Sons From Afar Page 6

  “You wouldn’t want to be Francis, would you?”

  “I dunno. It would be something, at least. Unless that wasn’t his real name.”

  “Do you think he would have lied to Momma about his name?” Sammy hadn’t ever thought of that.

  “If he had, she never would have caught him. She’d have been easy to lie to. Like Maybeth.”

  They looked at their sister, at her straight back and her golden hair. Her voice wound around the room. Sammy kept his voice pitched under the music.

  “But that’s just why you don’t ever lie to people like that,” Sammy argued. “Because they are so easy.”

  “That’s why you might not,” James countered. “So—” He waved his hand, dismissing Sammy, giving up. When he smiled, his eyes looked hungry.

  “I’m going to ask Gram,” Sammy decided, sliding off the desktop.

  “Ask her what? Don’t you do that,” James warned him.

  But James couldn’t stop Sammy. “Don’t worry, I know how to keep a secret.” Even if it wasn’t a secret he thought was worth keeping, he’d keep it. “When she adopted us, maybe they found out something more, because they’d be so cautious about letting her adopt us. The lawyers.”

  “I never thought of that,” James said. “How’d you think of that?”

  “It just makes sense,” Sammy told him. “Go back to work, I’ll take care of it. Do your lab, or whatever it is. Otherwise, how’ll you keep your perfect grade-point average?” He felt so good, he stood behind Maybeth with his hand on her shoulder for a minute, to say, without interrupting her, that he liked the way she played and sang. Because he did.

  Gram was sitting at the kitchen table, studying an old notebook that was filled with pale brown writing. Sammy sat down across from her. He waited until she looked up.

  “I’m not going to tell you,” she said, figuring she knew what he was after.

  “So you’ve said. Over and over,” he answered. “I’m not asking,” he told her.

  “That’s what I figured.” He waited for her smile before he let himself laugh, the way he wanted to. He’d find out when her birthday was. She’d get careless again sometime. He’d keep narrowing it down, she’d forget and let something slip: but he’d remember.

  “What is it then,” she asked.

  “What’re you reading?”

  “An old recipe book. I am bored with what we’ve been eating. Bored stupid. But I can’t find anything new that doesn’t make my stomach turn. Barley soup with sliced hotdogs floating in it? Feeds ten for fifty cents a person. Did you ever think how many dinners I’ve cooked?”

  “No,” he said. He hadn’t. Now he did. “A lot,” he suggested.

  “A lot.”

  “Too many?”

  “Maybeth helps me out, and frequently.”

  “Dicey did too, when she had to. We wash the dishes,” he reminded her.

  “Yes. That’s all true. Then what is it you want?” She knew there was something.

  “If I knew when your birthday was, I could give you a cookbook for your birthday.”

  That made her smile again. “Yes, you could,” she agreed again, but didn’t say anything more, which made him smile.

  “You have my birth certificate, don’t you?” he asked her.

  “Your birth certificate?” It wasn’t often anybody surprised Gram, and he enjoyed having done it. “I guess I do at that. It’s in with all the papers the lawyers collected.”

  “Where?”

  “In the desk, of course.” He watched her face, as she decided whether or not she needed to ask him why he was asking. He knew what he’d answer, if she did: I just want to see it. But he didn’t want to answer that, because it wasn’t entirely true. He would answer that, if he had to, but he didn’t want to have to. But he didn’t think Gram would ask him why, and he was right.

  “Thanks,” he said, getting up from the table. “Does the library have cookbooks?”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Ask James. I bet he’ll know. Because you could get some from the library. But I’m not bored,” he told her, leaving the room.

  It was so simple, Sammy thought, going back down the hallway to the living room. He didn’t know why James found things so difficult when they were so simple. He suspected that James manufactured difficulties, that he did it because he liked things more complicated than they were. He heard the piano playing softly, and two voices singing. James’s voice had settled to a light baritone, which made a good contrast to Maybeth’s full soprano, like a thin gold chain.

