by Lisa Wingate
Shaking my hand, Pastor Al smiled warmly. “Well, good to meet you there, Rebecca, and good to see young Ted again. We’ve missed you around here, son. These flowers sure looked better when you watched after them. Afraid they’re on their last legs right now. I thought if I cut them back, maybe it’d help.”
Peering around Pastor Al, Teddy checked the flowers. “Uh-oh.”
“Maybe you better go see what they need,” Pastor Al prompted. “In all my years, Teddy, I’ve never seen anybody better with flowers than you.”
Beaming, Teddy started toward the garden. “I gone see, Past-er Al.” As he turned, he pointed toward a two-wheeled dolly propped against the side of the church. “There Sy dolly. I gone take Sy dolly home.”
“I wondered who left that here,” the pastor commented as the two of us watched Teddy move down the path. Pastor Al turned back to me, his jovial demeanor straightening into an expectant look.
I tried to decide where to begin. “I’m not sure how much you know about my father and Hanna Beth’s situation lately.”
Pastor Al sighed regretfully. “Not a lot, I’m sorry to admit. We haven’t seen your family in close to a year. I have to apologize for that. I was out for cancer surgery and then treatments most of last year, and best I can gather, there was some brouhaha about Teddy helping keep the children in the nursery during service. I want you to know that should never have happened. Sometimes new people coming into the congregation can be quick to judge, but Teddy’s never been anything but good with the little ones. He’s as gentle with them as he is with the flowers.” He glanced over his shoulder with an obvious fondness. Teddy was squatted down next to a rosebush, talking to it as he carefully pruned dead leaves. “I’m sorry your mother was upset.”
“Hanna Beth isn’t my mother.” The words were a knee-jerk reflex, out of my mouth before I considered how they would sound.
“Of course.” Pastor Al gave me an astute look, and we hovered in a moment of uncomfortable silence. “Will you tell her I’m sorry for the misunderstanding about Teddy? He’s welcome here anytime. The truth is that if everyone else were as accepting as Teddy is, there’d never be any problems in the church. I tried to go by a few times to tell that to Hanna Beth, but their caretaker said your father wasn’t doing well, and they weren’t taking any visitors.”
“My father hasn’t been doing well,” I agreed. “Hanna Beth had a stroke last month and has been in a nursing center care. We hadn’t been . . . in touch, so I didn’t know until some weeks after the fact. When I got here, Teddy and my father were living in the house alone. There was no caretaker, and from the looks of the house, there hadn’t been anyone for some time.”
Pastor Al frowned, rubbing his chin, the skin stretching back and forth between his fingers. “That’s odd. I had the impression the caretaker was living there. I’m sorry to hear about Hanna Beth. How’s she getting on?”
“She’s better, but unfortunately her speech and memory were affected, so she hasn’t been able to tell us much about what was happening in the house before she was taken to the hospital. My father’s memory is pretty fragile, and all Teddy knows is the caretaker’s first name, Kay-Kay. I was hoping you might have some information about her—a last name, where they hired her, where I might find her?”
The pastor sighed. “Afraid I can’t be much help. About all I could tell you is what she looked like. Brown hair, kind of heavyset, in her fifties, maybe. Dark skin, but I don’t think she was Hispanic, more like Greek or Italian, maybe. Wore glasses. Real friendly. Seemed sorry to have to tell me I couldn’t visit with your folks. She didn’t give me a last name, not that I recall anyway. Just said she was helping Hanna Beth look after Edward and that it was too hard on him to have strange people in the house.”
My hopes flagged. That wasn’t much to go on. “Teddy said he and Kay-Kay brought some of my father’s things here for a rummage sale several weeks ago—a computer? I was hoping it might still be here, or possibly you could tell me who bought it? I think my father’s financial records were on it. I’m trying to straighten out his accounts.”
Pastor Al frowned, as if he knew there was more to the story. “Could be,” he said. “No telling who brought what for the rummage sale. Proceeds go to benefit the recreation center down the road, give kids in the older neighborhoods something to do other than hang out on the streets. For a while, we had so much stuff piled around here, the trash men couldn’t even get to the Dumpster to empty it.”
