All Things Different

by Underhill, Shawn

  Finally I saw her. My heart jumped almost up into my throat. I was excited and nervous and relieved to see her, and she looked so pretty I could hardly stand it. Her hair was in some sort of big up-do with strands sticking out wildly on purpose, and she was wearing nice-looking dress clothes that I did not recognize, like she was some young business woman on her way to work. For a second, I was so happy it felt like I was about to cry. I elbowed my old man and he saw her too. The same woman who had taken her from the house accompanied her now into the room.

  Sara noticed us right after we noticed her. Her face brightened instantly and she waved. I stood up. Dad stood up. Lawyer Joe stood up and told us both to sit and appear calm, as the judge was already entering the room. We complied, grudgingly, squirming in our seats. I kept my eyes on Sara as she was led to a seat. We were barely twenty feet apart. It took every bit of sense I had to keep from getting up and bowling people over to get to her.

  I have no regard for courtroom drama, so I paid little attention to most of the jargon and formalities. All I knew was that there was a ridiculous amount of talking once the judge started things off, sometimes heated talk from each side, a few accusations from her father’s side, and some sad words from Kate’s side. The issue of abuse was raised at one point, and denied sharply by her father’s family. The father, in the lowest sense of the word, was of course not present. Testimony was given by a psychologist who had met with Sara, saying that she believed Sara had in fact been abused. The fact that Sara had once reported the abuse also came up. A summary of Kate’s final years was given, constantly moving, changing jobs, why else but to escape something serious. All this seemed to drag on and on until finally Sara herself was invited to speak with the judge. It wasn’t testimony, I don’t believe, but a quiet conversation.

  It was difficult to hear her nervous voice in that high room with that metallic echo. But what I remember clearest is when she told the judge that we, my Dad and I, had been the first ones other than her mother to make her feel like something more than a problem, a troublemaker, and a storyteller seeking attention. She was fidgeting as she spoke, her voice fading out as she went on. I could tell how self-conscious she was feeling, having to stand there discussing her life before an audience. Sara loved attention in a sense, but certainly not that sense. Her final words summed up the fact that she hadn’t had a comfortable home life in over five years, until she came to live with us.

  The judge asked Sara a few more questions, for confirmation purposes, I guessed, in a manner that implied that they’d spoken of it all before. Then she let her return to her seat. Sara sat looking over at us with her big shiny eyes, one foot hopping, her crossed legs fidgeting, chewing her lower lip like it was a piece of bubble gum.

  43

  Waiting there, I remember having the feeling that the judge really didn’t have to think much, all said and done. She saw a lot of people and heard a lot of stories. As it turned out, she saw things as they were with regards to Sara, and in my opinion, made her ruling well. Permanent guardianship of Sara was awarded to my father, for all intents and purposes, now her father too.

  At the announcement we managed to keep our excited voices down, but when I looked over at him, my old man was struggling to contain himself as much as I was. Sara was looking back and forth, wide-eyed and unsure. For a few confused seconds none of us knew quite what to do, until the judge spoke again over the growing murmur of voices.

  “Go to them.” She smiled at Sara. “It’s final.”

  Sara ran to us. Actually, more accurately it was an excited bounce, like she’d been called down from the audience on a game show. The moment was awkwardly sweet with those strange people all watching us, but we didn’t care for a second.

  I was selfish and got the first hug. I squeezed her tight at first until I realized how frail she felt. She hadn’t been eating well, I remembered, and I softened my grip, knowing it was all right now. A little time, food, and rest would fix that problem.

  Then it was Dad’s turn. She moved on to hug him, and I stood aside with Joe, watching. She was so tiny next to Dad. After long weeks of not seeing it, I’d almost forgotten how funny it was. Then, looking up, I noticed something else. My old man’s eyes were closed, and the strongest, toughest, no-nonsense guy I ever knew had a tear on his cheek as he held on to that girl.

  After the greetings we got out of the courthouse. I put Sara’s pink backpack over my shoulder without a bit of shame, held the other bag in one hand and held her hand with my other hand. On the way out the old man stopped to shake hands with lawyer Joe once more on the steps, and gave him a cheerful slap to the back that jolted the finely dressed man. He straightened his glasses and brushed his suit smooth, then congratulated us once more and wished us all well. He seemed like a nice guy that genuinely meant it. He’d be in touch about ironing out the final details. We should get home now. That was fine with us. We went down the steps and down the street to the parking lot, walking quickly. We rode home three-wide in the truck, and it felt perfectly right.

  44

  That first night we cooked together and had a quiet dinner after some grocery shopping. Even the old man had lost a bit of weight through the ordeal, and the three of us, without specifically saying so, were ready to do our regaining together.

  “I hope I didn’t cost you too much,” Sara remarked at one point during the first meal. Dad and I both stopped eating and looked at each other, then to her.

  “Don’t ever think about that,” Dad told her. His voice wasn’t quite stern, but a little more serious than he normally used with her.

  “But—”

  “No arguments.”

  “I need to know,” she said.

