Her Daddy's Eyes

by Gary Parker

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “Teach and coach girls’ basketball.”

  “Sound like a detective to me.”

  “I’m on a quest.”

  “You don’t really expect to find something lying around on a table, do you?”

  “Who knows?”

  Chase arched an eyebrow. “Don’t you need to get back home?”

  “How far to your parents’ house?”

  “Thirty minutes tops.”

  “An hour and a half, then I’m headed back.”

  Chase lifted off his cap and studied the inside as if looking for the secret of life. “I don’t know that I feel good about this,” he offered.

  Allie leaned forward, her eyes pleading. “I’m desperate,” she said. “If I don’t do this now, I know I never will. I’ll get married and live the rest of my life without ever knowing what happened to my dad. Do you want that on your conscience?”

  Chase shoved his hat back on, stared at her for several seconds, then smiled. His smile lit up the whole room. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” he said.

  “So you’ll take me there?”

  “What can I say? I’m a sucker for a pretty face, and you’ve certainly got one of those.”

  He hopped up, and she stood with him. A question she’d wanted to ask since she met him popped back into her head. “No wife?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  “Do you see one anywhere?”

  A slight thrill snapped through Allie, but she quickly pushed it back. A woman getting married in two weeks had no right feeling pleased that another man didn’t have a spouse. A new question appeared. Why wasn’t Chase Mason married?

  “We’ll take my truck,” Chase said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “I can drive.”

  “No reason for that; this is right on your way back. That is, unless you don’t trust me.”

  Too grateful to even suggest such a thing, Allie quickly responded, “Your truck will be fine.”

  They headed out a couple of minutes later, Chase’s dog in the back, his big teeth grinning into the wind as Chase piloted the truck onto the highway.

  “What’s your dog’s name?” Allie asked.

  “Buster,” he said, donning a pair of sunglasses. “He’s a stray, been with me about four years.”

  Silence fell for several minutes.

  “You got a pet?” Chase asked.

  “A cat named Patch. Also a stray, two years ago.”

  “I hate cats. They make me sneeze.”

  For some reason this bothered Allie, but she kept that to herself. They rounded a steep curve. “Thanks for doing this,” Allie said.

  “It violates all my ethics, you know,” he said.

  “You’re teasing me.”

  He grinned again, and his white, straight teeth lit up the truck. He propped his left arm on the windowsill and let the wind blow through. He looked like a man without a care in the world.

  Allie pointed to his hat. “You graduate from Tennessee?”

  “Where else would a good Tennessee boy go?”

  Allie smiled and spent the next few minutes pulling basic information out of him. He’d earned a business degree from the University of Tennessee and played football there for two years until a knee injury ended his career. He’d spent the last few years on the family farm, gradually developing a statewide reputation as a maker of custom furniture.

  “It’s a good living,” he told her. “Quiet, steady, lets me use my hands, express a little bit of artistry, a whole lot of sweat.”

  “If you’re anywhere near as good as your grandfather, it must be a whole lot of artistry,” she said.

  “I’m nowhere near his quality.”

  “I’m sure you’re being modest.”

  “What about you?” he asked, changing the focus.

  “Mars Hill College, got a teaching degree, played basketball there.”

  “An athlete.”

  “I’m tall, anyway; my coaches weren’t always too sure of the athlete part.”

  “Now who’s being modest?”

  “Just truthful.”

  The road headed down a steep incline. “Isn’t Mars Hill a Baptist school?” he asked.

  “It’s connected to Baptists, but I don’t know how closely anymore.”

  “None of that ever stuck on you?”

  “The religious part?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Allie sensed a slight disappointment in him and felt sad because of it. For some inexplicable reason, she wanted Chase to like her.

  “I expect you’re a good coach,” he said.

  “We’ve won our share of games—and one state championship when I was an assistant coach in Asheville.”

  “You ever have any girls go on to play in college?”

  “Six.”

  “Wow.”

  “I’m proud of them.”

  They drove in silence for a while. The road curved, then rose and fell with the terrain; the sun warmed the truck; the blue sky beamed down on them. Allie rolled down her window and let the breeze blow through her hair. Chase eyed her for a split second, smiled slightly, then turned his gaze back to the highway. Allie felt at ease. Odd that riding with a man she’d met only a couple of hours ago seemed so natural.

  “Why aren’t you married?” she blurted, her mouth ahead of her good sense.

  He glanced quickly at her again, then stared back at the road. “That’s a pretty bold question,” he said.

  “Forgive me, but it just slipped out.”

  He chuckled. “You’re not the first one to ask it.”

  “I guess not.”

  “My mom is after me all the time.”

  “So?”

  He looked to her once more and scowled just a little. “It’s personal,” he said. “Leave it at that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No problem.”

  Allie propped her elbow on the windowsill and stared out at the woods. The road rolled past, and silence fell again for several minutes. Worried that she’d upset him, Allie waited for Chase to speak again.

  Finally, when he didn’t seem inclined to do so, she faced him. “Why are you doing this for me?” she asked.

  “I’m a helpful kind of guy,” he said just a touch flippantly.

