Watcher

by Valerie Sherrard

  “I was just wondering, uh, about this afternoon.”

  “You mean because I didn’t get high with you?”

  “Yeah. I know what you told me, but I thought there might have been more to it than that.”

  “Nope. That was the whole thing. I had a bit of trouble with it a while back — I was messing up a lot. I had to quit.”

  “Oh.” She fell silent for a minute. Then she said, “I don’t toke that much.”

  I wasn’t sure what kind of response she was looking for there.

  “Like, when I told Mick I’d smoked the whole gram, that wasn’t true. I just wasn’t passing it over to them. I still have more than half of it left.”

  “Yeah? When did you get it?” If it was, like yesterday or something, that was nothing to brag about.

  “I’m not sure. One day last week.”

  The joint she’d smoked earlier had been slender enough that for sure she’d be getting six of them out of a gram. If she smoked three of them in a week that could still mean she was getting high every day, assuming she just smoked half at a time, like she had in the afternoon.

  “Why?” It was like she could hear me thinking it through. “Is that a problem?”

  “It’s not a problem for me,” I said.

  “I mean, I don’t have to do it. I’m not a big stoner or anything.”

  I thought of how cute she’d been doing her silly Roastin’ the Ghetto Bootie dance. Of how she’d beckoned me to her on the balcony and how her mouth had parted lazily when I kissed her. I wondered how much of that was her and how much was the weed.

  “If you were thinking of hanging around, that is,” she added, breaking into my thoughts.

  “Yeah, I was — if you wanted me to,” I said. “And it’s no big deal either way. I’m not telling anyone what to do.”

  She smiled and stepped in a bit closer, touching the back of her hand against mine. I took hold of it, and right away she made her trademark little Mmm sound.

  Everything was perfect. And then I saw him.

  chapter twenty-two

  I must have stiffened up because Lavender turned to me right away with questioning eyes and asked what was wrong.

  “That’s the guy who’s been following me,” I said, “the one coming out of Won Stop.”

  Won Stop is a combination convenience store and Chinese take-out. Nothing fancy — just basic things like egg rolls, fried rice, chow mien, and stuff like that, ready to serve from a hot buffet table.

  The Watcher had emerged from there with a newspaper rolled up under one arm and a brown paper bag clutched in the opposite hand. He gave himself away almost immediately by looking over at me. When he saw that I was staring straight at him, he looked away in a quick, jerky movement.

  “That’s your father?” Lavender asked.

  “I don’t know. Not for sure. But he’s been following me for a while.”

  “It looks like he’s just getting something to eat,” she said doubtfully.

  “That’s the kind of thing he does to, you know, cover up. But I catch him all the time. He’s a bit of an amateur.” Like I was used to being followed by professionals. “You keep watching and you’ll see. He’ll give himself away by looking at me.”

  The words were hardly out of my mouth when he took another quick glance my way, just like he’d done a minute before.

  “So, let’s go talk to him,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Let’s go talk to him. Tell him you know he’s been watching you and find out what his game is. If that’s your father, you want to know for sure, right?”

  Something happened to my determination to talk to this guy. I did want to know, but my stomach clenched at the thought of talking to him. I suddenly realized that I wasn’t as ready as I’d thought. Not yet.

  “Hurry up,” Lavender urged, pulling me along with her, “he’s going to get away.”

  It was true he was walking quickly, heading toward my street. I figured he knew we’d made him, and he was planning the same dumb ruse he’d used before, pretending he lived in the building on my street.

  “I’m pretty sure I know where he’s headed,” I said, even though I knew full well that if he went into the building it would be hard to find him again until he came back out. That was fine with me. It would buy me time without forcing me to admit my reservations to Lavender.

  But with her propelling me along we kept gaining on him. By the time he turned off the sidewalk toward the building (just as I’d predicted), he was only about ten feet ahead of us.

  There was nothing I could do as Lavender dragged me forward, through the lobby and over to the elevators.

  I have to say the guy looked nervous when we got into the elevator with him. Lavender nudged me and I knew she meant I should say something, but my throat had constricted and I couldn’t have spoken if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t.

  We stopped at the seventh floor and, with an uneasy glance in our direction, the guy stepped off. Right behind him was Lavender, who didn’t notice I hadn’t followed until it was too late. Frozen in place, I caught a glimpse of her startled face as the doors slid the last couple of inches and closed completely. And then it was moving — a slight lurch and it continued upward with me still on board.

  I swear, I hadn’t planned to do that — it just worked out that way. So there I was, rising alone through the building, totally numb. It could have been happening to someone else.

  I couldn’t believe how close I’d just come, or that, after spending so much time thinking about it, I’d (I might as well admit it) chickened out at the last second. The hard part was that — if that was my father — I had no idea what to expect. I’d never sat down in a room with him. We’d never had a conversation — not that I could remember, anyway.

