by Mary McNear
He was quiet for a long time. “That’s what I used to talk to Van about,” he said when he spoke again. “About my dad. About how I’d find him and, you know, what it’d be like when I did.”
“Really?” she said. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t know that.” Why hadn’t he told her this? she wondered, tears burning unexpectedly in her eyes. Unless . . . unless, of course, he had told her. Or tried to tell her. And she remembered his heated words after they’d come back from the police station. “No, you don’t get it,” Luke had shouted. “I don’t know anything about my dad.” And this whole time, Luke was now realizing, Billy could have enlightened him. She blinked back a tear. “I’m sorry,” she said, but there was no answer from Luke.
Finally, though, he mumbled, “Okay, so, whatever.” And then he said, “When can I meet him? Like, how soon?” And he looked reflexively at Billy’s cell phone, which was propped in the cup holder.
“We’re not going to call him, Luke,” she said, alarmed. “Not right this second. And we’re not going to rush into things, either.”
“But you are going to call him?”
“I am. Eventually.”
“Eventually?” He looked incredulous.
“No, soon,” Billy amended. “I’ll get in touch with him when I get home.”
“You get home. You’re not still going to make me go to camp . . . ?”
“Yes, Luke. I am. You’re going. We just went over this.”
“Yeah, but that was before I knew—”
“This doesn’t change that,” she said firmly. “Especially since . . . I have to figure out how to do this. Try to see this from his perspective. We can’t just . . . drop this on him. I mean, we can. We’ll sort of . . . have to. But there’s a right way and a wrong way.” Even as she was saying this, though, Billy was wondering what the right way would be. They had definitely not covered this particular challenge in the parenting books she’d been reading recently.
“Look, I will contact him,” she said. “But not right this minute. We need to get you to Split Rock Lighthouse.” She glanced at her watch.
“I still don’t get why I have to go.”
“Because I think it’ll be good for you. I think you’ll love it. I know the timing’s not great. The timing almost never is great for anything,” she admitted with a rueful smile. “But, look. You’ve waited thirteen years to find out more about your dad. Do you think, maybe, you could wait another two weeks?”
“I guess,” Luke said finally, though Billy could see how conflicted he still was. It was all there in his expression. Excitement. Nervousness. Impatience. And something else, too, something she couldn’t quite name. Anger? Distrust? He turned to look out the window. She started the engine and pulled back onto the road.
By the time they’d reached the parking lot of the visitor center at Split Rock Lighthouse, where counselors, campers, and parents were already congregating, Luke had settled back inside himself—settled so far back, in fact, that when Billy said good-bye to him, she understood that she was not, under any circumstance, to hug him. She spoke instead to the head counselor, whose nickname was Mad Dog, and who had long blond hair, a BMX biking T-shirt on, and a quintessential coolness that she thought might have impressed Luke under ordinary circumstances.
“Luke,” she said quietly as the campers started getting ready to leave. “You’re going to be okay with all of this, aren’t you? I need to know that before I leave here.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, glancing around to make sure none of the other boys had heard her.
“Good,” she said. And she couldn’t resist reaching out and pushing an errant lock of hair off his forehead.
“Mom,” he said in warning, hoisting his backpack on.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go before I make a scene.” She tried to smile. “I love you, though,” she said in a voice no louder than a whisper. “I love you so much, Luke.” And then she turned and, without looking back, made her way across the parking lot to her car. She wasn’t feeling particularly lucky, but she must have had a little luck on her side, because she was safely back inside the car by the time the tears really came.
CHAPTER 23
Once Billy was ready to start driving again, she made good time on the way back from Split Rock Lighthouse—so good, in fact, that she was at the bank in Butternut a full hour before it closed. She retrieved the manila envelope out of her safe deposit box and returned with it—still unopened—to the house. She took Murphy for a walk, an extralong walk, then drove out to the town beach for a swim. She was hoping some exercise would loosen the knot of tension that had formed between her shoulder blades and, more importantly, bring her some measure of calm, no matter how small. The relief she’d felt briefly after she’d told Luke about Wesley had been replaced by a tumult of other feelings, feelings that had been her relentless companions on the drive home. There was worry: how would Wesley respond when she contacted him? There was self-recrimination: why had she waited so long to tell Luke? There was defensiveness: she had made the decisions she thought best at the time. There was disbelief: Had she really dropped all this information about Wesley on Luke just before he left for a two-week hike? There was guilt: she had hurt Luke—she’d heard it in his voice—when he’d realized she’d known about Wesley for more than a year. And there was fear, of course: Had she lost Luke’s trust? Maybe forever?
Though the walk and the swim hadn’t completely cleared her head, she did feel a not-unpleasant fatigue afterward. Now, as she sat on the back porch, an untouched glass of wine on the table beside her, an unfamiliar emptiness settled over the house. She already missed Luke. Other than a five-day trip with his grandfather to New York City several years ago, he’d never been away from her for more than a single night’s sleepover or a weekend visiting his grandmother. Now he’d be gone for almost two weeks. Billy watched as Murphy nosed around in the darkening backyard and decided it was time—time to get to the matter at hand.
