Wishful Thinking (22 page)

 
Dad put the bowl of popcorn on the table. He leaned over his hands clasped between his legs and stared at the carpet debating something. When he turned his head to look at me his eyes were glassy. Did I really need his answer? I was about to tell him forget it when he spoke.
 

“You. We argued about you.”

Me? “Me?”

Dad sighed and fell heavy against the back of the couch. “Everything. We argued about everything. He wasn’t happy with me for anything,” Dad raised his arms over his head and clasped his hands behind his head, “lets see he wasn’t happy for me becoming a lawyer and not taking over the family’s furniture business. He wasn’t happy with me going to law school in Boston, or when I married your mother. He was angry when I packed up and moved away with you, though that one he chose to blame on your mom. He was mad when we didn’t go to Rhode Island every Christmas, take your pick. With my father it was always something. He rode my ass until the day he died.”

“Wow, so you were like one giant disappointment?”

“Pretty much.”
 

“So it runs in the family?”

Dad leaned forward and slapped his hand down on my knee. He looked me in the eye, “You are not a disappointment, don’t ever think that, okay.”

I stayed silent.
 

My dad leaned in, “Okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” I finally said.
 

Dad got up to go to the bathroom giving me a minute to gather myself. I couldn’t assimilate the Grandpa Jojo my dad described and the one I remembered. He was all smiles with me and I thought he adored my mom but he didn’t want dad marrying her?

When dad returned he turned off the TV and dropped a huge photo album in my lap before sitting down next to me.
 

“What’s this?” I said running my hand over the worn cover of the album. Sure, I knew what it was but why did he give it to me? Was my dad getting all sentimental like Maureen too?

“It’s my life,” dad said and urged me to open it.
 

The very first picture was a yellowed black and white of a baby boy. “Let me guess that’s you?” I said

“Yes,” he said. “Can you see the defiance in my eyes.”

“Huh,” I said. All I saw was a chubby baby.

“According to dad at least.” Dad sniffled and turned the page.
 

There were pages upon pages of my dad throughout the years. His life went from black and white to color and his style changed from bell-bottoms and afros, sweat bands and short-shorts to suits and ties, side-parts and clean shaves. There were pictures of my dad in little league, marching band, track & field and pictures of him playing guitar. I almost choked at the picture of him at prom, and it wasn’t because of his blue suit, ruffled shirt, thick glasses and frizzed out hair but because of his date, Rita. My dad went to the prom with Summer’s mom.
 

My dad laughed. “She hasn’t aged a day.”
 

I quickly flipped the page. After Summer’s comments earlier about us and our parents I couldn’t handle seeing evidence of necking.
 

Then came pictures of my mom. Lots of pictures I’d never seen before taken at different holidays in different locals. Grandpa Jojo was in quite a few of them. In the first pictures my mom and grandpa Jojo seemed to like each other but as I got further into the pictures, pictures with me in them, they didn’t seem to like each other at all, me and my dad were the only two smiling in all of them.
 

One picture in particular caught my attention, I’d say I was about four in it and there were bandages covering parts of my neck and arm. That also seemed to be the moment in pictures when my mom stopped smiling and so did grandpa.
 

“What happened to me?” I asked dad.
 

“That was from a, uh, car accident.” Dad seemed unsure about his answer.

Was he hiding something?
 

“How old was I?”

“Four,” dad said and flipped the page.
 

Strange realization number two, there didn’t seem to be a single picture of me before age four. That bothered me but I couldn’t say why.
 

“Why did grandpa Jojo not like mom?”

Dad ignored my question and pointed to the next set of pictures of Dean and mine seventh birthday party. “The year you two became official Jedi warriors if I recall correctly.”

There it was in full-color the first picture of mom’s sadness. In the picture Dean and I were seated beside each other behind the cake getting ready to blowout the candles and my mom and Maureen were standing behind us. Maureen was all smiles her hands giving Dean a loving squeeze while my mother was a foot away from me, her eyes focused off-camera her smile didn’t reach her eyes like they had in previous pictures.
 

A knot formed in my stomach and I turned the page. There were no more pictures and I was glad but there was one thing on the last page of the album a birth certificate; Jonah Josiah Franklin born March 6, 1934.
 

Franklin? My hands started to shake. “Who’s birth certificate is that?”

“Grandpa Jojo’s,” Dad whispered.

Franklin was the same name on those paternity documents I’d seen in my dad’s office and it was also the name the little girl with the pigtails kept whispering to me. Chloe Franklin. My dad’s last name was Castle. Was he adopted? Was I?

I slammed the album shut.
 

“You okay?” Dad asked.
 

Did I ask him? I stood up. “I’m fine just need to sleep,” I said and hurried off to my room.
 

Tossing and turning all night, over-thinking everything had my eyes open and staring at the ceiling before four a.m. Again.
 

I couldn’t get the name Franklin out of my head. Was it possible I was adopted? No. That didn’t add up because my last name was different from grandpa Jojo’s not dad’s. Was my dad adopted?

I hated to admit it, but I wanted to see Dr. Patterson talk through all the shit running through my head and get rid of this foreboding feeling that I was indeed going crazy.
 

I rolled over and saw two blue eyes peering at me through my window.
 

Claudia!
 

She knocked lightly motioning me over.

Claudia?
 

I scrambled to the edge of my bed.
 

How the hell …

She knocked again.
 

When I didn’t move her face scrunched and her knocking double-times.

“Okay, okay," I mumbled.

