive, reaching his heart even through the grainy finish of a yellowed photograph. On either side of her sat his three sisters, each of them younger than he and only a year or so apart.

In the back, tall and proud, stood his father and him.

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The photographer that day had suggested that Connor sit beside his oldest sister. Two children on one side of their mother, two on the other. But Connor’s father wouldn’t hear of it.

“Connor’s a man, not a child,” he snapped. “He’ll be in the back with me.”

The words seemed as strange now as they had back then. Connor’s a man, not a child? How old could he have been, sixteen? Sev-enteen at the most? What was wrong with being a kid, anyway?

And maybe that was another problem with him and his father. The man had never looked at Connor the way Connor had looked at Max an hour earlier.

That look of love and adoration and awe all mixed up and shining from his father’s eyes was something Connor had never known, even in the best of times. Pride, yes, but love and adoration and awe, no.

He studied the eyes again, looked at the way his sisters seemed somewhat stiff and uptight. They were happy girls, all of them. And they’d grown up to have nice families, sweet children. But back then they had feared their father, no doubt. Yes, he could be the life of the party, whipping up a batch of ice cream, organizing a game of croquet. But he was the sergeant, the one in control at every gathering.

For the picture, he had ordered everyone to do exactly as the photographer said, and in minutes he turned their normally cheerful dispositions into a front of fear and high expectation.

How different might the portrait have looked if he’d simply taken his place and let the natural light in the eyes of his children shine through?

Connor looked more closely. Of all the eyes in the photo, his own were the hardest to read. If he was remembering right, that day had been difficult for him. Right before the portrait sitting, Connor’s best friend had moved across town with his family.

He might’ve been sixteen, but he remembered how his heart had broken in two when Mike Estes pulled away in his family’s van. All 155

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he’d wanted was to find a quiet place in the woods, somewhere to sit and think for a few hours. Instead, they had to get ready for the picture.

His father pulled him aside before the family gathered outside on the lawn and warned him about his attitude. “I’ll have none of this moping around stuff.” He straightened his jacket and dusted a bit of white fuzz off Connor’s sleeve. “You’ll be happy for the picture, and afterwards we’ll change out of our clothes and make some ice cream.” He hesitated. “Friends come and go in life, Connor. Get over it.” Connor stared at the photo, searching his old man’s eyes.
Is that
how you feel now, Dad? People come and go in life, and get over it?

Sadness flooded his heart, because the answer was obvious. Of course that’s how his father felt. Otherwise he would’ve found a reason to call by now, whether he’d changed his mind about the money or not. His silence over the years was further proof that he had never really connected with Connor in the first place.

Connor set the photograph with the other one in the back of the drawer, and closed his eyes for a moment. He could never feel that way about his own children, not his daughters nor his son.

Now that he’d met Max, if things didn’t work out and the boy had to be sent back to Hawaii, he would hurt forever from the loss.

Get over it? Connor couldn’t begin to imagine how.

He opened his eyes and looked at the third and final photograph. The moment his eyes connected with the image, he felt his heart skip a beat. This was the picture he’d been looking for, the reason he’d come into the office in the first place. It was a photo of his father as a boy, maybe eight or nine years old. What he saw in the frame told him what he had only suspected before.

Max was a mirror image of the man.

Yes, the boy looked like Connor, but the resemblance to his father was breathtaking. Connor stared at the image, at the young boy so fresh and untainted by the views he would later take on.

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“If only you’d kept a little of what you were as a boy, Dad.” Connor’s words were barely audible, and he narrowed his eyes. “You should see him; his name is Max, and Dad . . . he looks just like you.” The longer he stared at the image, the more his heart filled with sorrow. Sorrow and anger and frustration over everything in his life that hadn’t worked out. Not just the affair, or the way Michele had changed, or the idea that he’d fathered a child without ever knowing it. But the fact that his dad would never know he had a grandson.

And the pain that caused him as he stood there in his office, looking at pictures of his father, was one more thing Connor was sure he’d never get over. And it was then, standing there in a sea of realizations, that Connor made up his mind. He would call the pastor, after all. Not because he’d done anything wrong in the past eight years, but because he needed help figuring something out.

