Authors: Kevin O'Brien
Only Son
Inside the car, Amy sat behind the wheel and pored over every postcard again. The most recent was dated six weeks before:
Can recite the alphabet now, and counts to ten. But doesn't know what it means yet. Talkative and energeticâalmost to excess. But a good boy. 36 lbs, 34 inches
.
Amy wished she could hear what Eddie sounded like as he spoke the alphabet. She didn't know his voice. Was his hair still that golden blond shade? His eyes had changed from blue to hazel green after the first couple of months. Were they still that same misty color of the sea or had they changed again? She wondered if she'd even recognize him now.
She would. And the day would come when she'd see her son again. Amy knew thatâas surely as she'd known he was alive all this time.
Praise for Kevin O'Brien and ONLY SON:
“O'Brien's compassionate approach makes this first novel suprisingly engagingâ¦handled with grace and empathy.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“A fast-paced, powerful novel.”
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
“A deep and moving story full of surprises.”
DETROIT FREE PRESS
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This book is for Adele, Mary Lou, Cathy,
Bill, and Joanâwith love, from the guy who is
very lucky to be their kid brother
.
Many people helped me with this book, and I didn't have to sleep with any of them. My thanks and love goes to Mary Alice Kier and Anna Cottle, my agents, literary guardian angels, and dear friends, who never lost their vision for this book.
I'm also grateful to John Scognamiglio, my editor at Kensington Publishing, and a terrific guy.
To my friend, Stephanie Ogle, of Cinema Books in Seattle, for introducing me to Mary Alice and Anna; to family and friends, especially those who read early drafts of this book and came back with “atta boys” or suggestions for improvement: Joan O'Brien, Mary Lou Kinsella, George and Sheila Kelly Stydahar, Dan Monda, Kate Kinsella, Shannon Russell, John Bentz, and my dad, The Honorable William O'Brien.
Thanks also to the following moviemakers whose interest in this novel has me feeling incredibly honored: David Seltzer, Ken Pressman, and John Pielmeier.
Near last but not least, I couldn't have written this book without my “Writers Group” authors and buddies: Bonny Becker, David Buckner, and my dear, dear pal, Cate Goethals.
Finally, thanks to Adele Beven O'Brien (1915â1992) for being such a wonderful mom.
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Sam didn't know there was a cop car behind him until he saw the flashing red strobe in his rearview mirror. All at once, he couldn't breathe, and his heart pounded furiously. He switched on his indicator, then pulled over to the side of the road
.
Until tonight, he hadn't driven much farther than the mall and back. But he'd just put close to three hundred miles on his mother's Toyota; five hours from Seattle to Eugene. He'd been secretly planning this trip for a month. What had made him think he could get through it without an accident or a cop stopping him? Now his mom would find out that he'd come here, and it would kill her
.
The patrol car pulled up behind him. Sam squinted at the headlights in his rearview mirror. He watched the cop get out of the car, but could only see his silhouette: a baseball player's stocky-muscular build. As the cop approached the Toyota, he switched on his flashlight, then Sam couldn't see him anymore
.
“Can I see your license and proof of insurance?” the officer said, very authoritative. His face was still swallowed up in the shadows
.
“Yes, sir.” Sam fumbled with the seat belt and reached back for his wallet. “I've never been stopped by the police before. IâI'm a little nervous.” He still couldn't breathe right. He noticed the cop direct the flashlight to his gym bag on the seat beside him. WEST SEATTLE HIGH SCHOOL was emblazoned across it. He pried the license out of his wallet, then handed it to the cop. “This is my mother's car,” he explained. “I'm sorry, but I don't know where she keeps the proof of insurance.”
“Ink on this driver's license is barely dry,” the cop said. “You're sixteen?”
“Yes.” Sam tried to smile into the blinding flashlight
.
“Pretty far away from home, aren't you? Does your mother know where you are?”
“Yessir,” he lied
.
“What exactly are you doing down here?”
Sam was afraid he'd ask that. He made up a story about visiting his cousin, who was going to show him the University of Oregon campus. “I might go to school here,” he said
.
The cop finally turned off the flashlight. “The reason I stopped you, Sam, was that you were weaving slightly and seemed to have difficulty staying in your lane.”