I tossed back my covers. Definitely glad I’d worn boxers to bed instead of nothing. I opened the window. "You’re gonna wake my dad," I said leaning on the windowsill, "what the fuck are you doing here?"

"Good to see you too," she said shifting her footing to keep from slipping on the roof tiles. A breeze blew through and I stepped back from the window to keep from freezing in my boxers. Crossing my arms over my chest did not warm me up either.
 

There was no ladder resting against the edge of the roof. “How did you get up here?"
 

She smiled but didn’t answer my question. “I was going for a run. Didn’t want to go by myself. You interested?”
 

“It’s four in the morning, and freezing—”

"That didn’t stop you before?"

 
"Are you serious?"

"Do you want to or not?” The image of Claudia sitting outside my window didn’t compute.
 

I stared between her and the clock on my nightstand that said 4:10. I couldn’t sleep and it had been days since I ran, fresh air might do me some good. “Okay,” I finally said, “let me get dressed and then we can go."

Without invitation, Claudia climbed through the window and sat down on the edge of my bed.

“Please, come in," I said.

“It’s to cold out there to stand still," she said, “it’s not like you have anything I haven’t seen before, anyway."

“Our relationship is hard enough to explain to Summer without you seeing me naked."
 

“Oh please, I’m not gonna watch,” she said and put her hands over her eyes. “Trust me I don’t want to see you in your skivvies.”

A pair of sweatpants I’d worn days ago hung over the back of my desk chair, I slipped them on, and grabbed a sweatshirt from my closet. There was no way I’d tell Summer this story it make believing Claudia and I were just-friends impossible. I’d flip out if Trevor showed up outside Summer’s bedroom window at four in the morning. Of course, if he did that, security would show up and man-handle him into the back of a police car and that would be hilarious.

There was no comparing my relationship with Claudia—which was completely platonic—to Trevor and Summer, because he wanted Summer in all the ways I had her and I wanted nothing from Claudia. I glanced at her, she was turned away hands over her eyes. She definitely wanted nothing from me.
 

Claudia continued to keep her eyes covered, “You seem in a good mood, did you make-up with Summer?”

I sat down next to her on the bed to tie my shoes, “Yeah, I guess so."

"That’s good."

“Ready?”

Claudia jumped up, "God you take longer than a girl and you don’t even look as cute."

I rolled my eyes, "Good thing I’m not insecure."

"Oh please, you have mirrors."

I moved back to the window and she grabbed my arm, "Where are you going?"

"The way you came."

"That’s dangerous, we can just go out the front door."

"Look, you don’t know my dad, but he’ll freak if he hears me and sees you."
 

"Your dad left like twenty minutes ago, so I think we’re safe on that front."

How did she know that? More pertinent where did my dad go? I didn’t say another word before I disappeared down the hall creeping towards my dad’s room. His door stood open and he most definitely was gone.
 

“I told you he was gone did you think I was lying?" Claudia said leaning over me to look into my dad’s room too.
 

She moved with less noise than a mouse. I stood up and grabbed my chest, “What the fuck. Don’t do that," I said, “are you purposely trying to kill?" I took a deep breath, “Since you know everything, where’d he go?"

“I don’t know I just saw him drive past my house as I was leaving."

I debated whether or not to leave a message for my father, but since he didn’t leave one for me, I decided not to. I’d probably be back before he was, anyway. Besides after last night I wasn’t in any real rush to talk to my dad again.
 

We headed downstairs.
 

Claudia stomped her feet as she followed behind me, “Can you hear me now?"

“Shut-up,” I said.
 

As we neared my dad’s office downstairs she stopped. I noticed the lack of her footsteps and stopped to. A chill crept through me. Every time I walked past the doorway, a dread took hold that a masked assailant would come running at me again.
 

I sidled up next to Claudia who turned to look at me, "Does it freak you out," she said, “like when you walk by do you get shivers or something?”

"Do you want to go for a run or not?"

"Yeah, sorry." She stared a moment longer before following me outside.

Her words had me thinking. Sometimes I swear she was in my head.

"I know I give you shit, but you’re brave, what happened could have been much worse … and–and I’m glad you didn’t get hurt—bad," she said once we were outside stretching.
 

"Thanks I guess." I put a leg up on the retaining wall along our driveway, "It does sort of freak me out."

Claudia put her leg up next to mine and bent her other knee while simultaneously stretching the one resting on the wall. "That’s why I run," she said casually.
 

"Because you’re glad I didn’t get hurt?"

"Pretty much," she flipped up her hair and pointed to a thin scar that ran along her hair line, “when I was too little to remember, somebody broke into our house, my dad likes to say it was my fast feet that kept the scar from being the death of me, hence I keep them fast."

I reached up and rubbed my scar at the back of my hairline, hmm, it was weird how much Claudia and I had in common.
 

"Let’s go," I said and headed to the sidewalk.
 

A cloudy sky blocked out the moonlight, and covered the street in darkness. Ominous dark engulfed us in the vastness between streetlights. I see why Claudia didn’t want to run alone, you could barely see three feet around you even after your eyes adjusted to the black. It was the sort of dark the boogeyman lurked in, hanging around every corner, watching, waiting for his moment to grab you.
 

Twenty minutes, and I was winded, a sharp pain running up my left side. Claudia maintained a comfortable inhale/exhale, making me feel woefully out of shape. My pace slowed and Claudia gained feet on me. With her wearing a navy colored running suit, once she was about five feet ahead of me, I couldn’t even see her silhouette. All I saw were the reflective swooshes of her Nikes as the soles of her shoes hit the concrete.