Looking into You

by Chris Fabry

  “From what I knew of David, yes, I think he would have wanted to be your father.”

  We watched the mother and her daughter swing and laugh and play. I tried to blame the ache inside me on the altitude but knew better.

  We walked slowly back to the car as dusk fell. Garages opened and trash cans were wheeled to the curb. There were no lights on in David’s house.

  “What are you thinking?” I said when we were back in our seats.

  She shrugged. “I’m thinking I’m tired. That we came a long way for nothing. And that I feel bad for Ron. He likes you but he doesn’t have a chance.”

  To avoid looking at her, I fussed with the GPS, searching for a nearby hotel. “He has a chance, Treha. It’s just that my life is a little complicated. Once things settle down . . .”

  She interrupted me by putting a hand on my shoulder. A minivan pulled into the driveway and the garage door opened. We watched, breathlessly, as the van parked in the immaculate garage. A workbench. Bikes hung on racks. A lawn mower in its stall and other yard equipment. A water softener, a freezer. The American dream.

  A woman got out of the driver’s side and the doors behind her opened. A young boy jumped down holding a piece of paper that looked like a coloring sheet from a restaurant. Two older girls followed the boy inside. Then the white car pulled in beside them and David got out and opened the back of the minivan, taking out a plastic bag with what looked like Styrofoam boxes inside. A small dog met David at the door, wagging his tail, and then the garage door closed like a curtain on the scene.

  “He must have met them somewhere,” Treha said. “That’s why he was driving so fast.”

  He was eager to get to his family, I thought. Eager to meet them and have dinner.

  “What do you think?” I said. “It’s your call. Do you want to talk to him?”

  “Let’s go to a hotel,” Treha said.

  I pulled away from the curb, looking carefully again for oncoming traffic, and paused by David’s driveway. Instead of visiting a grave, I was outside his home—a much better shrine to love than a tombstone. Though it was hard to wrap my mind around him carving out a life with someone else, I would much rather have the perceived “love of my life” still walking the planet, happy with his family.

  I must’ve pondered a bit too long because light illuminated the reflector on the mailbox and instead of a red truck bearing down on us, there was a rattle of wheels and light coming from the garage. Around the white car came David in that generous loping walk, pulling two trash cans toward the curb.

  “Go,” Treha whispered urgently.

  I pulled forward a few feet and stopped.

  “Get out of here. He’s coming. He’ll see us.”

  There are moments in life you wish you could relive, and I had the feeling this would become one of them. Years down the road, I would want to come back to this curb and keep my foot on the brake. It’s how I felt about the birth of my daughter. I wish I’d said something to David, given him a chance twenty years ago, been stronger with my mother and father. Treha kept urging me forward but I couldn’t leave. Something held me there.

  I put the car in park and watched David roll the recycling container to the curb and then position the other can a precise distance away. He straightened the containers, mashed the lids down, and went to the mailbox, right behind our car. He removed letters and walked toward the house.

  Treha sat rigid, not even daring to look in the side mirror. “Please, let’s go. Hurry!”

  I unlatched my seat belt, opened my door, and stepped out. The light came on inside the car and a bell dinged that my keys were still in the ignition.

  Treha grabbed my arm and gave me a look of sheer terror as if we were in a horror movie and I was intent on going to the basement. “Please,” she begged. “Let’s go.”

  It was this glance at my daughter, at her face and all that she had carried her entire life, that compelled the door closed and my seat belt back in place. I reached for the gearshift.

  Something tapped at my window and my heart raced. Treha flinched. David stood on the other side of the glass, bent over, a quizzical look on his face.

  “Just drive,” Treha whispered.

  I pulled the lever into drive and he stepped back.

  “Can I help you?” he said. His voice was muffled by the window, but it was still his voice. Like a melody from some forgotten song that arrests you and takes you right back to where you were the first time you heard it. The first time he said my name, my insides had been like jelly. The first time he said he loved me, I felt whole and free. And now here he was again, years later and with three children of his own.

  His eyes looked the same, even behind the glasses. Amazing.

  The light had faded to black inside the car. I put the window down halfway and looked at him, his face silhouetted by an overhead streetlight. “We’re fine, thank you.”

  “Are you sure?” he said with a hint of doubt.

  “Yes. My daughter and I were just . . . driving around.”

  He nodded and dipped his head to look at Treha. She kept her face angled away like a kidnapped child. “Okay,” David said, smiling. Dimples in his cheeks. Those cute ears of his that hugged his head and pointed a little at the top like an elf’s. Treha had those ears. “Just wanted to make sure.”

  He put his left hand on the top of the window and I saw the ring, the thick wedding band that brought a wave of regret. As he walked away, I glanced in the rearview. He leafed through the mail by the light of my taillights.

  “You got to hear his voice,” I said to Treha. “I wanted you to hear it.”

  “Why didn’t you go?”

  “I couldn’t. I had to speak with him, at least once.”

  “You think he recognized you?”