  Sammy stood in the doorway, watching James standing there beside the piano bench, bent over to read the music and pick out his part from the piano background. “Full fathom five thy father lies,” they sang. “Of his bones are coral made.” Maybeth’s voice sang to the melody, but James sang to the words. “Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing of him that doth change.” When they got to the ding-dong bell chorus, they needed another voice, so Sammy stepped up and put one in. He couldn’t read the music, but he could hear in the chords the notes he was supposed to sing, the tenor part. “So sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,” he read, because Maybeth started on the refrain again when he joined in. “Hourly ring, hourly ring” the line repeated, in that irritating way old-fashioned songs had. Sammy sang along, getting impatient for it to finish. “Ding-dong bell, ding-dong bell.” Ding-dong bell, he thought, kitty’s in the well. He knew James didn’t care about the ding-dong bell part of the song; James liked the father part, the bones turned to coral and pearls for eyes, the water-changes.

  “Let’s sing a real song,” Sammy said when they’d finished.

  “This is Shakespeare,” James protested.

  “So what.”

  Maybeth just waited for them to be through arguing.

  “The Tempest.”

  “Never heard of it,” Sammy said. “Sing something I like. That was for chorus, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Maybeth said. Then, taking her hands off the piano, she started. “Oft I sing for my friends.” That was more like it. James and Sammy joined in. Sammy didn’t feel like singing the loneliness of that song, although he knew why he liked hearing it, why they all liked it. In the kitchen, Gram would have lifted her head, to listen too. “When I come to the cross of that silent sea, Who will sing for me?” James and Maybeth sang. The sad and lonely song reminded Sammy of Momma; it was a simple melody that flowed along, a good singing song. When they sang it, he always thought they were singing it for Momma, answering her question, if she was wondering who would sing for her. They would. He would.

  Sammy went to the desk. James didn’t even notice. With his face turned up, he was singing away as if he was sending his song out among the stars. His eyes were closed and he looked happy enough, listening to his sister’s voice, listening to his own. Sammy opened the side drawer, just humming now.

  The birth certificates were in a manila envelope, with medical records and old report cards. He emptied the envelope out onto the desk. The birth certificates were big sheets of paper, with a red wax seal at the bottom right-hand corner. They were pretty fancy. Each one, except for the name of the baby and the date of birth, was the same. Sammy picked James’s out and folded the rest. He put all the papers back into the envelope, put the envelope back into the drawer. James was sure going to be surprised.

  Sammy just stepped up beside James and put the folded thick paper into his brother’s hand. Then he sat down on the bench beside Maybeth and, before she could start another song, he sang in her ear: “There’s a hole in the bucket, Maria, Maria.” While he finished his lines, she turned around to face him, happy because she knew how much he liked this song. He could never sing his part of the last verse of the duet, without breaking out laughing. That about ruined the joke of the song, but he couldn’t keep from laughing, at the step-by-step logic of the verses, at the patient, plodding Henry character and the quick-tongued, impatient Maria. He liked it best when he could talk Dicey into
singing the song with Jeff, because Jeff had a way of waiting, as if Henry were thinking and thinking, scratching his head and wondering why Maria had forgotten, before he started in on that last verse. “There’s a hole in the bucket, Maria, Maria.”

  Sammy deliberately didn’t pay any attention to James, but when they finished singing, he turned around. James was back at the desk, just staring at the paper. He held the paper flat, with one hand at each side of it. The desk light fell on his dark narrow head as he studied the writing on the paper.

  Sammy got worried. But it was just a birth certificate. What was there that would be on a birth certificate that would bother James? Maybeth went back to the Shakespeare song and Sammy went back to his brother. “What’s the matter?”

  James didn’t look up, didn’t answer. He just pointed with his finger to one of the boxes where information was filled in, in black ink. Occupation of parent, Sammy read, Merchant Seaman.