“Do you know what happened to my father’s computer?”
“Most likely it’s still in the shed.” Pastor Al shrugged toward a metal building out back. “The rummage sale was rained out after the first couple hours on Friday. That was the weekend of all the floods. Some of the stuff got wet, and with so many houses around here suffering water damage, we just haven’t had a chance to sort out the shed and see what got ruined. You’re welcome to look if you’d like. There was a whole table of computer equipment of various types. Don’t know what shape all that stuff’s in now. It’s a mess back there.”
Pastor Al called Teddy over as we walked to the shed. The musty scent of decaying paper and damp wood wafted outward as he and Teddy pulled open the doors.
I groaned without meaning to and turned my face away from the escaping cloud of fungus.
Pastor Al chuckled. “We dried it out the best we could without moving everything. You sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” I said, then asked Teddy if he recognized anything. Teddy started into the shed, pointing out magazines, books, some old plastic storage boxes he thought had come from my father’s house.
“The computer,” I reminded him. “We’re trying to find Daddy Ed’s computer, okay?”
“Ho-kay.” Teddy proceeded farther into the building, weaving his way through stacks of furniture and disintegrating boxes. “I don’ see Daddy Ed com-pooter.”
“Keep looking,” I urged as Pastor Al and I followed him into the slanted light cast by three dusty windows on the east wall.
“Sorry it’s so dark,” Pastor Al apologized. “Storm got the electric pole. Most of the computer equipment’s back there in the corner. They moved that in out of the rain first.”
“Oh,” I muttered. “Good thing, I guess.” Something rustled under a pile of boxes nearby, and I gasped.
“There a little rat,” Teddy observed cheerfully. “Hellooo, little rat. Go way now.”
A shiver crept over my skin. I imagined small, hairy things dashing from the piles of rummage and scampering over my sandals.
Ahead, Teddy stopped, braced his hands on his knees, and leaned forward to peer over a pile of clothing.
“Teddy, do you see something?” I slipped around a daybed frame to move closer.
“Got little baby rats,” Teddy reported. “Little pink one, two, three . . .”
“Uhhh-uhhh-uhhh-uh,” a guttural heebie-jeebie escaped my throat, and I moved back around the daybed frame, unconsciously fanning my hands in front of me.
Pastor Al glanced over with a benevolent smile.
“Them don’ got eyes yet,” Teddy went on.
My stomach gurgled up my throat. I tasted something I must have eaten last night. “Teddy, we’re looking for the computer. Do you see the computer?”
Pastor Al squeezed past him. “Come look on this table back here, Teddy.” He moved to the corner of the room, then pulled away a blue tarp and sent a cloud of musty-smelling dust dancing into the window light.
Teddy proceeded to the table and began surveying the jumble of cast-off computers and printers. Craning up and down, Teddy checked each piece of equipment. “No . . . no . . . nope,” he muttered, then lifted his hands palms up, shaking his head.
Pastor Al finally pulled the tarp back over the table. “Well, I’m afraid there’s no telling.” Dusting off his hands, he frowned apologetically. “Could be it was sold before we closed up on Friday.” He returned to the center of the room, where my hopes were crashing around me.
Pastor Al laid a hand on my shoulder, guiding me toward the door. “Why don’t we go on inside and get something to drink, see what other ideas we can come up with?”
Reluctantly, I followed him. Behind us, Teddy wandered among the junk piles, searching for more baby rats.
“Come on, Teddy,” I said as he turned sideways to slip between an old refrigerator and a mattress. “Teddy, come on. We need to go.”
He didn’t answer. The pastor and I stopped near the door.
“There, that one!” Teddy announced, having discovered something new behind the refrigerator. I didn’t want to think about what it was. “There Daddy Ed com-pooter!”
Pastor Al hurried back into the building, and I followed. A moment later, the mattress shifted. Teddy was standing behind it, pointing to a monitor, speakers, keyboard, and CPU resting in a jumble atop a small, gray metal worktable.
