BAILEY
there was a website called “Find a Grave dot com”? But there is, and that’s how I figured out where my dad was buried.
Though what had possessed me to look it up, I don’t even know. It wasn’t like I was ever going there.
On Wednesday morning, my day off, I pushed my bike out of the weeds growing beside Bud’s garage, strapped on my helmet, and started pedaling. The cemetery was five miles outside of town. I’d never biked beyond the city limits before. But in a matter of minutes, I found myself pedaling along the shoulder of the highway like some health enthusiast, jumping out of my skin every time a car zipped by.
This was dumb. I told myself I could turn back whenever I felt like it. But I never did. I kept going. I told myself it was because the farms were pretty, with their silos and big, red barns.
Before I knew it, I was staring at an iron fence along the highway and the headstones beyond. I got off my bike and walked until I found the gate. Then I leaned my bike against a tree and started looking for fresh graves.
The first one wasn’t it, but I got all nervous-excited anyway, just to find a totally different name on the temporary plaque. I didn’t let myself get so worked up the next time, even though the name on a nearby stone said MARTA THOMLIN.
My stomach twisted into knots. Nearby stones said HENRY THOMLIN. ELAINA THOMLIN. SEBASTIAN THOMLIN.
I made a double take on the last one, my mind scrambling. Sebastian was Tommy’s real name. It took me forever to notice there wasn’t any end date. It was a double headstone, like for a husband and wife. The name on the left… Elaina. She’d died ten years ago.
I sat in the grass in front of the graves and wrapped my arms around my knees. So. This was my family. This was where I came from. Elaina, my grandmother. Henry. Maybe a great-uncle or something. Based on the dates, he was two years younger than Tommy and died young. And Marta? My great-grandmother. That tombstone was really old.
Did I seriously belong to these people?
And why did they all have to be dead?
I finally pulled together my courage and turned to the new grave. The one on the right. The dirt was heaped on top of it with sod rolled over that. A little brass plate read JASON THOMLIN.
Jason.
My dad.
For the next eternity and a half, I just sat there and stared. This was the guy I’d been looking for all my life. My hero who was supposed to swoop down and rescue me. He was supposed to explain that communist spies had been holding him captive for the past sixteen years, and that was the only reason he never came for me. But he’d escaped—past concrete walls and razor wire and search dogs and flood lights—and he’d combed the world over until he found me. And then he was supposed to bring me to a cozy little cottage on the seashore with ivy growing up the chimney, and he was supposed to sit me down and hold me close and promise that he would never, never leave me again.
But he was dead.
Maybe replaying my fantasies was a bad idea. My eyes got all watery, and my nose started to run.
The newspapers said he was a bank burglar. A high-profile thief. A fugitive. A murderer. Even Tommy said so.
I didn’t care what he was. I just wanted to know one thing.
I rubbed my nose on the back of my arm and tried to see anything past the curtains of tears now streaming from my eyes. My ears felt hot. My voice was in a noose. I croaked the words out anyway.
“Did you love me, Daddy?” That’s all I’d ever wanted to know.
But of course, he’d never had the chance to love me or not.