  Name, surname, and birthplace of father, he read. Francis Verricker, Cambridge, Maryland. He read on beyond the finger. Name, maiden name, and birthplace of mother. Elizabeth Tillerman, Crisfield, Maryland. His mother might have been born right here, in this house.

  “Cambridge is just an hour from here,” James said, his voice a whisper.

  “That probably explains how they met,” Sammy deduced.

  “No it doesn’t,” James said. “Not necessarily. We could go there.”

  “Why?”

  “To find out things about him.”

  There were a lot of things Sammy thought of saying. He thought of reminding James that would have been years and years ago, that their father had only been born in Cambridge so there might not be anything to find out. He thought of asking James how he intended to get to Cambridge. Without letting Gram know what he was doing, too. But all he said was, “Like what?”

  “I dunno. Like—where he lived, and maybe there would be some family? Or maybe, we could find someone who knew him, some old friend who could tell us what he’s like. Or might even know where he is right now. That’s not impossible.”

  If the police in Connecticut couldn’t find him how can we? Sammy wanted to ask, but didn’t. He didn’t say anything.

  “Not absolutely impossible,” James whispered.

  Sammy didn’t argue. “Yeah, we found the birth certificate.”

  “That was you. You did that,” James said, looking up. In the shade behind the lamp’s light, his eyes looked sad.

  “Maybe so, but you’re the one who’s going to have to cook up a way to get us to Cambridge,” Sammy told his brother. “You’re the one who’s supposed to have all the ideas, so get going on that one. Okay?”

  “Okay,” James said. “O-K.” He folded up the birth certificate and gave it to Sammy. Sammy showed him where the envelope was in the drawer. “How much money do you have?” James asked. “Twenty-one dollars?”

  Sammy nodded. What was James thinking of, taking a taxi?

  “Okay,” James muttered to himself, getting up from the desk and wandering out of the room, thinking hard. Sammy hoped the idea he came up with wouldn’t be too complicated. He hoped when they got there, if they got there, there would be something for James to find out. James needed to find out something, he thought; although he couldn’t imagine what James thought that was.

  It didn’t matter to him if they found out anything or not. He’d never been to Cambridge and he never minded seeing new places, that was a good enough reason for going along. He could always find something to do, to amuse himself while James detected. And maybe he’d have a week or two of quiet while James tried to figure out a way to get where he wanted to be going to.

  CHAPTER 4

  He should have known better, Sammy told himself. He knew that once James’s mind got going on something, it worked fast. Dicey was barely packed into Mr. Lingerle’s car, heading back to College Park, with Gram going along for the change of scenery. “We have to go to Cambridge,” James said.

  “If you say so.” Sammy didn’t care; he wished Dicey didn’t go away to school, hadn’t gone away. They were standing under the big paper mulberry tree in the front yard. The mulberry came into leaf later than any of the others. It spent all spring dropping seed pods around the yard, and you had to rake them up or they’d all sprout into saplings that would take over everything if you let them. Whenever Sammy stood under the tree he thought of Momma, and not just because her ashes were buried among its deep roots. The ground was littered with squishy seed pods, and the branches of the tree spread overhead, the long new leaves still curled up tight. The tree, Momma, Dicey, and yard work, all those things washed up around his mind, like waves flowing back and forth from side to side, running into one another and getting added together and cancelling each other out.

  “Listen, will you?” James insisted. “Cambridge is our only lead. In Cambridge we can check the hospital, and schools, the library or the town hall. We can look at their records. It has to be on a school day though, and I can’t figure how to do that.”

  “Why a school day? The library is open on Saturdays, and they don’t close hospitals.”

  “Because most offices close on Saturday.”

  “What about summer?” Sammy wouldn’t mind waiting.

  “The schools will be closed.”

  “Why schools, anyway?” James always thought he knew everything. Sammy kind of enjoyed asking him questions and then asking him more questions. It drove James crazy.

  “Because they have records. Like—in the gym, at school, there are some trophies that Bullet won. He was a runner. I’ve seen them.”

