The Lucky Kind (15 page)

“Sam can stay in my room.”

My dad looks at me. “Are you sure, Buddy?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say, though really I’m thinking, Well, what’s the alternative? “Come on,” I say to Sam. The Days Inn is one of those motels where you climb rickety outdoor metal stairs to get to your room. I lead the way up the stairs and fit the key in the lock. I can tell Sam wants some privacy, to take out his phone and call his fiancée, to digest everything that’s happened today. I should offer to go wait outside, but it’s freezing.

Sam sits on the couch in my room.

“They said it opens up,” I offer. “And there’s extra bedding in the closet.”

“Okay,” Sam says, and I sit and watch him make the bed. There is something eerily brotherly about it.

“Do you smoke?” Sam asks.

I shrug. “At parties.”

“That’s how I started,” he says. “I’ve almost quit, but I bought a pack on my way here. Haven’t opened it yet. Didn’t want Rob to smell it on me and think I was a smoker.”

I think it’s funny he said “Rob” instead of “your dad.”

“Yeah, he hates smoking,” I say.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and I’m thinking how much my dad would hate it if he knew either of us, let alone both of us, was currently aching for a cigarette. I’m waiting for Sam to say he’s going to go out and smoke one—it’ll get him out of the room, out of my eye line and earshot, and I’m sure he’d like that. But instead he says, “Wanna go outside?”

He digs the cigarettes out of his duffel bag and holds the pack out, an invitation.

I shrug. “Okay, sure.”

Cigarettes with Sam

I
t’s cold, but I’m guessing that Sam is one of those outdoorsy kinds of guys who aren’t bothered by the cold. He hands me a cigarette, but every time he holds the lighter to it, the wind blows out the flame.

“Here, give it to me,” he says, and then he puts my cigarette, and a second, in his mouth, and stands close to the brick wall of the Days Inn, his back to me. He turns around and both cigarettes are lit. He hands me one.

I take it, but I hesitate for a second before putting it in my mouth. Sam doesn’t notice; he’s closed his eyes and is taking a long drag. I remember that when I was little, I thought it was only okay to share forks and knives and drinks with someone you were related to. I thought with everyone else it was dirty, but with family you didn’t have to worry about sharing germs.

Sam exhales and opens his eyes. If he notices that I haven’t smoked the cigarette he’s given me, he doesn’t let on.

“Let’s walk,” he says, heading for the stairs. I follow him, carefully placing the cigarette between my lips.

Sam walks slowly, his long legs loping down the stairs and toward the parking lot. I want to make a list of the things I know about him now.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I ask.

Sam answers without stopping, without looking back at me, “Nope. Only child.”

“Is that why your parents adopted? They couldn’t get pregnant?”

“Couldn’t get pregnant. When I was little, before I could really understand what it meant to be adopted, I used to beg them to get me a little brother. I thought it’d be such fun to be someone’s older brother.”

That seems like a loaded statement, so I wait a beat before saying anything.

“I’m an only child, too,” I finally offer.

“I know,” he says. I wonder how much about my life my father has told him.

“You’re a junior,” he says as we walk across the parking lot. There’s a bench at the far end, near the main entrance to the hotel. I assume that’s where we’re headed.

“Yeah.”

“I was a junior when I met Cath.”

“Who’s Cath?” I ask dumbly.

“Catherine. My fiancée,” he says, but not like he thought I should have known.

“You’re marrying your high school sweetheart?”

He looks back at me and grins. “Pretty lame, huh?”

Even though it’s cold, I feel my face getting hot: I’m blushing.

“Sometimes you meet the right one early, I guess,” he says.

“I guess.”

“How about you?” he asks. “You got a girl?”

I shake my head, looking away. My nose is running. When we reach the bench, Sam sits; I stay standing.

“Can I have another cigarette?” I ask finally. I’d tossed the other one halfway across the parking lot after I finished it.

“Sure,” he says, and lights two more. He doesn’t even offer me the chance to light it myself, like he assumes he can do it better.