  All I knew was that he was a horrible person who’d mistreated me and Lynn. That was about the sum of it. Oh, yeah, and, as I’d heard many times, he’d never paid child support. Seems that for years every time I asked for anything that was the reason I couldn’t have it.

  Money didn’t matter much at the moment, but the rest of it did. I was interested in knowing why he’d done the things he’d done, and then walked out and never even dropped a postcard in the mail, or picked up the phone to say hi.

  But I had other questions, too. Like, had he taken me and Lynn to the zoo? Had we raced giraffes?

  And, had we ever finger painted together? I don’t know where that one came from, but it was in my head and I figured I might as well ask if I ever got the chance.

  And what would I call him, if he was my father? Dad? Steve? Mr. Delancy? Nothing felt right but maybe something would if we were ever face-to-face.

  The elevator stopped with a ping at the tenth floor and a woman got on. She glanced at me, summed me up, and looked straight ahead while still keeping track of me peripherally. I could feel it in the way she stood and stared forward without actually focusing on anything in front of her.

  We started to descend. I looked at the number pads and willed myself to push the seven but my arm hung immobile at my side.

  But seven lit up anyway and the elevator shuddered to a halt. I guessed Lavender had summoned it, and sure enough, when the door opened she was right there, eyes blazing. She reached in, grabbed me by the shirt, and unceremoniously hauled me out.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “I forgot to get off,” I said. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind completely.

  “Sorry,” I added. I wasn’t, though. All I felt was relief that the guy was nowhere in sight. Since Lavender had been forced to wait there for me, he’d had ample opportunity to take off. “Anyway, we can try another time.”

  “We’re going right now and you’re going to talk to him,” she said. “I saw which apartment he went into.”

  “He went into an apartment?” Confusion swept over me. “But …”

  “Obviously, he lives here,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Did it ever occur to you
that he might have found out where you were and moved to be close to you?”

  It hadn’t.

  “It makes sense,” she added. “That way he could keep an eye out to see when you go by. Otherwise, he’d have to hang out in the streets all the time.”

  She was right. It did make sense.

  “Now come on. You need to do this. Besides, I’m here.” The last was said in a soft, almost shy voice, and she reached out and took my hand.

  “I feel kinda sick,” I said. “I might need to throw up.”

  “Suck it up, Princess,” she snapped. “You are not getting out of this.”

  “You’re mean,” I said, but actually her cuteness was distracting me. She had this fierce look on her face like she might have fit right in with some ancient warrior tribe.

  Not only that, but she was tricky, too. She’d been drawing me along without me even realizing it, and all of a sudden we’d stopped in front of a door.

  “This is it,” she said. “Now, knock!”

  “Yeah, but, uh, I was thinking … he’s eating right now. Remember, the take-out from Won Stop?”

  “I know you’re probably scared, Porter,” Lavender said gently. “And I don’t blame you — anyone would be. But you’ve gotta find out, and waiting isn’t going to make it easier.”

  I was searching my brain for something to say back (mainly, to deny the part about being scared) when the door we were standing in front of suddenly swung open.

  The guy stood there, looking at me like he was waiting for something. Lavender poked me in the back with a sharp fingernail, which is not the nicest way to give someone a nudge.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked after a minute had passed.

  I found myself staring at him, comparing his face to the one in the album Lynn and I had looked at — could it have just been that morning? I couldn’t seem to decide if it was the same person or not.

  “Uh,” I finally found my voice, “I was, uh, just wondering … are you my father?”

  He didn’t answer right away but after a few seconds’ pause he stepped back a bit from the doorway.

  “I think you’d better come in,” he said.

  chapter twenty-three

  We followed him into the kitchen and sat down at a big wooden table. He asked if we wanted a glass of milk, or juice, or anything. I said I’d like some water.

  As he put the glass down in front of me, he said, “First thing we need to clear up — my name is Nathan Sanning and I am most definitely not your father. Now, do you want to tell me who you are, and where this idea came from?”

  I told him my name as his words sank in. I felt nothing. Not relief, not disappointment, not a thing. I think some part of me had probably already known.

  “And I’m Lavender Dean. Porter’s, uh, girlfriend,” Lavender said.

  Sanning was waiting for me to answer the rest of his question but I had one of my own instead.

  “So, then, why have you been following me?”

  “I’ve been following you?” If he wasn’t genuinely surprised, he was quite an actor.

  “Yeah. I’ve caught you at it a few times,” I said, recounting some of the times I’d seen him lurking around, watching me.

  “I’d gone in there to use the men’s room,” he explained, when I mentioned the day he’d been watching me from the restaurant. “It was hot out, so I was watching for the streetcar inside, where it was cool.

  “I moved to this neighbourhood about three months ago,” he continued. “And I did begin to take note of you — but that was because you kept looking at me. I assumed that you had mistaken me for someone you knew and would soon realize your mistake. Even so, it seemed that everywhere I turned, there you were, staring at me. It was a bit unsettling.”