  “You never told me that.” Sammy didn’t know that his uncle had won trophies. He’d go check it out, next year, when he was in the high school. It would be his own name, Samuel Tillerman, he’d see on those trophies, because Bullet had lived here, because Momma had liked her brother so much she’d named Sammy after him. He didn’t know why James was getting so het up about their father. Sammy felt the land, farmland and marshland, spreading out from the deep-rooted paper mulberry tree; he felt how his feet stood on that land. He could almost believe that the land felt him standing there, and liked him being there. He didn’t see why, with the farm, they needed any father. He’d go along with James, but not because he expected to find anything out.

  “Ask Mina to take us up there, okay?” James asked.

  “Why me? Why don’t you?”

  “Because she’s your friend. She’ll say yes to you. You can ask her the next time you play tennis.”

  “Mina hasn’t been playing much tennis at college, so I’ve gotten better and she hasn’t,” Sammy told James, who didn’t care about that. He only cared about his ideas, Sammy thought. It wasn’t up to Sammy to find a ride; this was James’s project, not his.

  * * *

  Sammy did ask Mina, however, because it was no trouble, and she said she couldn’t take them because she had to go back to school early, because of the singing group she’d joined. But Mina’s father, Sammy reported to James, often went up to Cambridge to talk with other ministers. “Ask Reverend Smiths then,” James said.

  “Why don’t you do that?”

  “You know them better.”

  “Yeah, but there’s no reason for me to be the one to ask.”

  “Does it bother you to ask?” James asked.

  “No. Why should it? Does it bother you?”

  James wanted to say no, but he couldn’t. “Maybe. Sometimes. It’s easier for you.”

  There he was, getting Sammy to feel sorry for him again. They were standing waiting for the school bus, with rain dripping down James’s thin face. Sammy could tell, from the way James’s eyes wouldn’t meet his, that James didn’t like that about himself—things being harder—and making Sammy feel sorry. “Okay,” Sammy said. Anyway, James might be right. Sammy did get a lot of yesses from people, and pretty easily. He didn’t mind that.

  “It isn’t that I don’t like the Smiths family,” James went on, proving something, Sammy
didn’t know what. “I wouldn’t mind at all having a father like him.”

  So Sammy went on over to the Smiths house, which was right next to Rev. Smiths’s church, and he asked Mina’s father if they could hitch a ride up to Cambridge with him. It worried Rev. Smiths that they wanted to go on a school day, that they’d be missing school, even though when Sammy explained about James having this idea about finding out about their father, he understood that. Sammy wasn’t sure the minister would keep the secret from Gram, but since those two almost never met up he didn’t see any problem. He tried to explain why James hadn’t asked Gram about their father. Mrs. Smiths fed him lemonade and oatmeal cookies while this conversation went on. Finally, Rev. Smiths said that if they had their grandmother’s permission to miss a day of school, then he’d be happy to take them up the next time he went. He went the last Wednesday of the month. “If she’ll agree, then I will. She’s not careless, so if she says yes all you have to do is call me up.”

  “Thanks,” Sammy said. “James’ll be pleased.”

  “What about you?” Rev. Smiths wasn’t being nosy, he was just asking.

  “This is really bothering James,” Sammy explained.

  He tried to get James to ask Gram for permission to miss the day of school, but James refused. She’d say no, she’d ask him to explain, she’d say yes to Sammy. Sammy knew that Gram was one person who said an awful lot of noes to him, but he also knew that somehow he did a better job of asking people for things than James did. It was funny the ways James expected people to say no to him.

  When Sammy asked Gram about cutting school and going up to Cambridge with Rev. Smiths, she asked him: “Why?”

  “I can’t say,” Sammy said. He looked at her and she looked at him. He was just waiting, while her mind turned over a lot of things.

  “All right,” she finally decided. “I won’t tell them you’re sick, though. I won’t lie. But I’ll tell them you’re out with my permission and knowledge.”

  “Good-o,” Sammy answered. He was looking forward to missing a day of school, now that he thought about it.