“I was such a fuckup when we dated in high school,” he says, shifting his weight on the bench. I still haven’t sat down. “I’d always known that I was adopted, but I got so fucked up about it then.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, I didn’t know who they were then. I had this picture in my mind that they must have been in high school. You know, the typical story.” He looks away as he smokes. “High school kids who don’t think they need to be careful, who get in trouble, who don’t know what else to do, that kind of thing.”

“Yeah,” I say, and I sit down now, next to him.

“But Cath, she was so much smarter than I was. I tried to break up with her all the time.”

“Really?” I try to sound nonchalant, but I’m riveted.

“Yeah. Especially after we had sex, can you believe it? I mean, whoever heard of a teenage boy doing that—avoiding more sex?”

“Crazy,” I say, and my voice is hoarse.

“I thought whatever we felt for each other couldn’t be the real thing; it was a total joke, because what did teenagers know about life if they made stupid mistakes like the people who had me must have made? I told her that our love wasn’t real.”

“What did she say?” I ask, and I actually lean toward him to make sure I don’t miss any of the answer.

“She would just tell me that I was wrong. She said some people find the real thing when they’re young. And if you do, you’re lucky.”

Sam takes another drag on his cigarette, a long one, but I don’t say anything; I’m hoping Catherine said more. Sam continues, “And she’d say that maybe the people who had me were the lucky kind—maybe they really loved each other.”

Sam pauses now, like he’s remembering one of these exchanges with Catherine; and he half smiles, like he’s thinking of the boy he was, the one who was so foolish that he tried to turn his back on love, and so lucky he found a girl who wouldn’t let him.

“And we would break up and make up—we’d have the most ridiculous fights and I’d say terrible things. But the breakups just didn’t take. I always came back. And every time we got back together, I’d believe it that I really was lucky.” He smiles. “And not just because she took me back, you know?”

I know I’m supposed to say something, but I can’t talk. I can’t talk because a golf ball has found its way into my throat. I try to smoke, but even the smoke can’t get past the golf ball. I start coughing and I can’t stop. It feels like I’ll never be able to take a deep breath again.

“Shit, Nick, are you okay?” Sam says, patting my back. “Shit, some brother I would have made, huh? I’ve already got you smoking and choking.”

But I’m not choking. I’m crying. I’m crying so hard my eyes hurt and mucus is running down my chin. I haven’t cried like this since I was a kid, and I can’t stop crying. Oh shit, I’m crying in front of Sam Roth. I don’t want him to think he’s the reason why.

“It’s not because of you,” I choke out, finally.

“What?”

“I’m not so freaked out by meeting you that I’m crying.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

I take a deep breath. “I just miss my girlfriend, that’s all.”

“You said you didn’t have a girlfriend.”

I shake my head, wiping my nose. “I did. Before.”

“Before when?”

“Before I became such a fuckup,” I say, echoing his words, trying to laugh.

“Well, shit, here I’ve been your big brother for, like, four hours and you’re already copying me.” Sam grins.

I am finally able to take a deep breath. I wipe my eyes.

“That’s not the right name for what you are,” I say, but I’m not angry that he said it.

“I know,” he says. “I just don’t know what the right thing to call it is.”

“At least you made it into a joke.”

Sam grins. “It just so happens that I am one of the funniest people you will ever meet.”

I look at his smile. “You know your teeth are freakishly white, right?” I say.

Sam puts his fingers over his lips, trying to cover his smile.

“Cath. She wanted me to whiten them before the wedding. Smoker’s teeth, you know. Yellow.”

“I guess we know who’ll be wearing the pants in the Roth household.” I should be colder now; my face is soaking wet from crying. But I feel warm.

Sam laughs, leaning back. He claps me on the back. “All I can say is thank God for the women in our lives.”

And I nod. I nod because the women in our lives really do know best.

The Sights and Sounds of Troy, Ohio

I
t’s raining when we wake up the next morning, but Dad has promised Sam a tour of his old neighborhood—the school, the mall, his favorite restaurants. I wonder whether he’ll show him where Sarah Booker lived.

