‘Yes!’ He covered his face fast, so Burt wouldn’t come running out to see what blazed out here in the dark just now, and shone so bright. He was that glad.
One day my real father will come for me, he told himself. Prisoner of war, he thought, superhero, Marine deserter; the myth kept him going and it crystallized that night: it had to be one of the guys in that snapshot. Why else would she keep it for so long? It didn’t matter which one of the five it turned out to be, he was Not-Burt. Different. Unknown.
‘So you’re OK?’
Gulp hard, man. Breathe. Exhale carefully, so you don’t spook her by shouting. ‘I’m good.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now let’s go back inside.’
‘Not yet.’ Dan put himself between Lucy and the door, trying to lead her where they had to go. ‘So. Carteret. That’s my father’s name?’
‘No. Now, move.’
He swept her hand off the knob. ‘So. What’s Carteret. Something you made up?’
‘It’s my name, Dan, that I was born with. It’s who we are. Now, please. I’m getting cold.’
‘I said, not yet.’
She tugged the door open in spite of him. ‘We’re never going to see him, you know.’
He pushed it shut. ‘Why not, Mom? What is he, dead?’
‘Danny, don’t.’
‘Married?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ She scrubbed her hands down her face. ‘It doesn’t matter!’
‘In jail?’ They were having a little battle over the door.
‘No. If he was in jail we could . . . We can’t.’
‘Why?’
Her face went through so many changes that it scared him. ‘We just can’t.’
‘Come on!’
Picture of Lucy, thinking. It took her a minute to come up with, ‘There are people I have to protect.’
‘Like who? Him?’
The look she gave him was uncompromising. Fierce. ‘Starting with you.’
‘Fine,’ he said bitterly. ‘So I don’t know who I am.’
‘You’re my son!’
‘I don’t know and you won’t tell me.’
‘You don’t have to be Dan Mixon any more, and that should be enough.’ Lucy’s hands were shaking. Her breath was shaking too. ‘Trust me, Danny, that’s all you need to know.’
‘Come on, Mom!’ Like a cop, he slammed the heel of his hand into his mother’s shoulder; they both heard the thud. ‘What’s his name?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Who is he? Who is he really?’
There was a pause during which he actually believed she was going to tell him. Her head came up, but her eyes were looking past him at something else. Then her voice lifted and floated clean away. ‘Just a boy I thought I loved.’
Inside, a bowl broke on the kitchen tiles and Burt squawked. ‘Lucy!’ Had he guessed she was dumping him? Did he hear them out here on the porch? Dan didn’t think so. Burt didn’t care about Lucy, he was just pissed about the no dinner. ‘Lucy?’
‘What happened?’
She put her fingers over Dan’s mouth, shushing him. Through the back window, they saw Burt slam the oven door and stalk out into the front room. She whispered, ‘Nothing. I can’t tell you.’
God he was so angry. ‘That’s all? That’s all you’re going to say?’
‘That’s all you need to know.’ She turned, as if they were done.
He pulled her back. ‘No it isn’t, Mom.’
‘OK,’ she said finally. ‘It was a boy from home.’
‘Where’s home?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Lucy sighed. It was so sad. ‘He wouldn’t want you to know.’
‘That’s a lie.’ His head came up so fast that his neck snapped. ‘He wrote to me.’
‘Not exactly.’ Her expression told him he was right.
‘You tore it up.’
Stabbed in the heart. ‘I’m sorry! I had to protect you.’
‘What else did you tear up?’ He knotted his fists to keep from shaking her. ‘Marriage license?’
‘There wasn’t one.’
‘Funeral notice? Passport?’ If only he’d known what to look for that awful day when he was four, he’d know! I know ways of hunting for things that leave no trace. The treasures she kept hidden made no sense to him at the time: a newspaper he couldn’t read with photos she would not explain, gold football, old jewelry, empty plastic shell – diaphragm case, he understood at fifteen, but not back then – night school BA from Connecticut College – he and Burt wore suits to the graduation – and, what else? ‘My birth certificate?’
‘I would never do that.’
‘Why not,’ he said bitterly. ‘You trashed everything else.’
‘Not that.’ For a minute out there on the back porch they were like two kids squaring off. You flinched. No, you flinched. Then