  “No. It’s been too long. Too much time and distance and wrinkling skin on my face. How did you like him? Did he seem like someone who would love you?”

  “I liked him fine. Can we please leave?”

  I let my foot off the brake and had started to pull out when I heard the voice again.

  “Paige?”

  The window was still halfway down. I stopped. David moved to my window and squatted by the car, allowing the light to shine on my face this time.

  “Paige Redwine. It is you. I can’t believe this. It’s been . . . half a lifetime. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.” My voice shook as I spoke the words. I hadn’t prepared for this and when he continued, I felt relieved.

  “Somebody in the office today asked if I’d seen the video—you talking with your daughter at the school. And I said, ‘I know her. I met her on a mission trip more than twenty years ago.’” He put a hand to his head. “I can’t believe this. You’re in front of my house. That’s crazy. What are you doing here?”

  Treha leaned toward me. “I told you we should have gone. Please. Let’s go.”

  David looked at me, saying something with his eyes, but I couldn’t decipher the message with Treha pulling me in the other direction. I turned to her. “Give me a minute.”

  I stepped out, barely remembering in time to put the car back in park, and closed the door. David started to hug me, but I extended a hand.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said.

  “David, I think it might be better if we came back another time. For some reason Treha doesn’t . . . She’s not comfortable.”

  “I understand. That’s fine. Just stay right here and let me get my wife. She won’t believe it.”

  “David.” I said it forcefully, just hard enough to get him to step off the world he was in so he could move into mine. “You know Treha is my daughter, right?”

  “Yeah, I told you I saw the video.”

  I searched his eyes. “She wanted to come to Colorado to see her father.”

  He squinted at me and cocked his head. “Okay. So her dad lives here?”

  “David, Treha is twenty-two. I met you on the island twenty-three
years ago.”

  The eyes said it all. Everything starts in the eyes. The color drained from his face, his mouth dropped, the cute dimples disappeared, and he looked at the pavement, searching for something in the asphalt he would never find.

  I moved toward him in a gesture of comfort. I’d had twenty-three years to prepare for this moment, but it was something he stumbled upon taking out the trash.

  He looked up at me. “What do you want?” His voice turned to gravel. “What does she want?”

  I struggled to breathe. “You think I brought her here to punish you? I can assure you there’s nothing further—”

  “You must want something if you’re sitting outside my house. Were you waiting for us to get home?”

  “David, we don’t want anything. You had no idea about her. I know that. We never told you, so you couldn’t have known.”

  “But you’re telling me now. How could you do this, Paige? Show up and drop this?” His voice was louder now, a vein in his forehead surfacing.

  The front door opened and a young girl stuck her head out. “Daddy, come inside!”

  “I’ll be right there, honey,” he called.

  Voices from inside. Then the girl said, “He’s talking to some lady,” and the door closed. The front window blinds lifted and I looked away.

  David ran a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me? This is not fair. You can’t do this to me. Not now.”

  “I thought you were dead. That’s what I was told. That you were in an accident. And I . . .” I put my hands on my head and pressed down. “I’ve made a mess of things. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, David.”

  I got back in the car.

  “Paige, wait.”

  I got one more view of David in the rearview before we sped out of the neighborhood. He was standing in his driveway with the mail in his hand and a look on his face I’d never forget.

  CHAPTER 37

  Paige

  We found a hotel near I-25, across from a theater and a huge church. Nearby was a grocery store and we bought some water and fruit in a plastic container. When we passed a large bookstore, I made a U-turn and went inside. Treha opted to stay in the car.

  I came back with a copy of George Eliot’s Middlemarch. “They didn’t have an audio edition, but you can start this anytime you want.”

  Treha took the bag and pulled out the hardcover “classic” edition. She seemed glad to have something to look at while we drove back to the hotel. It gave her a reason not to look at me—not that she was doing that anyway.

  We ate our fruit in the breakfast area with the TV on, a sports channel blaring highlights of the latest football games. Treha and I were the only ones there but neither of us had the energy or desire to turn down the volume.

  Up in our room, I came from the bathroom and found Treha staring at the television. She’d found a news program about a crime of passion and the resulting trial accusing the husband. Bloodstained carpets, photos of the smiling victim with her husband, and troubling questions were all described by a smooth-voiced reporter. He tied the story together with interviews of skeptical family members as well as the husband in a prison jumpsuit.

  Finally I couldn’t take any more and turned off the TV. “I think we should talk.”

  Treha picked up the remote and turned the TV on again.

  I returned to the bathroom to regroup. All evening I’d tried to give Treha her space, but that was getting us nowhere. So maybe it was time for another approach.

  I strode back into the room as the show went to commercial and unplugged the power cord, then stood in front of Treha’s bed. “I think we should talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to.”

  “Treha, it’s okay to be angry with me. I can handle it.”

  Treha picked up the book by the side of the bed and opened to the first pages.

  “Treha.”

  The girl looked up. “You can’t unplug this.” She turned and faced the wall.