Something that, between his pain and Michele’s, he couldn’t sort through on his own.

How in the world to move forward.

157

SEVENTEEN

Max wasn’t afraid of the dark, at least not at home.

But this was his first night at his mother’s friend’s house, and nothing seemed right. Mr. Evans told all the kids to brush their teeth and go to bed, but he was pretty sure the girls were still up because he could hear girl voices down the hall.

Everyone had their own bedroom at the Evans’s house. Even him. Mr. Evans showed it to him after he finished playing Legos.

The bed was bigger than his whole room at home. If Buddy was here they both could’ve stretched out in it and still had room for Mommy to cuddle with him. Of course Mommy was gone now.

She wasn’t ever going to cuddle with him again.

He rolled over in the big bed and blinked. Light from the stars was bright in his window, and he squinted his eyes real small so he could see them. Was heaven out there somewhere? Just past the stars and the moon? It must be, because whenever people talked about heaven they looked up. And up had to be higher than the stars and moon.

But that meant there was another problem, because the stars and moon were very far away. His teacher told him so in class before he left for Florida. And if the stars and moon were very far away, that meant his mommy in heaven was even more far away. The thinking of it made his eyes get wet again. His eyes were always wet, because it wasn’t fair, that’s why.

He turned over again and thought about the Evans family.

They were nice to him. Susan’s Legos were better than Kody’s or Carl’s or any of the guys in Mrs. Watson’s second grade class. It was the best collection in the world probably.

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But something wasn’t okay with Mrs. Evans. She was more quiet than most mommies, and he wondered if she had a hurt tummy or a head pain. His mommy got head pains sometimes, and when that happened she didn’t smile very much. Of course not anymore, though. Because Ramey said in heaven you had no more pains or tears.

He smiled a little at that thought, because he was glad his mommy wouldn’t have head pains ever again.

The voices down the hall got louder than before, and Max had an idea. Maybe he could walk sneaky quiet out of the room and listen to what they were saying. He liked to do that sometimes when his mommy was on the phone, or when Christmas was coming and she had a friend over to help her wrap stuff.

But this was different. This was someone else’s house and maybe they wouldn’t like seeing him in the hall sneaky quiet, listening to what they were saying. But he really wanted to hear. Because maybe they were talking about him, and how he was feeling, and maybe if he heard their words, he could pop his head into the room for a minute and tell them himself.

The more he thought about the idea, the better it seemed.

Finally, he slipped his feet out of the giant bed and lifted them one at a time, as sneaky quiet as he could go. He opened the door with careful hands and pushed his head into the hallway. It was dark except for a light at the end.

Max was pretty sure that was Elizabeth’s room down there.

He took more quiet steps until he was only a very little bit from Elizabeth’s door. Then he stopped and leaned against the wall. His breathing was loud and so was his heartbeep. He waited for both of them to quiet down, then he started listening.

“I still don’t understand.”

Max did a big nod from his spot out in the hallway. Yep, that was Elizabeth. She had an older voice than Susan, plus also she was 159

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more serious. Serious meant you had a little trouble laughing about things.

Mrs. Evans made a sort of hurt sound. “Elizabeth, I’ve explained it the best way I know how. Daddy was friends with Max’s mother.

She was killed in a plane crash two weeks ago, and in her will she asked that Max be given a chance to spend a few weeks with us.”

“In her will? Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you, Mother?” Max’s heart started beeping louder. Were they fighting? About him? He looked down at his chest.
Okay, listen, heart . . . be quiet
down there
. He said the words in his head, and he breathed out hard, the way he’d seen Ramey do when she was upset. It worked, too, because his heartbeep got a little more quiet.

“Yes, Elizabeth, it seems strange to me. But it’s the truth. Max’s mother wrote a letter and asked her attorney to find Daddy. She wanted Max to spend two weeks here before he goes on with his life in Hawaii.”

Silent sounds came for a minute. “Did Daddy like Max’s mother?”

“Of course he liked her, honey. They were friends.”