  “You will never hear a dollar value from me,” he said, and then resumed eating dismissively. Sara looked on at him, appearing unsettled for the first time since we’d been home.

  “Let’s eat,” I said, and I watched her face changing as she let it go.

  The two of us took a quiet walk after dinner. The sky was very dark with the moon low, and seemed larger with no leaves on the trees; the stars had that white coldness about them that only a frosty night can show. Sara was bundled up in a warm coat and some little knitted mittens. I felt her hand searching for mine as we moved away from the house. I took it and after a moment felt the warmth working into my hand through the mitten, and we walked on with the frostbitten ground crunching under our steps.

  “It’s not quite like the summer walks,” I said.

  “I see what you mean. I miss the warmer air, but the sky is absolutely beautiful.”

  “There should be a lot of shooting later in the month. There always is.”

  “We can have hot cocoa and sit on the dock and watch until we’re frozen.”

  “You won’t last an hour,” I teased.

  “Shut up. Look at the crazy things I do just to spend time with you.”

  Later, in bed, the house was comfortably quiet and I listened to her moving around in her new room. I lay watching the shadows she made in the block of light coming in from the hall. The light went out after a while and I listened on until she’d settled down. I was nearly asleep when I heard her whisper my name. I whispered that I was awake, and there was a rush of cool air as she pulled the covers back long enough to climb in beside me on her usual side. Then it was warm again as her small weight settled in beside me.

  “I’ll get used to my own bed again.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. I could see her wide-open eyes in the dark as I struggled to keep mine open.

  “How much did I cost him?” she asked after a while.

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise I don’t.”

  “I’ll make it up to him somehow. To both of you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “You don’t understand. No one besides Mom ever tried that hard for me before. No one else ever cared so much. It’s sort of hard to believe,
Jake.”

  “I know. But you’ll make him feel bad if you bring it up again.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “He adores you, Sara. No one made him do anything he didn’t want to.”

  “I love that man with all my heart. Does he realize that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to be the best daughter for him. I want to make him proud of me, like the way he’s so obviously proud of you.”

  “He already is.”

  “Well I’ll just try harder then.”

  “Just be happy. That’s all he wants from you.”

  “I am happy, except for the obvious.”

  “That’s all you can do.”

  “Maybe so, but I’m not gonna take what he did lightly, Jake. You wait and see.”

  45

  In the morning I let Sara sleep, going quietly out of the room and downstairs to catch the old man before he left for work.

  “Good night?” he asked.

  “No problems,” I said on the way to the coffee pot.

  “Take today to unwind,” he said. “Get back to school on Friday.”

  “Thank you, Dad,” I said. I was leaning against the kitchen counter.

  “It’s just a day.”

  “I mean, for everything you did for Sara. I appreciate it. And you know she does. But I wanted to say it.”

  “I’m not telling you a number either.”

  “I’m not asking.”

  “No need for thanks,” he told me. “I’ve been my own boss for a lot of years now. I do what I please.” He finished off his coffee and started for the door with his lunch box and water cooler. “Maybe I’ll quit early this afternoon,” he said by the door. “We need to head over and get your license picture taken, don’t we?”

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  “Have a good day, kid.” He smiled his small smile that came mostly from his eyes, and then he was out the door, stepping heavily on the porch, and gone for the day.

  Sara and I spent a quiet day together. She had wanted to begin going through Kate’s belongings at the camp but decided to wait for the weekend, considering how difficult it would surely be. She insisted on making me a birthday cake, even though I told her we could buy one later, and she dug through the cupboards until she’d found everything necessary for one of her now-famous yellow cakes heaped with milk-and-cocoa frosting.

  Later, I was wearing a nice Sara-assigned shirt for my license picture, and after DMV, on the way home through town, my old man swung into the truck dealership. He parked our old truck near a shiny red four-door. Sara and I were both staring at him.

  “I didn’t get much work done today,” he said. There was a twinkle in his eye.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked.

  “Hell, no. Tried that beauty out around noon time. She’s ours now.”

  We all got out and excitedly inspected the new truck. It had AC for summer and heated seats for winter, and nice comfy captain’s seats up front instead of a bench seat. I could hardly believe it.

  “I love it,” Sara kept saying. “I was never a truck girl, but now I love them.”

  “Are you trading the old bird?” I asked after a while.

  “Nah, she’s not worth much to anyone else.”

  “I’ll buy her.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “I want her, for sure.”

  “How much are you offering?”

  “How’s two grand?”

  “Not bad,” he said and tossed me the keys. “Keep it in the bank. She’s yours.”

  I tried arguing with him but he brushed me off. He was too excited about his new four-door to focus on anything else anyway. So I drove my new-old truck home while Dad and Sara followed in the shiny new one. For most of the ride I was going over plans to try to get him to take some money.

  Friday morning, I was privy to an actual miracle. It was the first day in my life that I was actually excited to go to school. We had a few extra minutes before we had to leave, without the long bus ride, and I made sure to hit the horn and wave to old Mr. Drowns when I saw him driving the bus.