This is the first night I’ve slept straight through since Eden and I broke up. When I wake up, Sam is in the bathroom with the door closed. I realize later that it was the sound of the shower, not the rain outside, that actually woke me. He emerges fully dressed, with wet hair.

“Did I wake you?” he says, but not apologetically.

“Uh-uh,” I say.

Sam looks at me and says, “I’m going to get you some ice.”

“What for?” I say. I want to go deeper under the covers but I force myself to sit up instead.

“Your eyes are red,” he says, grabbing the cardboard bucket on the dresser and heading out the door. “I’ll be right back.”

In the bathroom, with the door closed behind me, I look in the mirror and see that Sam was understating it. My eyes aren’t just red but puffed out, swollen, like I’m a little kid who woke up crying from a nightmare in the middle of the night. No nightmare here, I think, just my life.

Okay, so maybe I’m being a little bit melodramatic. I probably just look stoned. I turn on the water for the shower.

“I’m leaving the ice by the door,” I hear Sam say. I open the bathroom door just enough to reach my arm out and grab the bucket. I bring the whole thing into the shower, making the water as hot as I can. Then I close my eyes and press an ice cube over each one until it’s so cold it hurts. Sam would probably know a better way to do it.

When I get out of the shower, I can hear Sam and Dad talking in the outer room. Going over plans for the day. Discussing breakfast. I gather I have the option of either going back to my grandparents’ with my mom or tagging along with them. I guess they’d probably prefer to have the day to themselves; maybe there are things they want to use the time to discuss. Sam leaves late tonight, so this is their only real time together.

I decide I want to go with them.

In the car, Dad apologizes for the weather, as though he ought to have been able to arrange for it to be better. I’m sitting in the backseat, and every so often Dad glances at me in the rearview mirror, like I’m a little kid in a car seat.

If Eden were here, she would think it was sweet, the way Dad looks back to check on me. If Eden were here, I would slide my hand across the seat and press the side of my hand against hers. Then I would lace her fingers through mine, and squeeze.

Maybe Sam told him about what happened last night, how I cried. Maybe he thinks my dad would be happy to hear how we bonded, or maybe he thought he had to tell my dad because he was concerned. So maybe Dad is trying to see if I’m okay. Maybe they’ve discussed how I screwed everything up with Eden, and maybe they both think that, being older and wiser, they could give me advice to fix it. But neither of them says anything, so maybe Sam kept his mouth shut after all.

We’re on Main Street now. I’ve had this tour before, more times than I can remember. When I was little, I loved it. We have pictures of us standing outside my dad’s high school, or at the playground where he learned to swing, climbing up the slide he spent his childhood sliding down.

Sam is taking the tour seriously. You can tell he wishes he could take notes, or that he had a way to record my father’s narrative. Maybe Sam’s a journalist—I never asked my dad what he did for a living.

“Hey, Sam,” I call up to the front seat. I have to repeat it again, louder, to get a response. “Sam!”

He twists his neck around to see me. “Yeah?”

“What do you do?”

“For a living?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m a doctor,” he says, and turns back around, like no further explanation is needed. Not what kind of doctor he is, or whether he works at a hospital or has a private practice. I lean against the window, the glass cool on my forehead, and I close my eyes and imagine that right now Eden is sitting on her bed, reading the new biography of Teddy Roosevelt—no, Marie Antoinette—that she probably just picked up at the bookstore. The book is big and heavy in her hands, so she shifts on the bed, sitting up now with the book on her lap. She bites the nail on her right thumb, her lips just grazing the freckle below her cuticle. When her hair falls into her face, she pushes it back. Maybe she even knows that I’m watching her, just like she knew the difference between a boy who really didn’t love her and a boy whose emotions were so ragged he couldn’t pick out which of the things he was feeling was what he felt for her.

“We’re here,” my dad says triumphantly from the front seat.

The car has stopped. Dad and Sam are pulling on their coats, opening their doors. I didn’t realize this was going to be a park-and-walk kind of tour.

I’ve been here plenty of times before; it’s the land where my dad’s grandparents had their farm. Dad’s parked in the driveway of their old house. My dad and his parents lived there until he was three.

