Broken Identity (4 page)

Andrew frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ronnie.”

Ronnie had a puzzled look on his face, but Andrew decided it best not to explain further. “Hey, I promise as soon as I get back, I’ll make you the biggest fruit smoothie you’ve ever seen. That’s something worth waiting for, huh?”

Ronnie considered that for a moment. “Can you make mine banana? That’s my favorite.”

“Why not? Then after that, maybe we could play a board game or something.”

Ronnie yawned and used his panda bear as a pillow against the window. “OK…Uncle Andy?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are Mommy and Daddy mad at me? Did I do something wrong?”

So they were back on that subject again. Andrew’s heart ached to know that Ronnie was taking the blame for what was happening to him. “No, Ronnie,” he said, surprised at how weak his voice suddenly sounded. “You’ve never done anything wrong.”

“Then why don’t they like me?”

“Ronnie, your mom and dad…well, they just…”

“Don’t love me?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” Andrew said, his tired eyes looking everywhere but in the rearview mirror.

“Then what?”

Seven-year-olds can ask the hardest questions. How do I tell him the truth about his parents without crushing his heart?
“Do you know why I’m taking you home with me, Ronnie?”

“Because they were mean to me?”

“Because I love you and want the very best for you. You know that, don’t you?”

Ronnie nodded his head, listening intently to every word.

“We just need to pray for Mommy and Daddy and ask God to help them. Do you know how to pray?”

Ronnie knocked his knees together and said timidly, “I don’t know. Maybe…I guess.”

“Well, then, tonight I’ll show you. It’s not hard, Ronnie. You know how to talk, right?”

That got a smile out of him. “You know I can talk.”

Andrew returned the smile. “Praying is that easy.”

The salmon-colored clouds arranged in the sky like the dotted scales on a sunfish. They gradually faded into a long stretch of gray, giving the darkening landscape the appearance of an ancient sketch drawing. The moon was suspended high in the sky like a ghost emerging from the fog, and the flutelike songs of meadowlarks and wood thrushes faded away with the sunset as the sound of crickets and throaty toads welcomed the night. An osprey left its perch from a barbed wire fence and soared toward the pond in the distance where bending, ragged marsh grass dipped into the water.

This was supposed to be one of the happiest days of Drake’s life, yet here he was, more interested in the wildlife outdoors than what was going on in his own life. Not surprisingly, his dad was out late doing who knew what while he watched the clock tick by. He shouldn’t have to live like this, a parent to his own dad—don’t blow all your money, don’t stay past curfew, don’t do drugs, don’t be a louse all your life. And on, and on, and on.

Three more hours dragged by. Soon even the crickets and frogs got tired of their own singing and called it a night. This was ridiculous, and Drake was tired of waiting. His dad had probably drunk himself into a high again and was under a tree somewhere talking to his own shadow. Who knew anymore? Toss a coin.

Drake ambled back into the living room and reclined on the couch with his feet elevated on the armrest. He didn’t know why, but at the strangest times, thoughts of his mom flooded his mind. He had only one picture of her holding him as a baby that he kept tucked away in his wallet. Though he realized he should be outraged with her for leaving him years ago, he couldn’t make himself resent her for what she had done.

His heart stung. Why did he torture himself this way? Why did he have to dream about her again last night when those days of dreaming should be over? It was too far away now, too many years behind him. As hard as he tried to reflect into the past, the only thing he seemed to remember about her were the tiny dimples that formed in her smooth cheeks when she smiled.

And that she was beautiful—the most beautiful person in the world. He was 5 years old when he first told her he wanted to marry her. She had pulled his small frame against her warm body and hugged him, kissed him, and reminded him repeatedly how much her love for him grew every day.

Drake brushed a tear away and wished he could envision her clearly in his mind. His dad had thrown away almost every reminder, but it wasn’t another picture of her Drake wanted to see. He wanted to remember her as she really was—in motion, talking, breathing, and all the other things pictures fell short of. That part of her was so hard to see anymore.

The way her long, dark hair flowed down her shoulders was still surprisingly clear to Drake, but the rest of her face was one huge blur. The picture he had of her was almost impossible to see any longer because of all the ugly creases in it. His dad had never said anything to him about his mom; but for years, Drake had blamed himself for her sudden leaving. Maybe he wasn’t the perfect child she had always dreamed of having. Perhaps he had asked for a specific toy one Christmas, even though he knew his parents were broke and in enough debt already. It had to be something, Drake told himself. She wouldn’t have simply packed her bags and left for no reason.

But the part that killed him the most was that there was never any discussion of her. It was almost as if he and his dad had a silent understanding between themselves. Drake never asked questions—for the most part, anyway—and his dad never offered to answer any. At times, it felt as if she had never even been a part of their lives. But Drake knew otherwise; and tonight, he was determined to find answers.

Drake sat up suddenly as the doorknob twisted. He watched the door swing open as the large silhouette of his father stumbled inside.

Ben jumped and put a hand to his chest. “What’re you tryin’ to do, scare me half to death? What’re you up past midnight for anyway? Don’t you have school tomorrow or somethin’?”

Drake rolled his eyes at the empty beer bottle his dad still clung to, as if it were some sort of trophy of the night’s events. Disgusting. “I graduated, remember?” He sighed and said, “No, I shouldn’t expect you to remember anything when you’re drunk like this. After you go to the bathroom and throw your guts up for an hour straight, your son would like to talk to you.”

Ben glowered at him and stumbled toward his chair so he could relieve his unsteady legs. “I’m not drunk. I can talk.”

Drake brusquely stood up and strode over to the other end of the room. He turned only slightly to see his father. “Do you remember what today is?”

