The Right Thing

I’m sitting with my friend, Chuy, in Milagro Café, drinking a cappuccino I put one too many raw sugars in when he says, “Don’t look now, amigo, but you have a young admirer.”  I notice where he’s looking, and then turn slowly, nonchalantly, to see who he means.  Her stare withers quickly, and immediately I feel I should know her.  From where?  Is she a former student?  She stands and walks hesitantly to our table.  Something about her stride makes me realize she’s a replica of my ex-wife, Heather, who I haven’t seen in twenty years.

“Are you Bill Riley?” she says.

“Yes.”

“I have something for you.”  She takes a letter-size envelope from her brown knapsack.

Chuy says, “I’ve got to go, Guillermo.  Let me know how things work out.”

“Stay,” I say.

But he’s already up and gone.

The envelope she hands me has “Bill” written on the front.  “May I?” she says, gesturing to the chair.

“Please.”

The envelope is sealed, and I have to open the flap with my finger, which gives me a paper cut.  I remove the letter and unfold it.

Bill:

This is my daughter Megan, who’s 20.  Her father was an over-the-road trucker who I met just after we split up.  It was a one-night stand.  Right after that, he died in a horrible accident in California.  I never told Megan about him because he was scum.  What I told her was that you’re her father, and you abandoned us just before she was born.

I’m sorry, but I never thought she’d want to look you up.  Then, when I got the death sentence, she felt she had to find you.  She’s an angry young woman, but a really nice person—the kind of kid we might have had if I hadn’t been such a fool.

Here’s the thing:  she has nobody.  No brother or sister, and all my family are gone.  She thinks you’re her only blood.

 I know it’s too much to ask, but I pray you’ll do the right thing.

Love,

Heather

When I fold the letter back into the envelope, I say, “Have you read this?”

“She made me promise not to.”

 “What happened to her?”

“Ovarian cancer.  She died last week.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

An embarrassing silence swells between us.  I break it by saying, “I am.”

She lowers her gaze and looks at her hands, folded on the table in front of her.  “I just wanted to come and tell you what happened to her, and to let you have a look at me.”

“You’re just like your mother when she was young.”

 “You owe me nothing,” she says, “but can you explain why you walked out on her?”

“I didn’t.  Your mother and I grew apart.  And this,” I say, tilting the envelope up, “is the first I’ve heard of you.”

She starts to say something, reconsiders.

“How did you find me?”

“I googled you.  Your stuff is all over the internet.”

The envelope is beneath the middle fingers of my right hand.  It would be easy enough to slide it across the table to her.  Instead, I fold it into the right pocket of my jacket.

“What will you do now?” I say.

She shrugs, and I’m astonished to see it’s her mother’s shrug.  She says, “Drive back to Apache Junction.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Working, going to community college part time.”

I picture myself taking the envelope out of my pocket and handing it to her, watching as she reads the letter, the words quickly sinking in.  The look on her face might satisfy my urge for the truth to be told.  It’s the right thing, isn’t it?

“Time to go,” Megan says, snapping the black plastic buckle on her knapsack.

I can’t let it end like this.  When she stands, I say, “Wait—I’ll walk you out.”

It’s another beautiful, late-fall day in the desert, blue sky, sun, a mild breeze.  In the bright light she looks even more like the young woman I fell in love with all those years ago.  Suddenly I’m very sad at the news of Heather’s death.

* * *

I wonder:  why doesn’t he just give me the envelope back and end this charade?  I know what’s in the letter.  I read it just after she died, and I’m still stunned by the news.  But I came anyway because of how she had talked about him over the years, especially at the end when she was on pain killers.  “The one true love of my life,” she said, “who’d still be with me if I had acted like an adult.”  I always thought she idolized him too much, the way people do when they lose someone they love, but I see now what she saw in him.  He’s kind—why else would he not give the letter back?

While I fumble with my keys trying to unlock the car door, he says, “Maybe we should talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“What you’re going to do.  What you think I should do.”

“Why would you care what I think?”

“You’re Heather’s daughter.  A long time ago I loved her very much.”

“A long time ago.”

Before I get into the car, he says, “Hey—follow me out of town.  I want to show you something.  It’s on your way, and it won’t take long.  Okay?”

He’s not into his second childhood or anything because he’s driving this old red Jeep, and I have no trouble keeping up with him.  We drive down past the university and then up the entrance ramp onto the freeway.  By the time we cross the Rio Grande I can hardly keep the tears out of my eyes.  I don’t even understand what I’m doing here.

We head up the steady incline to the west mesa, and he takes the airport exit.  But he stays on the access road, turns left onto the bridge over I-10, then follows the opposite access road east to where it exits into a rest stop.  I park my car beside his, and he leads me over to a huge roadrunner sculpture that stands overlooking the valley below.  It’s about fifteen feet tall and made entirely out of scrap metal and trash.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  It makes me smile.

“Your mother loved roadrunners,” he says.  “She would have got a big kick out of this.”

“That’s right—she did love roadrunners.  Why?”

“There was one that kept visiting our small backyard in Tempe.  He’d jump over the wall that separated us from the convenience store next door.  Your mother would talk to him every time, and she claimed he understood the things she was saying.”

“What was she saying?”

“Stuff like, ‘What are you doing out here all alone?  Doesn’t a handsome guy like you have a girlfriend?  Maybe you’re hanging around thinking I’ll run off with you.’”

The valley below us is deep green on both sides of the river.  The mountains to the east look like purple paper cutouts pasted on the horizon.  The city, which isn’t too big, seems like a nice place to live.

“What are you studying?” he says.

“Hotel/motel management.”

“No kidding?  The university here has an excellent program.”

“I got a glimpse of the campus when we passed by.  It looks nice.”

“It’s a good school.”

Suddenly we’ve run out of things to talk about, and we stand awkwardly trying not to look at each other.  I say, “I’d better get on the road.”

He digs in his back pocket for his wallet and takes a white card out.  It has his phone number and email address on it.  “Keep in touch,” he says.

He takes me into his arms and hugs me tightly, and I hug back, wondering what he’s thinking.  Is he remembering my mother?  Is he trying to decide what to do about me?  Before the tears flood into my eyes I reach with my left hand into his jacket pocket and pull the envelope out.

“Wait,” he says, trying to grab it back.

But I say, “I’ll read it on the way home.”

He stands near my car when I climb in and start it.  I power the window down.  “I’m glad I got to meet you at last,” I say.

When I drive off I see him in the rearview mirror, looking as lost as I feel.  Beside him the scrap-metal roadrunner is a giant silhouette against the turquoise desert sky.