13

FOUR HUNDRED NINETY-NINE THOUSAND.

“Yikes,” I say.

“That’s a whole lot of Pittmans.”

“How are we ever going to find mine?” Mine. I shudder. “I mean, the real one.”

“Easy peasy,” Audrey says. She sounds like my grandmother. Maybe her only real friends are grandmothers. “What else do you know about him?”

“Um.”

“Oh, come on. Like, where’s he from? Where’d he go to college? Has he ever been convicted of a felony?”

She switches over to image search, and suddenly dozens of Phil Pittmans fill the screen. One with a legit wizard beard. One with wire glasses sort of like Dad’s. A mug shot. And another with scary face tattoos. Guess my mom could have invited a weirder Phil Pittman into our home.

“Are any of these guys him?”

“Nope.”

“You really don’t know anything about him? Come on, Drew. I mean, how’d he get to your house? Did you see his license plate?”

I did catch it the other day. Green with white mountains. Plus, he went to the same high school as Mom. “Colorado.”

Audrey drops the mouse. “Wait—Colorado? What’s he doing all the way on the East Coast? Hmmmmm. Long bike trip. Far from home. What if there’s something he’s running away from?” Audrey’s eyebrows shoot up.

Whoa. She’s onto something. I lean in. “This whole thing—it’s weird, right?”

“Very.” She goes back to the search bar and enters Phil Pittman and Colorado.

He isn’t the only Phil Pittman in Colorado, it turns out. But we’re getting closer. I can feel it. And Audrey must be feeling something too, because as she scrolls down the page, I can hear her breathing through her nose. Short, fast breaths, like how Filipe’s dog Tobey breathes when he’s having a nightmare.

And then I see the headline: ONE MAN’S CROSS-COUNTRY MOTORCYCLE JOURNEY AND THE INSPIRATION BEHIND IT.

“That’s him!”

“Which one?” The cursor shoots across the page.

“The motorcycle one, right there.” I press my fingertip to the screen. When I pull away, it leaves a smudge on the glass.

Audrey clicks on the article. Now it’s me doing the nightmare-dog-breath thing.

“ ‘It’s a warm spring day in rural Iowa when Phil Pittman pulls up on his Harley and—’ ”

“Audrey, stop! I can read, you know.”

“Okay. Sheesh.”

I tell her when to scroll down, and she does. I can hardly believe it. Some news reporter from Iowa interviewed Phil back in April about his motorcycle trip. He’s spending the whole year riding his bike across the country—every state except Alaska and Hawaii. So that’s why Mom couldn’t answer where he was living. For the whole year, his home is the open road. The bike ride is a fund-raiser on behalf of his brother, who—who died, named … Andrew.

When I get to that part, I stop reading. If it were my finger on the mouse, I’d have closed the whole website. The browser, too. And walked away. But it’s Audrey’s hand on the mouse, not mine.

All I hear in my head is Phil’s voice. What he said early this morning. It’s an amazing thing, life.

“Can I scroll down more?” she asks.

“Uh-huh.”

I’m not supposed to have anything in common with Phil. But I do. He lost someone he loved too. Andrew.

Phil’s brother’s name is the same as mine. That’s a little strange, right? I’m the only Andrew in my entire grade at school. I know my name’s not that rare, but still.

Audrey’s eyes are so glued to the screen she doesn’t notice that I’ve stopped reading. That my gaze has shifted to the posters on the wall. That Darth Vader READ poster. Like he really sat around reading.

I lean my chair back from the computer just as the elevator door opens. Mrs. Eisenberg pushes out a full cart of books. “Lot of returns in the late bin and our page is out sick,” she says. “Audrey, you think you can give me a hand here?”

Audrey goes over to help.

“Actually, Drew, as I was heading out the door last night, I noticed someone did a real number on the easy readers. Could you tidy up that section before story hour? It’d be a huge help.”

“Sure,” I say, still thinking about that newspaper article and Phil’s brother, Andrew.

When I round the corner toward the easy readers, I see that Mrs. Eisenberg isn’t kidding. Did a kid pull these off the shelf or was it an EF-5 tornado? They aren’t in any order at all, so I’ll have to start from scratch.

I pull out a whole misfiled section and begin putting them in order by author.

Are You My Mother? by P. D. Eastman.

As I stare at the book in my hand, I feel suddenly kind of light-headed. Is it just me or did someone make the lights in here brighter? The buzzing, it sounds too loud.

Mom used to read this book to me all the time when I was little. That little baby bird, wandering around, asking everyone if they’re its mom. A kitten, a cow—even an airplane. It used to make me laugh and laugh, because how could a bird be so stupid as to not know who its mother is? It’s a bird, dummy.

But right now, the whole thing only makes me woozy.

In my head, all I see is that strange look Phil gave me when he first appeared at my house and I told him my name was Andrew. That sort of smile, almost like he had a secret.

What if he did have one?

Come to think of it, Mom had that smile too the night that Phil came. Now’s not the time to tell him. She said that, on the stairs that night, to Phil. He’s not ready yet.

The he … it’s me. It is, isn’t it?

When I asked Phil yesterday if he had any kids, he didn’t answer the question. No, now that I’m really thinking about it, it’s so clear. He dodged it. He said he wanted a family someday. Wanted to be a father.

Someday. Like now?

I knew it didn’t make sense—him showing up all of a sudden. Mom never saying anything about his trip to us before. An old friend who’s close enough to come and stay in our house, but that we’ve never heard of? It doesn’t add up.

Except maybe it does.

If he’s just some friend passing through town, how come he keeps trying to connect with me? Like this morning, when he was doing his crazy exercise routine. And on that walk last night. If he’s here for Mom, why wouldn’t he just talk to her and ignore me and Xan? And heck, if he’s here because he wants to be part of our family someday, why all the focus on me? It’s way easier to get close to Xan. My brother’s the friendliest little kid on the planet. He’s BFFs with half the staff at Panera.

No, he’s not just here for Mom. That’s obvious. But what if he’s here for … for me?

Before Dad died, Mom used to joke that I was her mini-me while Xan was all Dad. Dad’s stick-straight brown hair. Dad’s restless sleeping. Dad’s love of all things history. What did I get from Dad anyway? It’s not like Dad could cook. He was basically useless in the kitchen. At Thanksgiving, Mom would put him in charge of mashed potatoes like it was a seriously big deal, and even then they always came out either lumpy or soupy.

But Phil cooks. Phil loves to cook.

Like me.

What if I’m not half-Dad at all? What if—

No.

No.

Is that why my name is Andrew? Did Mom name me in honor of Phil’s dead brother because Phil’s really my—

I press a hand to my forehead. It doesn’t feel hot.

What if I’m the real reason Phil came here?

I want to pinch myself. This is not real life. No way.

But maybe?

Maybe.

That ball in my throat is back again.

What if Dad isn’t actually my real dad?

My palms leave little sweat streaks on the front cover of Are You My Mother? I wipe the book on my pants, trying to dry them off.

What if my real dad is Phil?