“Brandt Farm,” my dad says proudly, stepping up the path toward the house. Sam and I follow behind him. The wet ground feels heavy under my boots. I feel like I’m on a tour at a national park or something.

Dad goes to open the door.

“Dad,” I call to his back—Sam and I are walking much more slowly—“You can’t just go in.”

“Why not? No one lives here.”

“Yeah, but it’s not your house.”

“Sure it is.”

I shrug. I guess he feels like since his family owned it, since he lived here once, since he still calls the land Brandt Farm, it still belongs to him.

The inside of the house feels like it has nothing to do with anything going on outside; it just smells wet and empty. You can’t tell it’s Christmastime; you can’t even tell it’s wintertime. Even though it’s obviously uninhabited, I feel like we’re trespassing.

Dad’s giving a tour. “That was my parents’ room. My crib was right there.”

“How can you remember where your crib was?” I ask.

“I just do.”

Sam’s being quiet. He doesn’t seem uncomfortable inside the house.

“The land’s actually still good for farming,” Dad continues. “But of course, there’s no one to farm it.”

“What do you know about whether land is good for farming?” I ask.

Dad shrugs, smiling. “Not a thing, I guess.”

“Well, then how do you know?”

“That’s what they told me when I bought the land.”

“You bought this land?”

He nods. “Of course.”

“What do you mean, of course?”

“My parents couldn’t afford to keep it anymore.”

“So, you bought it?”

“Sure.”

“What for?” I ask. Sam is still quiet, staying close to the walls while my father and I stand in the middle of what used to be my grandparents’ bedroom.

“I didn’t want to lose it.”

“But why?”

“Your grandfather grew up here, and his father before him, and his before him. It’s Brandt Farm. My family has owned this land for so long that the street outside is named after us.” I knew that: Brandt Way.

“But no one lives here; they could have sold it to someone who could use it.”

“I can use it.”

“Is this your way of telling me that you’re uprooting us to Ohio?”

Dad smiles. I think he appreciates that I’m making a joke.

“It’s important to keep a piece of where you came from,” he says. “A big piece is better, if you can find one.”

I don’t say anything, but I look at Sam. I wonder if he feels connected to this farm any more than I do. My name may be all over it, but Sam is the one who was born in Troy, and both of his birth parents grew up here. By the time I was born, my father had been in New York, married to a New Yorker, for years.

“Let’s take a walk out back,” Dad says, holding his arm out to Sam, gesturing toward the back door. And it seems that there is so much about my dad I never knew before. I never knew how important Ohio was to him; I always assumed he’d felt lucky to get out, to have made it to New York. The life in which he had this other son seems intricately connected to this life where he bought emotionally significant real estate. And that life really isn’t separate from the one he leads with us in New York.

It’s stopped raining, and Sam and I fall in step next to each other across the backyard. My dad walks ahead of us again, up the hill behind the house; I know where he’s headed.

“Sam,” I whisper, “this is his favorite part.”

“Huh?” Sam says blankly.

“He never gets tired of this joke.”

“What joke?”

“He thinks it’s funny to show people the outhouse.”

Sam stops walking; so do I. And then he starts laughing, so much that I laugh, too.

“Your dad has a strange sense of humor.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say, and I look up at my dad. He must’ve stopped when he heard us laughing, because he’s looking down at us now. And he’s smiling so softly that I think he’s actually going to start to glow.

When we’re finally back in the car and pulling out of the driveway, my dad rolls down his window, takes a breath, and says, “Smell that?” I think he’s making another outhouse joke, but he continues, “It still smells like my grandmother here. Isn’t that something?”

We drive in silence for a little while, and as we pull off the highway toward the Days Inn, he says quietly, “You see, I know my parents won’t be here forever. I just want there to always be something that connects me to this place.”

And I know he means more than the place where he grew up, more than the place where Brandts have owned land for generations. He also means the place where Sam was born. And Sam must know it, too, because he rests his hand on my dad’s shoulder, just for a second, after Dad says it.