“Monday, I think,” Ben mumbled, massaging his aching head. “Yeah, that’s right. Monday, cause Paul and Albert—”

“I swear, I’ll strangle the life outta those friends of yours if they keep makin’ you come home like this!” Drake said, landing a solid kick in the side of his dad’s recliner. The fabric ripped at the seams.

“Oh, go to bed. They bought my beer tonight. I had to join ’em.”

“Bought your beer,” Drake repeated sarcastically. “Bought you another sleepless night, you mean.”

“You’re just jealous you didn’t go. I know what it is.”

“No, I have a life. May not be much, but it’s a lot more’n you got.” He shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Point is, I knew you’d forget.”

“Forget what?”

“Your own son’s eighteenth birthday.” Drake paced back over to the couch and rested his forehead in his hands. “What an accomplishment,” he mumbled. “Another year’s come and gone, and my life still stinks just as bad as it did a year ago.”

“Oh, brother, just spit it out!” Ben said finally, slapping the armrest beside him. “What do you want? Money? Too late for that. Don’t have any left.”

“No, something else.”

“What?”

“Mom’s journal,” Drake said slowly, watching his dad’s reaction out of the corner of his eye.

Ben stuttered, attaching curses to most of his words. “What? Why? What could you possibly want with that old thing?”

“Do you still have it?”

“Yeah, uh…in that old video box, I think. But what does that have to do with you?”

Drake forced a laugh, despite his rage. “Because she’s my mom, and I’d finally like to have some of my questions answered. I want to know why she left and where she was going.”

His dad snorted. “You want it, you can have it. I ain’t got no use for it.”

Drake clasped his hands together and leaned forward in his seat, more serious now. Maybe in his drunken state of mind, his dad would finally open up. “Why did Mom leave?”

Ben heaved a sigh and straightened out of his chair. “Don’t use that voice on me. It stopped working years ago.”

“Dad, I need to know. I can’t keep wondering like this forever.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What do you mean you don’t want to talk about it? She was
your
wife and
my
mother. You can’t just push her away and act like she never existed. What’s wrong with you anyway? Why do you keep avoiding my questions?”

“I’m going to bed.”

Drake seized his dad by the arm and yanked him back. “No! I’ve waited for hours for you to come home because this is important to me. I deserve an answer!”

“You don’t want to know her.”

“What are you talking about? Of course, I want to know her! I can’t help but want to know. She’s my mom. I’ve studied the pictures, Dad. I’m not blind. I look just like her. At least you can tell me something about—”

“That’s enough!” Ben said fiercely, jerking away from Drake’s hold. “I refuse to discuss this any longer. Good night!” He stomped off to his bedroom and slammed the door shut.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Drake said under his breath, infuriated with his father’s stubbornness. “I’ll just find out for myself.”

He went outside to the shed and flicked on the single bulb. Old car parts and insulation pieces littered the floor. He pushed aside empty paint cans and plastic bags and winter boxes until his hands touched a wrinkled cardboard box marked
Videos.

A chill ran through his body. Here was the only thing left that would ever link him to his mother.

Chapter

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Ronnie seemed out of place, hesitant. He approached every object, even the staircase, as if it belonged in a “Do Not Touch” museum. Finally, he turned to Andrew with a questioning look.

“Hey, you act like you’ve never seen this place before, even though you’ve been here several times.” Andrew sat on the second stair to get on eye-level with Ronnie. “You’re not second-thinking any of this, are you?”

Ronnie kept his mouth tight.

Andrew began to grow worried. “Ronnie, I…”

“I wanna stay.”

“You do?”

“Don’t let them take me back.”

“Oh, no. No, Ronnie. Let who take you back?”

“Mommy and Daddy.”

Andrew blinked several times to keep his eyes dry. “Ronnie, you’re not leaving here. This isn’t a visit anymore. You’re really staying. We…we talked about all this.”

“I know. I just didn’t know if it was really real or not.”

Andrew smiled gently. “It’s really real. We’re gonna have a lot of fun together, you and me. Baseball games, sledding, you name it.”

Ronnie surveyed the room again. “It’s weird to think about.”

Even these things take time,
Andrew assured himself. He asked God privately in his heart if he had acted too quickly. Or maybe, if anything, he had just been too late.

He rose to his feet and slid a hand in his pocket. “Tell you what. Why don’t we go to Grandma’s house, and you can spend some time with her while I go get your toys?”

Ronnie showed a smile. “OK.”

Andrew reached his mom’s house in nineteen minutes. The picturesque, farm-looking house framed in by a simple nut-brown fence was a place he never got tired of seeing. He had phoned his mom already to let her know they would be coming. He only hoped that when he came back to pick Ronnie up, he would be just as cheerful as he was now.

Andrew’s mom ran to embrace Ronnie before he even reached the porch. After a moment of brief greetings, Andrew checked his watch. He gave his mom an anxious look before he bent down to give Ronnie a hug. “I won’t be gone long, buddy.”

“Promise?” Ronnie said, clinging to his uncle’s sleeves.

“I promise.” Andrew lifted Ronnie’s chin with his finger and stared into those mysterious, dark eyes of his that harbored something so vastly profound and yet somehow simple all at the same time. “I’ll bring back all your toys, and then I’ll help you set up everything just the way you want it in your new bedroom.”

“And the banana smoothie?” Ronnie reminded him. “You won’t forget?”

“How could I?” Andrew ruffled Ronnie’s light brown hair, then looked up at his mom. “I appreciate your watching him till I get back. I uh…”

Kara, Andrew’s mother, sensed that Andrew needed to talk to her in private. “Why don’t you go inside and find your uncle’s old container of cars?”

“Can I?” Ronnie scurried into the house as if in search of buried treasure, making Andrew laugh. “It’s good to see him so happy and full of life,” he said, holding the door open for his mother.