She reached for the manila envelope she’d put on the table beside her and a letter opener she’d set down next to it. Before she could lose her nerve, she sliced through the envelope and shook its contents out onto her lap. The first thing she saw was what she assumed was a recent photograph of Wesley. She picked it up and studied it. He was older now, obviously, and a little heavier than he’d been the last time she’d seen him, but she recognized him. Of course she did. He had more or less burned himself into her memory. Also in the file was a three-page report, which she read slowly. Wesley had left Alaska fourteen years ago after meeting a guest at the fishing lodge who’d hired him away to work for his fishing club in Vancouver. Wesley had worked there as a dock manager for three years, and then he’d met a Vancouver girl, Erin Wallace. They’d gotten married ten years ago, and they’d moved to the northeastern coast of Vancouver Island, not far from Port McNeil, where they owned and operated a charter fishing business. The couple had two daughters, Hannah and Eleanor. Among the papers the detective had gathered was a copy of a clipping from a local newspaper—an article about a fishing tournament in Port McNeil—and there was a photo of Wesley and Erin together. She was petite, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, a friendly smile on her face, and she and Wesley were standing on the end of a dock, their arms around each other, the water and towering pines behind them.
She looked at the grainy photograph closely, as though she might find the answer to some riddle in it. The picture evoked in her something she could describe only as a pain, a kind of heartache she had not allowed herself to feel before. She wondered, for the first time in years, what a life with Wesley might have been like. Might she have been happy with him? Might they—she and Luke and Wesley—have made a good family? This was not a productive line of questioning, though. She knew that.
When she’d decided to have Luke all those years ago, she’d been reconciled to not finding Wesley. She’d been reconciled, too, to not raising Luke in a traditional family. This was because, despite her roman
tic nature, she also had a strong dose of her dad’s practicality, and he’d taught her not to dwell on what might have been. It was a fool’s errand, he’d said, to imagine a past that hadn’t taken place. The point was to move forward, count one’s blessings, and appreciate what one did have. For the most part, that’s what she’d done over the years. And so had her dad. She remembered him telling her once about his crushing disappointment after he’d been unable to go to Cornell University’s engineering school. He’d been accepted there, but he couldn’t afford the tuition. In fact, his family was in such debt that he had to attend a nearby college, live at home to save money, and work a full-time job to help his mom pay the bills. But sometime in his second year of college, he’d met Billy’s mom and he’d fallen “madly, hopelessly” in love with her. “I never would have met her if I’d gone to Cornell,” he’d explained to Billy one afternoon. “I learned then that you should work hard, have dreams, and set goals, but don’t let the things you didn’t attain prevent you from being grateful for the things right in front of your eyes.” Yes, he was right. Now was not the time to imagine what had not happened. Not when she had Luke to show for all this.
She looked through the rest of the documents. There was a report showing that Wesley had no “criminal or negative financial” findings, a page showing his ownership of his house and a boat, and three newspaper announcements from his marriage and the births of his two daughters.
When Billy was done, she put everything back in the envelope and set it on the table. Murphy, satisfied with his nightly exploration of their yard, came up on the porch, and Billy petted him, deep in thought. It was true, as her father had said, that you couldn’t find the measure of a man in the contents of an envelope, but of one thing she was now sure: Wesley was not a bad man. She’d known that the night she’d met him, and she’d known that tonight reading over the private investigator’s report. The worst she could say about him, probably, was that he was unexceptional. But most of us are unexceptional she reminded herself. At the end of the day, most of us are just trying, the best we can, to make our way in the world. Wesley was one of those people. So was she. And if Luke could love her, which she knew he did, even during their worst moments together, he could love Wesley, too—provided, of course, that Wesley was open to having a relationship with him. That Wesley was open to loving him back.
And therein lay the problem. Wesley could be a perfectly good man but still not want to have a relationship with a son he didn’t choose to have, especially when he already had a wife and two daughters. And would he even remember Billy? Billy and the night they’d spent together fourteen years ago? Most important, would he even believe that Luke was actually his child? Well, there was only one way to find out, Billy thought. She had Wesley’s address and phone number. Calling him, she decided, might be too much of a shock for him, and Billy didn’t know if she had the courage to do that, anyway. No, she would write him a letter, a carefully worded letter that he could read privately and then think about. She would try not to overwhelm him with information. The basics about her and Luke would do. She would stress the fact that she didn’t want any financial support from him, and that her intention in writing this letter was not to disrupt his life or his relationship with his wife and children, but only to explore the possibility of him meeting his son. She’d include all her contact information, too, so he could decide the best way to respond.
Ideally he would respond to her before she went to pick up Luke in two weeks. Then she would know where the three of them stood. If Wesley didn’t respond, or if he were averse to meeting Billy and Luke, well, then, she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Now, though, she would write the letter. Tomorrow she would mail it.
Her cell phone, sitting on the table beside her, pinged to life. Billy picked it up and read a text from Cal.
Billy, I’ll be back from Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Are you free? I’d love to cook you dinner this time.
