I Was Here(46)
Author: Gayle Forman

Except that I don’t want it to! I shoot upright in the bed. I put my hand over my heart, which is beating so hard, as if protesting my thoughts. It is not happening, I tell myself. You did not take poison. You would not take poison.

With trembling hands, I grab my phone. Ben picks up right away. “Are you okay?” he asks.

As soon as he asks it, I am. If not okay, then better. The panic subsides. I’m not Meg catching that final bus, an anonymous voice whispering in my ear. I’m alive. And I’m not alone.

“Are you okay?” he repeats. And it’s a real voice. Solid. If I needed him to be right here with me, he would be.

“I’m okay,” I say.

Ben’s quiet on the line, and I just stay there, listening to the sound of him, comforted by his presence, by the sound of his breathing. We stay like that for a while, until I’m calm enough to go to sleep.

35

I meet Ben at the car at seven with a box of donuts and two coffees.

“What are we, cops?” he asks.

“We are sort of on a stakeout.”

Ben holds up a piece of paper. “I got gas. And directions to your dad’s place in Truckee.”

Dad. Dad’s place. It’s a foreign concept. Like we’re driving to the moon. “Thanks.”

He holds out the paper, and for a second I hesitate. Harry had said that my father had lived at six different addresses over the last ten years. It had given me a bad feeling, though I wasn’t sure if it was because I was scared I wasn’t going to find him, or scared of just what I might find.

I snatch the paper from Ben.

“You want the wheel?” he asks.

I shake my head. Too nervous.

Ben seems to get this because once we’re on the road, he goes all chatty, telling me about growing up in a snowboarding mecca like Bend but never having enough money to hit the slopes, so he and his brothers would do crazy things, like outfit their skateboards and ride them down snowy mountains. “My older brother Jamie broke both his elbows one time.”

“Ouch.”

“Bend’s a lot like Truckee. Hippie redneck outdoorsy types.”

I nod.

“Here, we’re off the highway now. Direct me.”

A few minutes later we pull up in front of a dilapidated redwood house. The front yard is littered with crap, a rusting lawn mower, a bunch of kids’ plastic toys, a couch with stuffing coming out of it.

“Is this him?”

“This is the address Harry gave me.”

“Do you want to go in?”

I look at the grubby front yard. This is not the nice house of the nice man with the nice family I’d painted for myself. Maybe Harry’s information is out-of-date.

“Or, we could just wait,” Ben says. “See who comes out.”

Yes. That. I nod.

We park the car across the street. Ben drinks his coffee and goes through about six donuts. I watch as the house wakes up. Lights go on. Blinds snap up. Finally, after about an hour, the front door yawns open, and a girl comes out. She’s younger than me, maybe fourteen, and she seems sullen as she halfheartedly picks up some of the crap off the lawn. A little while later the door opens again and out toddles a little kid in a T-shirt and a diaper. The girl picks up the kid. I watch, confused. Is the girl his daughter? Is the baby his? Or does the baby belong to the girl? Or is it the wrong house?

“You want me to go to the door?” Ben offers.

“As what?”

“I dunno. A traveling salesman?”

“Selling what?”

“Whatever. Cable TV. Makeup. God.”

“You need nicer clothes if you’re peddling the Almighty.”

As we contemplate what to do, a low rumbling grows louder and louder until it’s like an explosion, the telltale sound of a Harley-Davidson. It pulls up right next to us, and we both slink down in our seats. The chopper passes and turns into the driveway of the house, where it revs a few times, making the baby scream in fright. The girl picks up the kid and starts yelling at whoever’s on the bike. The rider turns off the noisy engine, and pulls off the helmet. A guy. He has his back to us, so I can’t see him, but I can see the hatred reflected on the girl’s face. The front door bangs open, and a woman with short black hair comes out, a cigarette in one hand, a sippy cup in the other. Stubbing out the cigarette, she picks up the baby and starts arguing with the motorcycle guy.

I watch all of this like it’s a movie. The motorcycle guy and the woman keep arguing. She hands him the baby, who starts screaming, so he hands it directly over to the girl. The woman says something, and he slams his hand against the seat of his chopper. Then he turns away, looking right at me, but he doesn’t see me. But I see him. I see his hair, the same chestnut color as mine, and his eyes, almond-shaped and hazel-gray, just like mine, and his skin, olive, just like mine.

Just like mine.

There’s more shouting. The teen girl sets the baby down and stomps off crying. Then the baby starts wailing. The woman picks it up and carries it inside, slamming the door, and soon he follows, slamming the garage door.

Ben looks at me. Looks back at the house. Looks back at me. Shakes his head.

“What?” I say.

“It’s weird.”

“What is?”

He glances back at the house, back at me. “He looks like you, but that could be my dad.”

I don’t say anything.

“Are you okay?” he asks after a bit.

I nod.

“Do you want to go in? Or come back later when they’ve maybe calmed down?”

When I was little, I liked to imagine my father as a businessman, an airplane pilot, a dentist, someone different. But he’s not different at all. He’s exactly what I knew he’d be. I shouldn’t be surprised. All along Tricia has called him the sperm donor. He was probably some one-night stand I was the accidental product of. There’s no fairy-tale reason why he never visited or answered my email or even sent me one lousy birthday card. I’ll bet he has no idea when my birthday is. Why would he? That would imply that my existence matters to him.

“Let’s go,” I tell Ben.

“Are you sure? He’s right there.”

“Let’s go.” My words snap. Ben doesn’t say anything else. He pulls a U and we go.

36

Once we’re back on the highway, it’s like someone has vacuumed the Cody out of me. Ben keeps giving me these worried looks, but I avoid them. I avoid him. I scrunch my sweater into a ball against the window, and eventually, I fall asleep.