  46

  By Thanksgiving my old man had a nice beard coming in. It was a good-looking salt-and-pepper beard that was fuller at the chin. His hair was longer too, making the silver more noticeable, and even though he looked a little older, Sara and I both agreed that it was a good look on him. Distinguished and handsome, Sara said.

  In my eyes, my old man was like a stately lion, and I’d laugh at the scene whenever Sara went up to him, giggling as she tickled that thickening beard. Just to watch him with her, I couldn’t have been any more proud of my old man—his lion heart that shied away from no challenge, the powerful frame that could shred the hyenas and then lie down gently, those terrible paws gone to velvet, and let a little cub like Sara pull at his mane. Maybe I was getting a little carried away, but it reminded me of Lucy when she approached that huge lion in that old book, knowing he was good and would never harm her, though he sometimes grumbled from somewhere deep as she ran her hand into his mane, like he was a mere house pet. That’s how it seemed to me.

  The turkey dinner we put on was a combined effort. Sara had practiced and read up on a few things before the big day. When it came, she was ready, and Dad and I did whatever she asked to help her in the process. All said and done, it was the first real Thanksgiving dinner I’d had since my grandmother passed, so it may as well have been my first. Otherwise, Dad and I had always bought the precooked stuff from the grocery store. Home-cooked was significantly better, to say the least.

  The next thing we knew, the old lion and I found ourselves braving the Black Friday shopping frenzy, the concrete jungle of the mall, fumbling around like bulls in a china shop. It was a true nightmare, of which the news footage cannot capture the full misery. The old man was a little luckier and got to hang back from the crowds. Me, I got led by the hand through the dead center of the whole swirling ordeal. Dad and I would’ve preferred going to Sears and checking out all the tools or to Dick’s to see the fishing gear. But we had Sara now.

  Sara nearly exploded when she noticed the sale banner in the Coach window. She let go of me and bolted like a little rocket. I made my way in slower and stood back, surveying all the chaos—women pawing at purses and bags like their lives depended on it. Sara seemed to hover around one particular bag. I noticed a few prices of the ones nearer to me and rechecked to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. Probably twenty minutes later, after she’d gone around and touched each item in the store at least once, we finally got to leave.

  We met up with Dad outside in the slowly moving parade of shoppers. Sara had to find a bathroom, so I took my chance and ducked back into the Coach store as they headed off. The price for the bag she’d been eyeing, plus the matching wallet, could have secured me a lot of very nice fishing gear, along with some new tools thrown in. I stood there thinking of how much I’d sweat to make that amount of money. Then I joined the line to the register.

  After, I found the two of them at the food court. I had the Coach stuff hidden in another bag containing some jeans Sara had picked out, insisting Dad needed them, pointing out how worn most of his current jeans were. I kept the bag casually hanging at my side, as not to draw attention.

  “Where’d you go?” she asked.

  “Just got lost in the mess,” I grumbled without making eye contact.

  “Probably hiding is more like it.”

  I shrugged, trying to disguise my satisfaction. She didn’t suspect a thing.

  I made it until about seven that night before I caved and gave her the bag. But I did keep the wallet aside, hidden in the shop, so there’d be some sort of surprise left for Christmas morning.

  I sidled up beside her at the computer desk. She looked up at me, seeming annoyed at first, or maybe just confused as to why I looked as dumb as I did. Then I put the bag on the desk and watched the expression on her face. I’d never heard such a high-pitched sound as the one
she made then. For a moment I imagined dogs, miles away, suddenly lifting their heads from naps or from food dishes, tuning into her frequency. She jumped and clapped like the leader of a pep rally, and finally she almost cried. My ears stopped ringing and I got one of the bigger hugs of my life and then a little kiss. Then she ran off to transfer the contents of her old purse to the new, and to make excited calls to her new friends.

  I sat down on the couch and looked at my old man in his chair. He was laughing quietly.

  “I guess she likes it,” I said.

  “Looks that way.”

  A month later, as the strangest year of my life drew to a close, the snow was falling outside, and inside we had the house warmly decorated. There were candle lights in the windows and a tree in the living room that filled the whole place with the smell of spruce. Sara was equally grateful when she opened the wallet, which I’d wrapped in a huge box to confuse her guesses. Dad one-upped me and got her a laptop with a pink lid option so she wouldn’t have to use my clunky desktop anymore. When that got unwrapped, there was some serious high-pitched squealing and a lot more jumping and clapping. Once things calmed down, Dad and I opened all our new, more fashionable clothes while, on the TV, poor Ralph was trying to get his Red Rider BB gun with a compass in the stock.

  47

  It was summer when Sara first came to us. Each year when the summer faded, the memories of that first year would be at their strongest, even after I’d finished school and begun working full-time with my father, and I would wonder how much longer she would be with us, how much longer that beauty could last. Summer’s calm never lasted, and autumn’s fleeting colors were shorter-lived yet. In my short lifetime I’d seen a strong wind on a wet day easily strip away the damp-weighted leaves at the height of their radiance, swirl them in little colored funnels, and carry them away too soon. Through the years between then and now, I could never completely shake the fear of one day losing her again.