  I felt like such a moron. Hearing Mr. Sanning explain it, I could see how I’d let my imagination invent a situation that had never existed.

  “I’m sorry about this,” I said. “It’s just that you kind of look like my dad. I haven’t seen him since I was four, but I must have remembered things about him without even knowing it. I guess some of it came out when I saw you.”

  “You have no contact with your father?”

  “None. And that’s the way I like it.”

  “But can you contact him — if you want to?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “That’s interesting because, based on what just happened, it appears that on some level — subconscious it seems — you’re actually looking for your father.”

  “No way,” I said. “I almost never even thought about him until all of this happened.”

  “That’s my point. There was no reason for you to jump to the conclusion you did unless some part of you wanted to see him.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think so. From what I’ve heard, he’s not exactly Father of the Year.”

  “From what you’ve heard?”

  “And what I remember. It’s not all that clear. Like I said, I was only four the last time he was around.”

  “Do you have any older siblings?”

  “A sister. She’s nineteen. She was seven when our father split.”

  “What are her memories?”

  “Same as mine, pretty much — that he was mean and didn’t love us. My mom is the one who always took care of us.”

  “Do you and your sister remember specific things your father did that were mean?”

  “Sure. He used to put us down and yell at us. He slapped Lynn on the head one time. And I remember watcher him throwing me against a wall when I was one year old.”

  “When you were one?”

  His tone told me he doubted I could remember something from that age, but I knew what I knew. I levelled a hard look at him but didn’t answer.

  Sanning cleared his throat. “Are there a lot of other memories like this?”

  “A few. Why? What difference does it make?”

  “Most children who have been abused by a parent still want to see them.”

  “That’s stupid,” I said, wondering what he was getting at.

  “It’s true, though. They long for a better relationship, for affection and closeness, in spite of the fact that hurtful things have been done to them.”

  “What’s your point?” For some reason, I was starting to feel annoyed.

  “It’s just that it’s possible there’s more to your situation than you realize.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He spoke slowly then, and I could see him choosing his words carefully. “The fact is that sometimes one parent will turn the children against the other parent after a breakup. In extreme cases, the children refuse to have anything to do with the parent they’ve been turned against.”

  “My mother didn’t do that,” I said angrily.

  “I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” Sanning claimed, “but one of the biggest red flags that this may have happened is when children want nothing to do with a parent they believe has abused them. Like I said, children who have actually been abused normally still want a relationship with the abuser. It’s the children who have been deliberately turned against a parent who don’t.”

  I stared at him in silence, my anger growing. He took this as a sign that he should keep talking.

  “If it’s even a possibility, I think it’s important that you’re aware of it. Look it up. It’s called Parental Alienation.”

  “My mother took care of us. She did everything for me and my sister!” I said, fighting to stay calm. “It’s my dirtbag of a father who hurt us and then took off and never looked back.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you have any doubts,” Sanning said. “I don’t hear any sign of mixed feelings, that’s for sure.”

  “Because I have none,” I said, glad he was finally getting it.

  “Lack of ambivalence is another strong sign of alienation.”

  “What?”

  “Children who have been alienated generally don’t have mixed feelings toward both parents — which
is normal. Instead, they basically see one as all good and the other as all bad. I guess you’re smart enough to figure out if that’s true in your case.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry if I’m out of line here.”

  “You’re way out of line,” I said.

  “Are you a psychiatrist or something?” Lavender asked.

  “No, I’m a group home director. But I’ve seen a number of cases of Parental Alienation.”

  He turned back to me. “Look, Porter, I’m not saying that’s what happened to you. I’m just saying it’s possible. You owe it to yourself to find out the truth.”

  “This is garbage,” I said, getting to my feet. Lavender kind of jumped, and I realized I’d yelled. I lowered my voice. “I’m outta here. Are you coming?”

  She stood and followed me — out the door, down the hall, into the elevator, through the lobby, and outside — without a word. I could tell she was dying to say something and I knew it wasn’t going to be something I wanted to hear.

  “Look, Porter,” she said finally, her voice hesitant but determined.

  “I really don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said.

  “Well, okay, but I think you should just let me say this one thing.”

  I shrugged. She was probably going to pester me until I gave in. I figured I might as well get it over with.

  “I know this must be rough for you,” she began.

  “It’s not rough,” I said. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “So, why don’t you find out for yourself, just to be sure.”

  “I’m already sure.”

  “Then what would be the harm in … contacting your father?”

  “That should be easy,” I said with a sneer, “considering that I haven’t seen or heard from him since I was four years old, and I have no idea where he lives. He could be in jail, or dead for all I know.”

  “Have you ever tried to find him?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what could it hurt? To try, I mean.”

  “There’s no point,” I said.

  “There is! He’s your father.”