THURMAN WASN’T SURE about getting into the car, wasn’t sure about where and how to sit in the car, and wasn’t sure about the ride in the car. He had been in cars before, of course, but never felt at all settled riding in one. And instead of hanging his head out the window as other dogs might have done, he instead stared at Wilson’s floor mats as Wilson navigated the relatively short drive from his home to the Phipps Conservatory.
Wilson had called in to the university that day to cancel his classes. He had claimed an illness and did not feel guilty, since he so rarely canceled class—perhaps only once every two or three years.
“My students will be thrilled,” he told Thurman as he hung up the phone. He assumed that some aide would post notices on the doors of his three scheduled classes but wasn’t all that certain of the protocol involved.
He pulled out of his garage at one o’clock, knowing it would only take five minutes, if that, to drive there. But he wanted more than enough time to find a parking spot and another long period to try and put his jangled nerves in order.
In the past forty years, Wilson had done his best to avoid any situation that might cause jangled nerves and anxiety and nervousness. And he had for the most part succeeded. He did not have any truly close friends. He had not been romantically involved in all those years. His professorial career had not been without some bumps and turns, but nothing had been unexpected and no circumstance ever rose to the keeps-one-up-all-night sort of worry.
Wilson had walked through his life as a dispassionate observer: alive, present, but not connected.
This…this event, these recent events and decisions, had changed his life. He did not yet know how to describe it, and the change was disruptive and unsettling and scary, but not in a bad way.
That didn’t make sense to him, and he knew it, but he was allowing it to happen. Giving up the fight had changed his life, was transforming his life and his heart, and he had not yet had the time to figure out just what it all meant.
That’s why he left early. That’s why he thought a half-hour sitting on a park bench, in the sunshine, might be a path to enlightenment—no, not enlightenment, for that had already occurred—but a way to incorporate that enlightenment into his mind and heart and body.
He felt at the verge of being overwhelmed, not in a panicked way, but like falling into a cold mountain lake on a hot day—a shock, but a shock that would provide welcome, soothing, cooling relief.
Good fortune was with Wilson that morning. A spot opened up just as he entered the small parking lot. He attached the leash to Thurman’s collar.
“I think all dogs have to be on a leash, Thurman,” Wilson explained. “I know you would behave, but not every dog is as good as you.”
Thurman thought for a moment, then nodded.
Okay.
They walked toward the ornate Victorian-era greenhouse, now with more modern additions. Wilson actually began to experience a sense of peace about what he was facing.
That sense of peace was new and different. Wilson had seldom felt at peace, even when alone and quiet and in the dark. It had become an elusive quality in his life and had been so for decade upon decade. He may have appeared at peace, but inside, in his heart, in his mind, he had never truly felt settled or complete or content.
This new peace felt odd, but good odd, he decided.
He spotted an unoccupied park bench, shielded by a copse of trees, on the pathway to the admissions pavilion.
“She will have to come this way, Thurman. We are sure to see her when she comes.”
Thurman had been busy sniffing and snorking in the grass along the sidewalk, looking up into the trees, checking for squirrels, listening for birds, and staring at anyone, any human within hailing distance.
“And now, Thurman, we wait.”
Thurman appeared to nod and sat down at Wilson’s feet—watching, waiting, and whisper-growling, almost as if only to himself, Happy. Happy. Happy.
Thurman spotted her first. He stood and growled and whispered, Lady.
Wilson shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts. The woman who had visited him yesterday was walking toward them, about a half-block distant.
Thurman began his welcoming dance.
“You need to behave, Thurman. Okay? No wild celebrations. I have enough to think about.”
Thurman looked over his shoulder at Wilson, as if trying to ascertain if Wilson was just joking or being up-front and honest.
Okay.
Thurman must have decided that Wilson was telling the truth. So the dog dialed back his dance moves to a few degrees of wiggle in his back hips—an inch or two at most.
Wilson waved and the woman, Hazel, waved back.
“I’m so glad you stayed in town,” Wilson said. “I couldn’t remember if you said you had seen the sights or were going to see the sights. But I’m glad.”
Thurman barked his affirmation.
They sat down, Thurman on the ground between them, so he could stare at each as they talked. He must have been a lip-reader, because his preferred mode of conversation was when he was making eye contact.
Hazel spoke next.
“So what information about the photo? You said you had remembered something?”
Wilson nodded and appeared to bite at his bottom lip, just for a heartbeat.
“Miss Jamison,” he said.
“Hazel, please.”
“Hazel, I lied to you yesterday. About the picture. I remember it.”
Hazel’s look went from unsure to expectant in a heartbeat.
“So you remembered who the groom was?”
“I do.”
Wilson took a deep breath, perhaps stalling for time, perhaps building up courage.
Thurman growled, Tell.
