By the time dessert was finished, a very creamy affair as I recall, all I really wanted was to get out of there. I needed the air. But you wouldn’t hear of me having a stroll.
‘I thought this was one of the safest cities in the world?’
‘But let’s not take any chances tonight, OK, Dad? The coffee won’t take long.’
I was all set to protest when Len or Lenny or was it Lev, the boss, arrived. He pulled up a chair beside me and seemed mighty interested in what I thought of the place.
‘It’s grand,’ I told him, throwing in a smile, knowing I was on show.
On the other side of me, Sadie enthused enough for the both of us, so I sat back and let her at it while my fingers drummed on my napkin.
‘You’ve got yourselves a fine boy here,’ Lev said, pointing over at you, smiling, showing off his perfect white teeth. ‘He’s going to be big. You heard it here first folks, that boy is going places.’
Sadie clapped her hands in delight. You beamed and laughed, and Rosaleen stretched her hand to yours. Me? I nodded to the tablecloth wondering how much longer. But I wish now I’d smiled over at you, given you a wink that said, ‘Sure, don’t I know.’
And then you took me to meet Chuck Hampton. It had been Lev’s idea apparently. He suggested I might like to go meet his friend the farmer. We left early one morning, passed the bench outside the post office and it wasn’t even light yet. We must’ve been on the road about two or three hours, listening to flashy news stations that seemed more interested in selling us things rather than news coverage, before we pulled into his place. I wasn’t sure if we were even in New Jersey any more.
‘You’re mighty welcome, sir.’
I was barely out of the car when that greeted me. I looked behind and a man of around sixty approached with an outstretched hand. I shook it. That hand said all I needed to know. The rough feel and the strong grip told me I’d found a piece of home. He spent the day with us, well me, anyway. You sat on the man’s porch with your laptop. I don’t remember at what stage it was, but you came running down to us in one of his red-painted barns saying you had to go for an hour or so to get better Internet coverage.
‘You need to go to Sully’s café. Three miles north, turn left at the tree stump.’
You looked at Chuck with a quizzical smile.
‘You’ll know it when you see it. Just head on out that way.’
‘Don’t be worrying, son,’ I told you, as you ran off waving your hand with that laptop in your other. ‘You take your time. I’m in no rush.’ I turned back to Chuck and all he was telling me about the heifer standing in front of me.
We drove his land. At times we got out to walk it. Picking up fistfuls of the soil and smelling it.
‘Lots of good Pike County sun and rain. No pesticides, just love and care.’
I reached for some and rubbed it, not the same richness as my own, drier and less dense but I couldn’t deny the man its quality. We walked among corn stalks and wheat and grass to see his herds beyond. You could’ve left me in those fields for the rest of the trip and I would’ve been happy to sleep under the stars with a smile on my face. Listening to the foreign sounds of that world. Coyotes instead of foxes, crickets instead of owls. It was into the afternoon before we returned to the house where I met his wife and a most welcome bowl of soup with what they called ‘biscuits’ on the side. Turns out they were scones, I corrected them on that.
You came back around four, all apologies.
‘I was just about to put this man to work,’ Chuck laughed, coming down off the porch to shake your hand.
‘I tried to call but I couldn’t get a signal.’ You held your phone up to the sky.
‘Yep, it’s a bit hit and miss out here. Come on in and have yourself a bite to eat.’
We sat on the porch for another half hour or so, with me mithering that poor man over prices and co-ops and seeding.
‘The big boys have it sown up, Maurice, if you’ll excuse the pun. Can’t use our own seeds no more. They sue anyone who does. Have to buy theirs. Good friend of mine Kurt Lettgo, a seeder out Mission way, was put out of business. His family been doing that for four generations.’
‘So let me get this straight, Mr Hampton,’ you interrupted, taking out your pen and that notebook you always carried, ‘you are compelled to buy someone else’s seeds?’
‘God’s honest. Go look it up. It ain’t no secret. It’s the law.’
Turned out it was that story ‘Seeds Unsown’ that won you that big award two years later. You sent us a framed picture of you being presented with it. Needless to say it got pride of place beside the telly. On the back you wrote:
To Dad with thanks. I’d never have gotten this if it weren’t for you.
It’s in the storage boxes, Kevin. Wrapped and packed safely.
‘Well, now this is some holiday,’ I said getting back in the car and waving to Chuck as we reversed. Chuck, who promised he’d take a trip to Ireland so I could return the hospitality. Never came, of course. But we exchange Christmas cards every year. His wife died a while back, a few years before Sadie. Still lives on the farm, although his nephew has taken it over. I wouldn’t mind a catch up to see how he’s fared. See if he’s handled the abandonment better than me.
When our holiday was over, I shook your hand with everything I had at the security gates in the airport. One of those ones where you hold the elbow as well. We stood there like that for a second until it got awkward.
‘Sure, we’ll see you back over beyond sometime,’ I said.
‘Absolutely. Christmas, hopefully. I’ll let you know.’
‘Do that,’ I patted your hand and released it, turning to put an arm around Sadie who sobbed her way through the security gates.
Sadie lived for your newspaper articles. Whatever you wrote, or said for that matter, she’d be telling everyone. Gone off to the library to find out more to confirm just how clever you were. Forest fires in California, Hubble, the purchase of Alaska. Me? I never asked a thing.
‘Is that right?’ I’d say, when she produced whichever paper you worked for back then. I’d lay it in front of me above the dinner plate and read the first line. I can still feel the cold sweat of my forehead even now as I sat there wishing instead for the simplicity of the price of sucklings. See, I never admitted to either of you about me and the dyslexia. Oh yes, I found out I wasn’t thick after all about ten years ago. A young one on a helpline I called after hearing Pat Kenny talking about it on the radio. Ten per cent of the population, she said. Would you credit that? But, it’s not that I can’t read, I can after a fashion, at my own pace with no one standing over my shoulder. I always found a way ’round things. I was a great one for losing the glasses at the right moment or complaining about the small print.
‘Isn’t that great now,’ I’d say, pushing your article away after I’d given it an acceptable amount of time. That was another good one of mine – lying.
‘Where did he get the brains from at all?’ Sadie might gush, then.
‘That would be your side.’
‘Do you think?’ she’d say, giving me her best modest smile.
You still bring me your articles when you come over. Putting them on the couch beside me or on my footstool. When I’m out of the room usually. But you never say a thing. Never ask if I’ve ever read them.
Since your mother died, I’ve noticed your trips home have become more numerous. Two or three times a year now. Checking up on me, what? Mostly it’s just you but sometimes herself and Adam and Caitríona come as well. When you’re on your own it’s only for a weekend or so. I always put the heat on in your old room to make sure it’s aired the night before and I leave the immersion on so you have the hot water whenever you want it. That’s a thing I remember about being over in the States, hot water whenever you like. Of course, as soon as you’re down the driveway on your way back west, I switch it off.