“I'm sorry. I'm kind of lost. I've been trying to read the street signs.”
He really was lost. He might have asked his dad for directions. But Sam wasn't even supposed to talk to his father, much less visit him
.
“Um, are you going to give me a ticket?” Sam asked
.
“Just a warning,” the policeman replied, handing back the license. “Watch where you're going.”
“I will, thanks. Um, can you tell me where Polk Street is?”
It was where his dad lived, a big secret. He wasn't supposed to know
.
“Polk Street?” the cop said. “Yeah, you're only five minutes away. What's your cousin's address?”
The cop was right. It didn't take Sam long to find Polk Street. But he didn't like what he saw. He drove past lot after lot of neglected lawns, and run-down houses and apartment buildings
. God, please, don't let my dad live here,
he thought. He kept waiting for the neighborhood to get nicer. Then again, his father must have gotten out of jail less than a year ago. He probably couldn't afford to live someplace nice
.
Sam wondered if prison had made him mean. Would he look like someone who had “done time”? Maybe he was a wino, or a drug addict, or he'd gotten a bunch of really creepy tattoos while he was in jail. Sam didn't want to think about his dad in there. He didn't want to think of him as a baby snatcher either. But that was what Sam's real father called him: that bastard, that pervert, that baby snatcher
.
Sheila, his stepmother, was the one who had let it slip that he was in Eugene. She'd had a few too many beers at a barbecue during one of his bogus “family weekends” in Portland last month. Sam remembered feeling trapped as he sat across from her and his real father at the picnic table. Both of them had on “I'M WITH STUPID
T-shirts. They were oblivious to their two younger sons, fifty feet away, throwing rocks at each other. Sam's bratty half sister, Brandy, the preteen queen, had wandered off with some of her delinquent friends
.
“Well, I for one don't feel safe,” Sheila said, puffing on her Virginia Slims. “I mean, Eugene isn't so far. Okay, so he's not allowed in the same state as Sam. But we live in Oregon, and Sam stays with us at least once a month. So how come they let this crazy live in Eugene?”
“Drop it, will ya, hon?” her husband said in a low voice
.
“You're the one who started talking about how laws are made to protect the criminal. I was just agreeingâ”
“I started the talk, and I'm finishing it,” he said firmly
.
Sheila looked ready to give him an argument, but just then, the nine-year-old, Todd, bounced a rock off his younger brother's forehead. There were screams and tears, some blood, too. Sheila puffed on her cigarette and inspected the cut on the younger boy's forehead. She handed him a napkin to soak up the blood
.
Little Todd stared at the ground while his father yelled at him: “Hey, shit-for-brains, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“I'm sorry!” Todd cried miserably. “I'm really, really sorry. It was an accident!”
Sam's heart went out to the kid. But his father, clutching a beer and shaking his head at the boy, wasn't moved by the tears. “Hey,” he called to Sam. “What should I do with this brat, huh? Maybe smack a rock on his head, see how he likes it⦔
“I'll take him for a walk, Dad,” Sam said, grabbing Todd's hand. He frowned at the boy's father, their father. He had to remind himself that the creep now on his way to the cooler for another beer had sired him, and that the “crazy” in Eugene was indeed a criminal
.
When the heinous weekend ended, he returned home and sneaked a peek at his mother's daily planner. Under the “J” section, he found a Polk Street address in Eugene, Oregon; but there was no name written above it
.
He passed a 7-Eleven that must have been a dividing line between Polk Street's high- and low-rent areas, because suddenly the neighborhood became cleaner. Lawns were tidy, flower boxes decorated windows, and stately houses stood next to apartment buildings that had what people called Old World charm. Sam wondered if he'd passed his father's address a while backâbefore the 7-Eleven
.
Then he saw the building, about a block ahead. He couldn't see the number, but he knew. It was a three-story, tan brick building with an awning over the front door, probably built during the thirties. He'd grown up in an apartment building very much like this one. In fact, the similarity was eerie
.
He parked across the street from the place and saw the numbers over the door. It was the right address. He didn't like it that his father had found a new home so similar to the one they had shared years ago. It was as if his dad wanted to repeat the past or something. The phrase, repeat offender, came to mind, and Sam tried to block it out. His dad would never repeat what he'd done sixteen years ago. Never
.