  She considered the answer, recognizing it as the truth but also sensing more to it than that. “What else?” she asked.

  Chase scratched an ear. “You won’t believe me if I tell you,” he said.

  “Why don’t you try me?”

  “I don’t know that I should... it might scare you.”

  “Any more than what I’ve told you about me scares you?”

  “About the same, I suppose.”

  Allie squinted at him but didn’t press.

  After a couple more minutes, he slipped off his sunglasses, then said, “Two days before I heard your call on my folks’ answering machine, I did some spring cleaning at my house, threw away a lot of junk from the cellar and attic. In the process I found that trunk I showed you a little bit ago; it was in the attic, covered up with a bunch of old bedspreads, blankets, quilts.”

  He paused as if Allie could guess the rest of the story, but she had no clue.

  “So?” she said.

  “So when I found that trunk, I opened it. I wanted to see what was inside.”

  “That’s a normal thing to do.”

  “I dug through it, found that picture album.”

  “I still don’t follow.”

  He chewed on the end of the sunglasses. “That picture of you and me,” he said. “Did you notice that it was loose, unlike the others, and on the top of the page?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you wonder why it was loose?”

  “Not really.”

  “There’s a reason.”

  She waited for him to give it, but he didn’t, so she pressed him. “I assume the reason is important?”

&nbs
p; Without a word he pulled the truck into a small driveway on the side of the highway, put it in park, and faced her. Allie’s heart revved up a notch.

  “When I saw that picture, the one with me and you in it...”

  “Yes?”

  He shook his head. “You’ll think I’m some kind of religious fanatic,” he said softly.

  “No,” she said. “I won’t.”

  He took off his cap and rubbed his hands through his hair. “You promise you won’t laugh?”

  “I promise.”

  He nodded. “Okay. When I saw you in that picture, something happened to me.”

  “You throw up or something?”

  “This is serious.”

  “Okay, what happened?”

  He swallowed hard. “If I didn’t think it made me sound like a lunatic, I’d say God spoke to me.”

  In spite of her earlier assurances, Allie found it tough to keep a straight face. “You mean like an audible voice?”

  “Not exactly; more of an impression in my heart, a sense of a message pushing at me.”

  Allie bit her lip. Given her recent experiences, she couldn’t completely write off Chase’s explanation, but she still rebelled against the notion that some higher being, even if one existed, cared enough about humans to actually speak to them, audible voices or not.

  “And what do you think God said to you?” she asked, trying to stay focused. “Or impressed upon you?”

  Chase dropped his eyes. “This is the weirdest part of all.”

  “We seem to be into weird today.”

  “God said you were the woman I was going to marry.” Allie pressed back against the seat, her head spinning. She wanted to jump out of the truck, run away from this man, hitch a ride back to her car, and head it straight back home. A tinge of fear hit, and she wondered what kind of man sat beside her barely an arm’s length away. She started to speak, but Chase suddenly laughed, and that broke the tension. After a moment Allie laughed too. Chase shook from head to toe, his body wracked with the absurdity of his last statement.

  “You should see your face!” he said. “I’ve... never... seen anybody so shocked.”

  Allie rocked back and forth with laughter.

  “I told you it was weird,” Chase howled, “but I didn’t know how weird until I actually said it!”

  Allie’s sides hurt from laughing.

  “You’re going to be married in two weeks!” He chuckled, his laughter easing a little. “So I guess God got this one wrong.”

  “Or your hearing has gone bad.”

  “That may be it, as old as I’m getting.”

  “A Carolina girl can’t marry a UT guy,” she roared.

  Chase grabbed his ribs and continued to chuckle. Gradually the laughter died, and Allie took a deep breath and finally found her voice.

  “You told me you believed in God,” she said. “I can’t say I wasn’t warned.”

  “I didn’t say my name was Moses though.”

  “God speaks to you often, does he?”

  “Only when a woman I haven’t seen since I was a kid—and didn’t remember I’d ever met—is about to call.”

  “Thank goodness it’s not more often.”

  Chase eased the truck back into the road and headed it back up the highway. For the rest of the ride, they both kept quiet, Allie with a close eye on Chase, half in mock fear and half in silent wonder. Until a few days ago, the notion of God speaking to somebody would have surely given her the heebie-jeebies. But now, because of her dad’s eyes staring at her from a picture, she didn’t know exactly what to believe.

  Chase pulled his truck into the driveway of his parents’ house, checked the mailbox, then led Allie inside.

  “What am I looking for?” he asked, putting the mail in his back pocket.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Pictures, letters, souvenirs, anything to tell us what they did in Vietnam.”

  “The first time or the second?”

  “Either.”

  Chase headed down a hallway toward the master bedroom. “Start in their closet,” he said. “Though I have to tell you again, I don’t feel good about this.”

  “They’d probably let you do this if they were home.”

  “I just wish I could ask them first.”

  “Will you try to reach your sister again later?”

  “For the woman I’m supposed to marry, absolutely.”

  Allie cut her eyes at him and wondered if he was serious but couldn’t tell. They stepped into a square bedroom—bed straight ahead, typical dresser and chest of drawers on opposite walls, family pictures on the walls, two rectangular windows covered with blinds and drapes.