“Ahhh . . . that’s the one,” Pastor Al observed. “That stuff was left by the Dumpster the night before the sale. Nobody seemed to know who put it there, but we figured it was for the rummage.”
“Me ’n Kay-Kay bring it,” Teddy offered.
Coming closer, I peered between the mattress and Teddy’s body. The computer’s plastic cases were yellowed and pockmarked with mildew spots, but all the pieces seemed to be there. The front of the CPU was labeled with my father’s name. He’d always labeled everything.
As Teddy cleared the debris from the table, I was struck by a tender memory of my father commandeering the small two-drawer metal typing stand from a field office in Saudi. He hated the ornately carved wooden desk in our living room there, so he brought home something practical. My mother despised the gray metal secretary stand. She said it spoiled the decor, but my father insisted on keeping it. I sat on his knee as he worked there. When I set my water glass on the tabletop, no one fussed or told me to use a coaster. I liked the gray metal desk because it was like my father—strong, pragmatic, practical, indestructible. Each time he was away in the oil fields, I sat at the desk to do homework. When I opened the drawers, I could smell the scent of him—dried ink, pipe tobacco, carbon paper, Old Spice. . . .
Teddy and Pastor Al began retrieving computer equipment from the tabletop, untangling hastily strewn cords and winding them up for travel. Pastor Al handed the speakers and the computer cord to me.
“Can we take the desk, too?” I said impulsively. “If I put the backseats down, it’ll probably fit.” I was glad I’d chosen the hatchback rental car instead of the coupe.
Pastor Al surveyed the surrounding junk stacks. “I think we can get it out.”
As Pastor Al and Teddy began working to free the desk, I hurried outside, brought the car around, and put down the backseats. I carried out pieces of computer equipment while Teddy and Pastor Al hauled my recovered family treasure to the front of the building and prepared it for transport.
Loading the heavy metal typing stand turned out to be harder than I’d thought it would be, particularly because the CPU was either bolted or glued to the desk—perhaps the reason the computer had ended up beside the Dumpster rather than in it. We maneuvered as carefully as we could. Fortunately, Teddy was strong, and between the three of us we managed to wrestle the desk and Sy’s dolly into the back of the car.
Pastor Al shook Teddy’s hand as we prepared to leave. “Teddy, you come help me with those flowers, you hear?”
Teddy was noticeably pleased. “Ho-kay, Past-er Al.”
I thanked Pastor Al, and he shook my hand, then kept it in his for a moment. “I’ll be by to visit your folks. You let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
“I will,” I said. Then Teddy and I climbed into the car, Teddy folding his legs against the speakers and keyboard, and carrying the monitor in his lap, because there wasn’t anywhere else to put it. When we got home, we spilled out of the car like clowns from a Volkswagen.
“Hey-eee, Sy, I gone get the dolly!” Teddy called into the house. Sy came out and helped us unload the typing stand and equipment. I cleared a space for the desk and computer beside the workbench in the garage, to avoid bringing the smell into the house.
“Man, where’s this thing been?” Sy asked as he stacked the monitor atop the CPU.
“Waiting for a church yard sale,” I answered, leaning over to connect the cables. A slip of paper protruding from one of the desk drawers caught my eye. Pinching it, I pulled, slowly bringing the paper out, discovering it bit by bit—a faded black-and-white photograph, a passionflower vine, a brick sidewalk, my feet in little Mary Janes, the black wingtips my father wore to the office. His pant legs, my knees, the hem of a lacy dress, pink, maybe lavender, an Easter basket, his hand holding mine, my white Peter Pan collar, his suit coat, our faces smiling as, behind us, kids lined up for an Easter egg hunt. I didn’t know where the picture was taken, didn’t remember the dress. I was six, maybe seven. I remembered how big his hand felt, clasping mine.
“Guess that ought to do it,” Sy said, plugging the computer into the wall. “I better get back inside before Tony screws somethin’ up.”
I barely heard him. I’d lost myself in the photo, a picture my father had kept in his desk all these years. I reached down, pulled the drawer handle. The stop rattled in the lock. “Teddy, do you know if there’s a key to this desk?” Perhaps the drawer had been locked all these years, the old photo trapped there along with dried-up pens and bills paid long ago.
