I believe you knew. I have to think Mick would have told you. Or maybe you figured it out for yourself. There was nothing about the two of them that was the same. Nothing. But it worked. It was beautiful. I love them both for that. It could have gone so wrong. It could have been so much harder than it was. I was pretty lucky, after all, in my little unluckiness.
Mick’s real father? He was nobody, really, by which I don’t mean he wasn’t somebody in his own right (we all are at least that, aren’t we?). But besides that, he was just a boy who worked on a neighbor’s ranch one summer. He was from Fargo, and I think he was some kind of Scandinavian, like they are out there. He had the bluest eyes and the softest blond hair. He looked like James Dean. Of course I had to dig that out of my memory later on. Mick was sleeping in the backseat, and you weren’t even walking yet, and we were at the drive-in to see Giant. I nearly died. But your father was there. Of course I didn’t say anything. It was crazy, with Mick there right behind us and all. Just crazy. I felt like I was sitting on the electric fence, or like all my nerves were on the outside of my skin. It took me days to get over it, over wanting to feel like that again. If he’d showed up at the door, I would have taken him out to the barn. No question. Even now, maybe, though it’s probably impolite of me to say it. I can’t imagine you minding.
I told Mick when he was twelve or thirteen. He asked me because one of the kids at school — the son of one of my high school friends — called him a bastard. I was so angry, and I wanted to lie, but I didn’t. Mick was so smart you couldn’t lie to him (and I’ve always been a lousy liar anyway), and he wasn’t really even upset. He just wanted to know.
What is it I’m even trying to explain to you? I hate to think I’m making excuses for not being altogether present all the time, for not always (ever?) being entirely there even before Mick went off and disappeared. The thing was, I knew. And sometimes I could drag myself back, from wishing to be somewhere else, someone else. I remember I used to practice, actually in the mirror, how to talk to you the way I imagined I was supposed to. I’d say, “Riley, let me see your homework.” “Mick, does that girl’s mother know she’s riding on that motorcycle with you?” Sometimes I’d make myself laugh. Other times it would just open a hole in me. Because I didn’t know how. I was making it up. And even though now I recognize that’s what all parents do, when you’re in it, and everything you see or hear says you’re supposed to know, it just makes you feel wrong. Add to that how young I was, and how much I really did want to be, or at least be able to go, somewhere else, wanted Mick to really be my little brother, and for you to be his so I could escape, go off and be what I was meant to be. Glamorous and smart and educated and alone. Like Jackie Kennedy. If only for a little while. Then I could come back, knowing something different and exotic, and settle down. Be satisfied.
I would never have traded either of you for diamonds, but sometimes I wonder. I can’t help it. I can’t help but think of all the children born as that stupid war was ending who maybe wouldn’t have been. Hard to imagine, once another being enters your universe. But I don’t have to tell you, do I.
Or why we couldn’t keep him. I was still so cracked open over Mick. So close to blowing it the first two times. Your father wanted to keep Slim and raise him. He loved that baby so much. But he let me give him away. And Slim is fine. His other “grandpa” still writes. We got a letter just last week.
This probably isn’t fair, writing you now with all of this. Maybe I think if I tell you what I know you can use it to find your way back. Not here necessarily — I think you’re probably gone from here for good — just back from wherever you are. There was so much emptiness in your voice the last time I talked to you. I keep thinking I’m going to get a call someday. From San Francisco. From someone other than you.
Obviously, this is not where I was meaning to go with this, or maybe it was. Either way, here we are. I started out just wanting to explain something, like where I was when I should have been with you guys. All three of you. At home, appreciating my family instead of a million miles away or at the damn window, envying the hawks their wings, their freedom. Christ. I was, I am, so bad at so many things.
I used to think making love with that boy was my original sin, like in the Bible, the sin that had already started to make the rest of my life tumble over, little by little, like dominoes. When you fell off the roof and nearly died, and then when Mick left, even before they lost him, I felt like I was paying for those afternoons in the hayloft, for sneaking out at night to meet that boy by the river, shuck my clothes like a lizard slipping its skin. I couldn’t help myself even if I’d wanted to, and I didn’t want to. It’s all I could think about. I wanted to melt into him, melt him, like butter. Now I wonder if it was the same for you. The not being able to help it. The feeling like God was going to make me pay and pay.
I just met that boy, your young man, the one time, when he came looking for you. It was hard to lie, and I think he knew. I really am the worst liar, and with you in the next room, listening, that made it even harder. I remember he was handsome, though, and tall. What was his name? Something old-fashioned. Darrell. I think that was it. And he was a gentleman. Very polite. Shook my hand when he left. Called me ma’am. He brought a little bouquet of wildflowers and you tore them apart after he was gone, a petal or a leaf at a time, taking your time, and scattered them around the yard. You had a look, girl, that scared me. Now I know what it was. I wonder if my mother saw that same look in me. Like an animal bent on escape. You did it. You were determined.
And is it any wonder you both wanted to go? Not at all.
I know you would not have left Slim if I hadn’t talked you into it. I didn’t know I wasn’t going to be able to keep him here. But I was still holding on for dear life, and so desperately believed if I kept believing, did everything just right, one day Mick would walk up that driveway, kick the dust off his boots, kiss me hello, and go upstairs to his books and his records and his guitar and draw me a picture of wherever he’d been. Then you could come home, and I could have my second chance.
I want so badly to explain all this to you in a way that makes sense to both of us. This is me, Riley, your mom, trying to figure out how to do that and not mess it up any more than I already have.
Your father, on the other hand, just says to tell you hello. Your father sends his love. He misses you a lot. So do I. And Cash. He’s old now, can’t catch a rabbit anymore. But he still tries.
I hope this finds you. I think I hope that. Maybe it’s too much. I have no idea where you are. Call if you can. Collect is fine. Happy New Year, sweetie.
I love you, Mom
8. The Last Thing You Need
“S o this orphan walks into a bar,” Cole says, to make Riley laugh, although there is no more to it, just the one line. It is not a joke at all. He gives her his best Elvis look: blue eyes narrowed (eyelashes ridiculously long), head cocked slightly right and down, the merest rumor of a smile at one corner of his mouth. She is five, maybe six years older than he is, which is not quite twenty-one, but he has a fake ID she pretends to believe even though it is an obvious hack job.