Please don’t say no! Cal
She smiled and pictured Cal standing barefoot on the porch of his cabin, smiling at her as she came up the steps. Did everything have to happen at once? she wondered, touching Cal’s message with her fingers. But she wouldn’t want this thing with him not to be happening, would she? She glanced over at Murphy, who’d settled near her feet, and his friendly brown eyes seemed to be saying to her, Definitely not.
CHAPTER 24
Hey, Luke. Can I talk to you?” Mad Dog asked as they hiked into the Bear Lake campsite at the end of the third day of the trip.
“Yeah, okay.” Luke sighed. Mad Dog seemed cool. He was still in college, but in his free time, he was a competitive BMX biker. He had shoulder-length blond hair that he sometimes wore down, sometimes in a ponytail, and he had a killer scar on his knee—big and jagged and still pink—that Luke suspected was from a BMX injury. Best of all, though, was the tattoo on his shoulder that spelled out Lola. Was she his girlfriend? Luke wondered. But Luke didn’t want to ask him, because, well . . . he just wanted to be alone. He couldn’t stop thinking about what his mom had told him before she’d dropped him off. Sometimes he felt excited and sometimes he felt angry. It was confusing. He needed to straighten it all out somehow.
“Why don’t we set these packs down and check out the lake,” Mad Dog suggested, slipping off his backpack and leaning it against a tree.
“Shouldn’t I be helping to . . . set up?” Luke asked, watching as the other boys came trudging into camp. He was assigned to a four-man tent, and he and his tent mates were supposed to pitch it together.
“Oh, I think your friends can handle it,” Mad Dog said easily.
Friends? He’d barely talked to the three boys in his tent. Two of them were okay, he guessed, but one of them, this kid named Oscar, was so homesick he cried in his sleeping bag at night when he thought everyone was asleep. Luke felt sorry for him, but what could he do? Mad Dog was waiting for him now, though, so he took his pack off, too. He immediately felt lighter—twenty pounds was heavier than he’d expected it to be—but they’d still done a fairly easy hike today. Mad Dog had warned it would get harder. By the end of the first week they’d be hiking full days over rough terrain. This was the warm-up, he’d said. “Great,” Luke had mumbled, rolling his eyes.
Mad Dog started down the path to Bear Lake, and Luke followed him. “Not bad, huh?” Mad Dog asked when they reached the lake. It looked smaller than Butternut Lake, but Luke had to admit it was pretty. Tall aspen and pine trees ringed the shore, and the water was so clear that the shallow, rocky bottom was visible even from several yards away.
“It’s okay,” Luke said of the lake, looking back toward the camp. He was wondering what Mad Dog wanted to talk to him about. He hadn’t pulled any of the other kids aside yet.
“We’re going swimming here after dinner,” Mad Dog confided, sitting down on a nearby boulder. “Shoes on, though. Some of those rocks are pretty slippery.”
Luke nodded. More fun.
“Have a seat,” Mad Dog said, pointing to another boulder nearby. Luke sat down on it.
“So, Luke. What’s up?” Mad Dog asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s going on?”
“With me?” Luke asked.
Mad Dog nodded. “You’re doing fine with the physical part of the trip. You’re obviously in good shape. I can see you’re a pretty good athlete.”
“I skateboard,” Luke said.
“I can tell,” Mad Dog said. “You breezed right up that big hill today. So, physically, you’ve got this covered,” he continued. “But Luke, you’re not talking to any of the other campers or counselors. You’re just keeping to yourself. That’d be okay if this was a solo hike. But it’s a group hike.”
Luke didn’t say anything. He knew what Mad Dog was talking about, though. Yesterday after lunch, when everyone else went for a swim, Luke had said no, thanks, and sat on a rock instead. And last night, when everyone else was sitting around the cam
pfire after dinner, he’d gone back into his tent.
Luke kicked at a rock on the ground. He didn’t know what Mad Dog wanted him to say. That he’d try harder? Forget it, he thought. “This trip wasn’t even my idea,” he mumbled.
“What was that?” Mad Dog asked.
“My mom wanted me to go on this trip,” he said louder, kicking the rock free.
“Okay.” Mad Dog nodded. “So, hiking’s not your thing?”
“No, I like it. I just didn’t want to go now.”
“What’s wrong with now?”
“There’s stuff going on.”
“At home?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Luke said, focusing on the lake’s surface. It would be evening soon, and little clouds of gnats were starting to form above the water. He was hoping if he didn’t say anything more, then Mad Dog might just drop it.
Instead he asked, “Luke, do you want to know what my worst grade in college was?”
Luke shrugged again.
“It was a C minus. In psychology.”
“That’s . . . that’s a pretty bad grade,” Luke said honestly. His mom would not be happy if he got a grade like that.
“Yeah, well, the point I’m trying to make is if you think I’m trying to be some kind of . . . therapist here with you, you’re wrong. And as for that class, it was at 8:10 A.M. I’m not a morning person.”
“You are here,” Luke pointed out. They had to get up at six thirty A.M. the past two mornings, and both times Mad Dog was in a really good mood.