  I sank onto my own bed. “Fine. We won’t talk, then.”

  I shuffled desperately through my meager mental supply of parenting wisdom. I’d heard someone say that even if teenagers pushed you away, they really wanted you with them. Treha wasn’t a teenager, of course, but maybe the principle was the same.

  It took ten minutes that felt more like an eternity. But after ten minutes, Treha mumbled something.

  “What was that?”

  “I wanted to see if he did it.”

  “Who?”

  “The man on TV. The husband.”

  “I think our lives are more interesting. There’s no blood on the carpet but it is a pretty engaging story.”

  More silence and a page turn. Finally Treha rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t understand why you didn’t leave. You said this trip was up to me. The decision was mine. And when I told you to go, you sat there.”

  I nodded. “I knew you wanted to leave. I understood that. But something took over when I saw him. I felt that was our best chance—my only chance to make contact. If I didn’t do it then . . .”

  “But you didn’t care how I felt.”

  “I do care. But this is something I’m learning, Treha. And it’s a hard lesson. If I had listened to my gut when you were born, if I had done what I wanted to do, I wouldn’t have let you go. I think God was trying to break through to me, but I wouldn’t listen. And right then, when David approached us, I felt it was right to stay, to get out and talk with him.”

  “Then I can’t trust you.”

  “That’s not true. You can trust me. I’m committed to doing everything I can with your best interests at heart. But sometimes what I think is best and what you think is best will conflict. Trust is not a one-way street. And it’s built over time. You have to believe that I want the best for you and pray I’ll make wise decisions, just like I have to believe that about you.”

  Treha sat up on her elbows. “This is not how I thought having a mother would be.”

  “What did you think it would be like?”

  “I thought we would talk and share stories. That I would feel all warm inside when I heard your voice.”

  “You don’t feel that?”

  “Not now.”

  I tried to stifle a smile. And I risked moving to sit on Treha’s bed. “My inclination is to try to make you happy. Just do everything you want. Even driving up here was that. I thought I could show you how committed I was by doing this. It’s like a divorced parent who comes back into a child’s life with presents and trips to the amusement park every weekend. I don’t want to buy your love, Treha. I want to do what’s best for you, for both of us.”

  “And if I think what’s best is different, you ignore me?”

  “That’s what we have to work through. This is not easy. It’s messy. But in the end, I think it’s going to be good for—”

  The room phone rang, a rattling, warbling electronic sound that had been turned to its loudest setting. I answered and heard the sounds of football in the background.

  “Ms. Redwine, it’s Kathy Weber. David’s wife.”

  “Hello.”

  “I’m in the lobby. Could you come down?”

  In the lobby? This lobby? “How did you find us?”

  “David called around to different hotels. It didn’t take long.”

  “He didn’t come with you?”

  “I can explain if you’ll come down.”

  I gave a heavy sigh. “Okay.”

  “Who was it?” Treha said when I hung up.

  “David’s wife is here. She wants to talk to me.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “I understand.” How could I not? I didn’t want to go either.

  I plugged in the television and grabbed a key card. “I’ll be back.”

  Kathy Weber had long, blonde hair with highlights. She looked like something out of a modeling magazine, but the ma
keup couldn’t hide the pain on her face. I wondered how I would have reacted if our roles were switched—my husband’s old lover surfacing. Would there have been blood on the carpet somewhere?

  We shook hands awkwardly and sat at a small, round table.

  Kathy began to speak, then stood and found the remote for the television and muted the sound. “This is awkward for both of us.”

  “Very. I’m sorry to put you in this situation.”

  “David and I have been through a lot in the past few years. This new revelation, you and your daughter coming here, felt like one more . . . I don’t know, one more shoe dropping. It caught me off guard.” She fiddled with her wedding ring, and I saw tears filling her eyes. “David told me there had been others. He mentioned you. But he never said there was a baby. Is it true he didn’t know?”

  “Our family kept that secret from everyone. I regret that. I think we all do.”

  “You never thought about telling him? You never tried to get in touch with him?”

  “I was told that David had died. It was a misunderstanding at first, miscommunication from the mission field. And then it was simply a truth I was never told.”

  The answer seemed to calm the woman, but the tears didn’t go away.

  “I struggled with coming here,” I said. “Treha wanted to see her father. Just look at him. She has this way of approaching life that’s a little hard to grasp. And when we saw David, she asked me to leave. She didn’t want to talk.”

  “But you stayed,” Kathy said.

  “Yes. I froze.”

  “Why?”

  “I felt like it was a chance to finally tell the truth. Staying, talking with David, was just the right thing to do tonight. Talking instead of hiding.”

  “You’re not the first to come back,” Kathy said. “That’s why he asked what you wanted.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “David was unfaithful to me.” Kathy said it with a puckered chin. She took some tissues out of her purse. “We’re working through that. We’ve been working through that for a while.”

  “I’m sorry.” It was the only thing I could think to say. If David could have an affair with a wife who looked like this, what hope was there for any marriage?