  “Over here,” Chase said, pointing to a closet.

  He opened the door, and she stepped closer to look inside. An earthy scent drifted off Chase, a mix of manly aftershave and fresh wood. For a moment Allie lost her focus on finding anything in the closet. Chase’s powerful body, smooth voice, and easy humor created a powerful presence, one that again made her wonder how in the world he’d managed to stay single. What character flaw did he have that kept him from marrying?

  Chase stood on tiptoe and examined the boxes and clothes on the top shelf of the closet but found nothing. A bunch of shoe boxes sat on the floor, and he quickly searched through them but again with no result.

  “Nothing here,” he said, backing out. “Let’s try the study.”

  Allie followed silently as he made his way to a small study to the left of the bedroom and began sorting through the drawers of the desk. None were locked, and Chase made quick work of the contents.

  “Papers, bills, receipts, stationery, and computer manuals—that’s all,” he concluded. “Another dead end.”

  “Where does your mom keep old photos and things?” Allie asked.

  “She’s got a sewing room. There are a couple of file cabinets in there.”

  “Lead the way.”

  In the sewing room, they found a wall covered with bookshelves and one lined with metal filing cabinets. A bed sat against the far wall with a sewing machine and chair beside it. Chase immediately stepped to the cabinets, opened the one nearest him, and lifted a manila envelope from it.

  “Bingo,” he said as he flipped open the envelope and held up a handful of photos. “Looks like we struck the mother lode.”

  He dropped the envelope on the bed, stepped to the cabinets, hauled out several more folders of photos, and placed them beside the first one. Then he plopped onto the bed, poured all the photos out, and pointed Allie to a spot at the foot of the bed.

  “It could take a while to go through all these,” he said. “I could use a little help.”

  “I didn’t want to be presumptuous, start thumbing through your family’s things without permission,” she said, perching on the spot he indicated.

  “Presumptuous is a big word for a lady jock.”

  Allie smiled and began sorting through the photos with Chase. A couple of envelopes contained nothing but black and whites, images of Chase’s folks when they were young, some of them with people Chase identified as his grandparents, now both deceased.

  “You take after the men of the family,” she said, studying one of the pictures. “All of you are built like anvils, only taller.”

  “You calling me chunky?” he asked, pretending to pout.

  “You’re not exactly a bean pole,” she said.

  He laughed, and she opened another couple of envelopes. They both contained image after image, color this time, of a girl growing from a baby to a girl, then a teenager, then a young woman.

  “My sister Julie,” Chase said. “Two years younger than me.”

  “She’s pretty.”

  “She thinks so.”

  “Not as bulky as you.”

  “Is that another shot?”

  “Not at all; just glad for her, that’s all.”

  Chase chuckled.

  “Your mom is really organized,” Allie continued. “One person per envelope.�
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  “What can I say?”

  Allie looked at another photo of Julie with a blond man. “Is this Julie’s husband?” she asked.

  “John Router, a good guy. They’ve got three kids, all girls.”

  Allie desperately wanted to ask Chase about his singleness, but he flipped a picture at her before she dared. “I was handsome as a child, at least,” he said, indicating the photo.

  Allie held up the picture and smiled. Chase in a little suit, bow tie, and shiny black shoes. “How old were you?” she asked.

  “I think eight,” he said.

  “Why so dressed up?”

  “Going to church.”

  She handed back the photo. “Did you go often?” she asked.

  “Every Sunday unless I had a bone sticking out or was throwing up.”

  “You still go?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t wear the bow tie.”

  Allie’s eyes locked with his, and something in her ached to understand him. What made an obviously intelligent man who had nobody forcing him to attend religious services go to such events? “Why?” she asked.

  “Why don’t I wear the bow tie?”

  “No. Why do you go to church?”

  Chase opened the last envelope of photos but ignored her question.

  Allie waited for a moment for an answer, but when none came she focused on the photos again. “Who’s this?” she asked, grabbing a picture of Chase with an attractive brunette woman.

  “A former lady friend.”

  “What happened with her?”

  Again Chase fell silent. Allie dropped the photo, searched through the rest lying on the bed, then stopped as Chase finished the ones he held.

  “Nothing else here,” he said, standing and looking through the filing cabinets one last time. “No pictures of my dad or yours—together or apart. I’m surprised.”

  Allie stood too, not sure what to do next. Chase started putting the pictures up, and she helped him. When they’d finished, he shoved his hands in his pockets and faced her.

  “Look,” he said, staring at his boots. “Let me be straight up here. I feel really odd right now. I had a wild experience with that picture of you.” He looked at her, his eyes intense. “Then you show up out of the blue, and I have this strange sensation the instant I see you. I want to get to know you, would like nothing better than to tell you all about me, why I’m not married, what I believe about God. I’m not ashamed of anything—my convictions, my past relationships with women—but I’m usually a shy guy, so it doesn’t come easy for me to talk about all that, especially not with a stranger who will disappear from my life as quickly as she entered it. So just leave the questions out, okay? I’ll do what I can to help you find your dad, but that’s as far as it should go, don’t you think?”