Wilson was sure that Hazel did not know that Thurman had spoken.
“That’s me in the picture. And that was…that was a picture of our wedding. Your mother and me. We were married.”
A veritable wave of expressions seemed to emanate from Hazel, going from shock to acknowledgment to concern to confusion. It was obvious to Wilson that she struggled to look interested and not alarmed.
“The reason she wrote ‘Our Wedding’ is because it was our wedding.”
Hazel appeared as if she wanted to speak, ask a question, shout, but could not decide on which question or which shout was most appropriate, most important, most critical to be answered first.
“How? Why?”
“All my life, I’ve been teaching students to be aware of context. And I don’t want to be guilty of ignoring that fact now,” Wilson said, although it was apparent that Hazel had not been worried at all about context. She simply wanted an explanation.
“I was in Vietnam. I was young…we were both young…the whole world was young back then. I had done two tours of duty in Vietnam. I think I was proving something to myself. Vietnam…the war…neither was a healthy place to be, not physically nor emotionally. But here’s what changed from all the previous wars: In Vietnam, you could be in a firefight in the jungle or in a helicopter shooting at some unseen enemy, and within twenty-four hours you could be back in America eating a McDonald’s hamburger and chocolate shake. I think every soldier who saw combat and returned home suffered a whiplash of emotions. Back then, we weren’t exactly welcomed stateside with open arms, and our decompression was too rapid. Every soldier seemed to suffer from the bends, as it were. I know I did.”
Hazel listened, trying to keep her expression blank, trying to keep tears or smiles or anger away, attempting to be simply neutral in all emotions—at least for the moment.
Thurman stared up at Wilson, his eyes showing a glint of sorrow.
“I was sent stateside near the end of my second tour. I had taken shrapnel in my shoulder and back—nothing too deadly or too serious, but I needed some physical rehab. I got that at the VA hospital in Portland.”
Hazel nodded.
“And you met my mother there?”
“Not at the hospital. But in Portland. There was a big bookstore in downtown Portland—Powell’s.”
“It’s still there.”
Wilson smiled, a sad but satisfied smile.
“Good. That makes me happy. I went there during rehab. I met your mother there. Looking for books. And we started talking. And she had the most wonderful laugh. Musical. After so much killing and flying next to so many dead soldiers…it was like a drug, her laugh. It made me believe that the world was not a cesspool of evil—but that there was hope and that I could have a future.”
“How long were you in Portland?” Hazel asked, not knowing if that was the most important question or not.
“I had four months left in my enlistment. We met, your mother and I, a month after I got back. And we got married within a month of our first meeting.”
Hazel just stared at Wilson, as if trying to imagine him young, trying to imagine him as impetuous and willing to risk everything on a woman he hardly knew.
“I know. It sounds crazy. And it was. Getting married seemed like the right thing to do. I was lost. So many soldiers came back feeling lost and adrift and hopeless. Your mother…offered me hope. She offered me an anchor. Or what I thought would be an anchor. Something to rebuild what was broken and shattered inside me. She offered me laughter and hope and the chance of a future—all the things that I was certain I had lost in the war.”
Hazel looked at him, then looked down at her hands.
“Did it work? How long…I mean, how long were you together?”
At that moment, Wilson experienced an overwhelming desire to get up and to run—run as far and as fast as he could until he could stop reliving the pain of his past. Perhaps yesterday, had this meeting happened yesterday, before he saw the light of God, he would have run. But now, still unknowing, still a novice in faith, he simply knew that he had to see this through. He had to see this to a conclusion, whatever personal pain he might endure. He had to set the past right again—not just for himself, but for this lost and confused woman sitting beside him on a park bench outside the Phipps Conservatory, a stone’s throw south of the Cathedral of Learning, where Wilson had spent the last forty-some years in hiding.
“It lasted three months. I’m sorry. I was sorry then. As soon as it happened, I knew that I could not stay. I was broken. Badly broken. And she knew it as well. I think she knew it from the very beginning. I am sure she thought she could save me. She offered me a way to salvation, but I was too broken and too wounded—emotionally—to understand it then.”
Hazel looked up.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, as if she truly meant it.
Wilson waved her sorrow away.
“I was at fault, not your mother.”
Thurman stood up and barked. Twice. And looked decisive.
“Hazel, I have to feed Thurman. That was his ‘I’m hungry’ bark. But there is a lot more I need to tell you. Would you ride with us back to my house? I’ll bring you back afterward. Did you drive here?”
“No. I walked. The man at the hotel said it was like ten minutes. So…you can take me back to the hotel…whenever. Later. That would be fine.”
Thurman started to dance, wiggle left, wiggle right, whispering and growling, Food, food, food.
Wilson felt a stirring in his chest as he stood, like a heart being unwrapped, like a candle being lit in the darkness.
