Page 68 of Between Now and Forever

“Anything is possible. When we get home, we can look into it. Put your information in one of the DNA databases and see if we get a hit.” His voice is perfunctory, just shy of robotic, like he’s said this same sequence of words dozens of times before.

“Dad, are you okay? I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you and Mom, and I don’t wonder what it would have been like to have other parents.Youare the parents that were meant to raise me. I just wonder what else there is to know about me. If my mother had cancer, will I have it, too?”

If she was crazy, will I be crazy, too?I couldn’t say that out loud. Because it’s a shitty thing to say. But I want to know what’s coming.

“I want the same certainty that Nixon has about not going bald because the men in mom’s family all still have their hair.”

“Hey, I still have my hair,” he protests.

“Baldness is inherited from your mother. I think.”

“That’s a myth,” he says irritably.

“Whatever…it’s things like that. I want a picture. I want a fuckingname.” My knuckles have turned white around the steering wheel.

My father puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. And then, he turns the radio back on and we ride home with Faith Hill muffling the tension between us.

It wouldn’t be terrible to have another reason to come back here. The way Beth’s eyes went from vacant to bright when she saw me; man, it tugged at my heart.

She’s sweet and direct and seems to care deeply about people. I don’t understand how she can be so alone. I’m glad I didn’t let my worry about intruding stop me from going to see her today.

We pull in front of the drugstore, and I tell my dad I’ll wait in the car. I don’t want to see that woman again.

“Sure. And son, when we get back, I promise, we’ll start looking, but I need you to make me a promise.”

“Anything.”

“No, don’t say that until you hear what I’m going to ask. And then, I want you to think about it for at least a day before you answer me.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“When you find out all the biological stuff, if you decide to try and forge a relationship with these people, I want you to promise you won’t tell your mother.”

I’m not sure what I expected him to ask, but this was the very last thing I could have imagined.

He doesn’t give me a chance to respond at all. He climbs out of the car and then leans in through the open door. “I’m going to walk home. You go on ahead.”

And then I watch as he walks past the movie rental place and into the drugstore.

11

SWEET MOTHER

ELISABETH

There have beenfour sunsets since my brother died. It’s rained twice. Our prize hydrangeas finally hit full bloom. The world hasn’t stopped turning.

But I have.

The only thing that’s kept me going is knowing that I’m going to see Carter today.

My chest expands with anticipation, and I trap the flutter happiness before it disappears and stow it away for later.

It’s a fool’s errand to build these fragile castles of hope on a person I’ve only spent one day with.

And I’m no fool.

I know that this is more about theideaof him than anything else.

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