Or perhaps the man I’d thought had forgotten me had kept in this one private place—his place—a picture of the two of us, father and daughter in another life.
“Daddy Ed got lotsa key,” Teddy offered. Rummaging around the workbench, he came up with a small metal box filled with spare keys, most of which probably didn’t fit anything anymore.
“Thanks,” I said, pressing the power button on the computer and listening as it whirred into action, the cooling fan rattling but apparently operational.
“Hey, Tedman, bring that dolly in here,” Sy called from the hallway. Teddy gathered up the dolly and proceeded into the house.
The computer screen crackled to life with a warning that the system had been improperly shut down and loss of data could result. Windows clicked off, and the software began moving through a disk check.
Setting the Easter picture on the CPU, I spilled the box of keys onto the desktop and began trying anything that seemed the right size.
The computer continued its lazy attempt at resurrection. I sifted through the keys and tossed the rejects into the box one by one. The box was half full again by the time an ancient version of Windows materialized in the corner of my eye, and I turned my attention to the screen. I began searching for the financial records Hanna Beth had told me should be there—bank transactions, checks, deposits. There was a copy of Quicken with a history of regular use until nine months ago, but the data folders were missing. Almost all of the data folders were missing from the hard drive. My father, or someone, had stripped them away, perhaps in preparation for disposing of the computer, or perhaps to prevent anyone from gaining information later. Would my father, in his growing paranoia, have done such a thing? Would he have been capable of it? Or was this the work of Kay-Kay, the mystery woman?
I moved to the Favorites folder on the hard drive. The activity there was more recent, visits to various Web sites about Alzheimer’s, an online banking page, a Las Vegas gaming site, online pharmacies, a MySpace page for Kenita Kendal. Kay-Kay? Had I finally found a link? I’d have to take the computer inside and connect the modem to a phone line to find out.
I paged through the remaining file tree, into a folder of stored photos and information from various Web sites. A year ago, my father had been researching experimental treatments for Alzheimer’s. He’d also been doing family genealogy. Clicking on the folder marked FAMILYHISTORY, I scanned the contents, found a folder with my name on it. As it ope
ned, the screen filled with a thumbnail sheet of tiny images. The pictures were familiar—Macey’s gymnastics team posing for a newspaper article about the state meet; photos from the boutique Web site, me behind the counter, Macey and Kyle pretending to be shoppers; a photo of us participating in the Walk for a Cure in honor of my mother. The images scrolled on and on, my entire life history—Macey’s birth announcement from the newspaper, a picture of my high school senior class someone had posted on the reunion site, me with my clarinet in the eighth grade, proudly holding up a state solo and ensemble medal.
Tears blurred my eyes, but I wiped them away impatiently. I wanted to see it all, to know, finally, that the father who I’d thought had forgotten me had known me all along.
I sat for a time just looking at the pictures, taking them in, my soul rising with joy, an empty place inside me filling, an incompleteness now complete, as if I’d been waiting for this moment for thirty-three years. The scents of oil and mildew, old grease and crumbling plaster faded away, leaving only my father and me. The tall, ramrod-straight man in the picture, and the little girl in the white Mary Janes, holding hands as if they would never let go.
I returned to the pile of loose keys, began trying them in the drawer, ruling out one, then another, another, another, until finally one fit, turned. The lock gave way, and I pulled the drawer open, took out the items stored there, savoring each individually. My baby book, a sloppy handmade Father’s Day card that read “I Love You Daddy.” I’d signed my name in clumsy letters with a backward R. Underneath the card was a faded Crayola flower made from a paper plate. I remembered drawing it on the long plane trip to Saudi. Picking it up, I traced my finger along the bleached lines, indulged myself in the memory, then looked into the drawer again. There was nothing left but a small manila envelope. It was addressed to me, but the stamp had never been postmarked. I picked it up, turned it over in my hand, read my father’s handwriting on the flap, “For Rebecca from Dad.” There was no further detail. No explanation of how the envelope had become hidden under the pictures, why it hadn’t been sent, or how long it had remained locked in the drawer.