He decided, as they walked toward the car, that it was a very good feeling.
Wilson had to push Thurman into the backseat, Thurman growling and grumping and complaining during the entire rump-shoving effort. Wilson’s car was a two-door sedan, so human passengers would naturally be offered front-row privileges.
Thurman was forced into the car headfirst, and clumped onto the backseat headfirst, and that is how he stayed during the short ride home—staring straight out the rear window of the car. Hazel looked over her shoulder several times, and called out his name, thinking that it was only natural that a dog be facing forward. Thurman paid no attention to her, and remained statuelike during the seven-minute trip.
He bounded out of the car with great enthusiasm, however, as if feeling certain that his dinner would be forthcoming.
Wilson led the way into the house, allowing Hazel her choice of chairs in the kitchen while he got Thurman’s kibble ready for serving.
Hazel chose the chair where Wilson always sat.
“Okay. He has his dinner,” Wilson said. “Would you like some coffee? Tea? Water?”
“Coffee, if it’s not too much trouble,” she replied.
“I have this fancy pod coffeemaker. It’ll take a minute to heat the water. I need to run upstairs to get something. Bathroom is down that hall, if you need it. Make yourself at home.”
“Okay.”
And Hazel was alone in the kitchen with Thurman, whose head was engulfed in a bowl of kibble, making happy chewing, crunching noises as he ate, his tail wagging slowly.
The pod coffeemaker hissed and stopped making boiling noises. She looked around. There was a small metal carousel of pods on the counter. She selected one that sounded strong, but not overly bold. She opened a cabinet door where she would have stored coffee mugs. A gathering of disparate coffee mugs took up the first shelf. She selected one that showed a Pitt panther on the side. Then she pulled open a drawer where she would have put spoons and the like, and the drawer held exactly that, in neat little bins, the spoons all spooning each other in one stack. She was careful not to dislodge any other than the top one. The top shelf on the refrigerator door held a carton of half-and-half, which she took out and left on the counter, assuming that Wilson might have coffee himself.
Her coffee brewed quickly. She added cream and returned to her seat at the table.
Thurman had finished his meal and clattered up closer to her and sat down, licking his chin and whiskers with his rather long, thick tongue.
“This is very nice,” she said softly.
Thurman appeared to nod.
Nice.
Hazel stared at him, thinking that she heard him repeat what she had just said, but she knew that dogs couldn’t talk. Or least none of the dogs that she had met during her life could talk. She assumed Thurman was no different.
Wilson came back downstairs holding a metal box the size of a large shoebox, or a shoebox that would have held boots.
“Good. You found the coffee and all that.”
“I did. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
Wilson busied himself with his coffee, making small talk, holding off the important details until he could be face-to-face.
“So, Hazel, do you work in Portland?”
Hazel swiveled in her chair.
“I do. I mean, I did. I quit some weeks ago. Sort of picked up stakes in Portland, and I guess I’m looking for a place to settle down.”
Wilson nodded as he poured cream in his coffee.
“Did you want sugar? I put the sugar bowl in the refrigerator. I read that it keeps ants away. I’ve never had an ant issue. Maybe the refrigerator thing works.”
“No. No thanks. I’m okay. I use it sometimes. But not all the time.”
He came and sat down opposite her at the table. Thurman remained where he had been, able to see them both very clearly.
Hazel appeared to want to explain.
“I would never have done this…quit a job and sell everything and just travel…but my mother sort of left me…I guess I would call it an inheritance. I never knew she had it and only discovered it while cleaning out her house.”
“What sort of inheritance?” Wilson asked, hoping that the question did not appear intrusive.
If Hazel had taken offense, she did a wonderful job of masking it.
“It was some stock. She had it for years and years and it was fairly valuable.”
A seriously bemused expression filled Wilson’s face, as if he knew the answer and was equally puzzled and delighted.
“Was it Apple stock? The computer company?”
It seemed to be Hazel’s turn to look bemused.
“It was. How did you know?”
“It was a lucky guess. Or an educated guess.”
Wilson must have seen that this answer was not nearly as complete as it needed to be.
“I have something I need to show you,” he said, and pulled the metal box toward himself and carefully lifted the lid.
The sheet metal box, gunmetal gray, looked like it had been handmade by a young boy forced to take an industrial arts class back in the time when such classes were required.
“This has been sitting on the top shelf of the second closet in my bedroom, under a stack of blankets, for the last forty-some years. I have never taken it out, but I know everything that’s in here.”
Hazel watched as he placed the lid on the table; it made a chilly metallic sound.
Hazel could see inside and on top was a tattered and stained T-shirt—or what looked to be a T-shirt—with a University of Pittsburgh logo and panther on the front.
Wilson appeared almost hesitant to reach in.
Thurman did not move, but his snout was in the air, and his nose flexed wide to capture the scent of whatever this box held. Obviously he did not think it was kibbles, or he would have been on all fours trying to investigate.
“I was wearing this under my uniform when I was wounded,” Wilson said, his words coming out slowly and carefully, as if he was trying to keep any emotion at bay. “I kept it because…well, I am not sure why I kept it. Perhaps it signified survival.”
He touched it with a delicate tracing of his fingers.
“There are a few other things in here: pictures of people I served with, some medals, some trinkets from Vietnam. Dog tags. I suppose I thought it was important to keep them.”
He reached in, felt under the shirt, and pulled out an envelope. Hazel stared at the handwritten address, recognizing the flowery strokes as well as the hand that wrote it.
“That’s from my mother, isn’t it?” Hazel asked.
The kitchen became a solemn, somber place; the only noises were the tattering hum of the refrigerator and the heavy breathing of Thurman, almost a panting. And that was all. It was as if neither Wilson nor Hazel drew audible breath.
“It is. I think it is the only letter that she sent me.”
“Can I read it?” Hazel asked in a nut-brown mouse voice.
Wilson handed it to her and Hazel slid the single sheet of paper out and unfolded it.
As she began reading aloud, Wilson moved his lips as well, as if he had memorized that letter.
Wilson,
I am with child. I thought you should know.
I don’t need anything. Honestly.
I will be fine. I have many friends and my family will help.
I hope you are okay.
I know you are only doing what you must do. I know how hard it is for you.
I know you wish it could be otherwise.
I hate that war because of what it has done to you.
I hope—and pray—that your soul finds peace.
Love,
Florence
Hazel’s voice had begun to quiver and quake midway through the short note, and at the end she could barely be heard. To Wilson, it was no matter. He knew what the note said.
“I could not have been a father then,” Wilson said, staring at the letter that Hazel held in trembling hands. “Biological, yes. Emotional, no. I was in such deep and troubled waters and I wasn’t sure that I would stay afloat. There were drugs and alcohol. I used anything to dull the pain. For years.”
Thurman stood, stepped to Wilson, and jumped, his front paws on Wilson’s thigh. Wilson put his hand on Thurman’s face.
“I managed to graduate and do graduate school and work on my doctorate—but it was all done in a self-medicated fog.”
“Was the war that bad?” Hazel asked.
“Death is bad. Violent death is terrible. Violent death that you begin to enjoy is the most corrosive acid your heart and soul will ever experience.”
“Oh,” Hazel replied, obviously not knowing what to say.
“I have only recently been able to think of the war without nightmares, without crushing guilt. I know it was wrong to leave her…your mother…but being there would have been worse. Had anyone been close to me, back then, they would have been damaged as well. I would have made sure of that. Lashing out. Being creatively cruel. I could not do that to her.”
“Oh.”
“I sent her money. Not right away, because I didn’t have it then. But two years later, I received a book advance. I sent all of it to her. Twelve thousand dollars. I told her that she should use it to make her future easier. I told her that I had heard good things about Apple computers. I told her that maybe she should buy some stock in that.”
Hazel’s face gave way to a curious smile, a half-smile, a slender smile, but a smile.
“So you paid for me to come here,” she said.
Wilson tried to smile in return. “In a way, I guess I did.”
Thurman appeared to be confused. He bounced down from Wilson’s thigh and turned his attention to Hazel. He butted his head into her knee, and she responded by patting his head.
The silence returned as they both remained still.
Hazel was the first to speak into that silence.
“So, you’re my father?”
Her eyes were sad and hopeful and frightened and resolute.
Wilson nodded.
“Yes. I am sure that you are my daughter. You are.”
Thurman turned back to Wilson.
Daughter?
Wilson sighed.
“I think Thurman is slowly figuring this out. The relationship. Our relationship.”
Daughter?
Wilson pointed to Hazel, who was allowing a semi-baffled and delightfully confused smile to form.
“Yes, Thurman. She is my daughter.”
And at this, at this startling confirmation, Thurman bounced down and began the happiest of his happy dances—back hips going left, front legs going right, all four paws dancing in some sort of madcap calypso, canine rhythm.
And Thurman began growling as he danced.
Wilson wondered if Hazel heard his words.
Happy, happy, happy.
An hour later, the three of them—Thurman, Wilson, and Hazel—stood in the lobby of the Heritage Square Senior Apartments and Retirement Village, in front of Gretna Steele.
“Yes, she is my daughter,” Wilson reaffirmed.
“Seriously?” Gretna asked again.
Daughter. Daughter. Daughter.
Thurman’s whispered growls were equally insistent and authoritative. Gretna wavered a bit, then sat back down, heavily, in the chair she had just risen from.
Her face was beatific, at peace, happy.
“Thank you, God,” she said staring upward.
“Now I can die happy,” she added. “But maybe not for a little while.”