Having just walked in the house for lunch, I stood in the kitchen doorway, somewhat slumped in a suit. Thad was at the stove stirring a pot of pasta.
“Why?” I asked with as much hate in my voice as I could muster. My day was already full of enough crap, including a late afternoon of teaching and then a dreadful faculty meeting to soldier through. I did not need this too.
“You know why,” he laughed silkily, turning to smile at me. I knew he was faking it.
“So this is official? You are leaving?”
“Yes, I told you.” He turned back to the stove.
“No,” I countered. “No, you really have not. Last time we even talked about it was at the Chinese Restaurant.”
“And I told you I was going to do it.”
“No you did not,” I lied. I did not want to accept the fact that he was leaving, and admit defeat.
“Michael, I did.” He snapped in his no-nonsense tone. “So quit badgering me.”
I looked away, and then against my better judgment continued, “Well, you didn’t say it was going to happen so soon.”
He slammed his spatula to the stove and barked, “Jesus! I told you it was coming. She just got the house yesterday. She wants me to help her start moving today, okay? There! Now I’ve told you! Is that official enough?”
I hated when he screamed at me. It made me feel sick and small.
It was coming true. I had lost.
Not knowing what else to say I blurted out, “Okay. Well there are boxes up in the attic. You can help yourself. And I can help if you need me to.”
“No, no. That’s fine,” he said calmly. “There’s not that much, and Mom has rented movers for the big things.”
“Good. Good.” I was out of breath and feeling dizzy. I needed to be out of there before I started to cry. I needed to be away from him before I started screaming.
“Hey, how long before lunch?” I asked, holding on to the doorframe for support.
“About twenty minutes.” He finally looked back at me.
“Okay,” I fake smiled. “I’m just going to run up to the DMV around the corner and get a new license. You know I just realized mine expired yesterday. I mean, I would just hate to get pulled over and get a ticket, you know. So, so, I’ll be right back.” I was serious, I did need a new license, but more importantly I just needed out of there.
“Sure,” he said eying me suspiciously.
“Okay, yeah…” and I ran outside and drove off before I lost it then and there in front of him.
I finally took a deep breath at the stop sign: He was indeed moving out. Dammit.
“Can I see your license?” the enormous woman behind the counter said as she shifted her weight and smacked her bright red gum.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, handing it to her.
I had driven around the neighborhood after I left the house and had not cried, but was sweating way too much for a charming March day. I had found the DMV nearly empty, oddly at lunch, but for that I was pleased. There had been only two people in line ahead of me.
“Do you have your birth certificate?” the mountainous woman asked, her blue-blue eye-shadowed eyes wide.
“What?”
“Your birth certificate.” She pronounced loudly, snapping my license down to the counter in front of her. “Your license has been expired for more than a month, and we got to have a certified copy of your birth certificate before we can issue you a new license.”
“Why?” I asked, boggled, picking up my license.
“It’s the law, sir. I am sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry one bit. “I cannot help you until you bring in a certified copy of your birth certificate. Understand? Next!”
“But, are you sure? I mean I have my license here.” I held it up. “It has my picture on it.”
“No, sir that will not do. It has been over a month. I am sorry. Now step out of line. Others are waiting. Next!”
I looked and there was no one else waiting. I just left.
Out in my car, frazzled, I called Mom, “Do you have my birth certificate?”
“What?” she said.
“My birth certificate!” I yelled.
“Well, you don’t have to scream at me,” she huffed, hurt.
I explained to her why. She was also in her car, out shopping.
“It’s in my safety deposit box at the bank,” she said. “I was on my way to get a cake from Homeland. That little Mexican boy is being brought over to Becky's today by the social worker for a visit and Becky wanted me there. So I’m going to pick up a cake. I thought a cake would make a good impression.”
“Mom! Listen.” I snapped. I could not take any of her inane ramblings. “Can you stop by your bank and get my birth certificate?”
“The key to the safety deposit box is back at the house.”
“What? You’re kidding?”
“No. Why would I carry that? I might lose it.”
I sighed, rubbing my head. “Can you just go home, get the key, and then go back to the bank and get my birth certificate and I’ll pick it up?”
“No, that’s too much running around, and I told you I have to meet Becky. That’s why I’m getting the cake. You can meet me at the house and get the key and go get it yourself.”
“Am I allowed to do that?”
“Yes, I put you and Becky on the safety deposit box a few years ago, and now I’m glad I did.”
“Okay. Now?” I asked.
“Well, after I get the cake.”
“Yes! After you get the cake! And after that, you are heading straight home?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll see you there.”
“Wait, one more thing, honey.” She said.
“What?”
“Do you think Mexicans like carrot cake?”
I just hung up and began the trek across town to Mom & Smith’s.
As I drove I thought that I should call Thad and tell him I would be late, but I did not. He deserved all of my scorn now; let him worry. Let his cheap pasta go limp and cold. He deserved no better. Trader. Deserter.
“Can you believe your sister?” Mother said as I helped her out of the car, cake box in hand.
“Mom, key.” I had sat in her driveway and waited for fifteen minutes, and now had been gone almost an hour.
“Oh, yes, the key.” She said, handing me the cake box.
Inside, after she had gone to the bathroom and poured herself a glass of ice tea (Mother: “Tea?” Me: “No! The key!”) she produced the key.
“Now how does this work?” I asked, turning it over in my hand.
“You go in to the bank and tell them who you are. And then you and the teller will go in the vault and she will have a key and you will have this key and you both turn your keys at the same time and the safety deposit box comes out.”
“You are kidding? It’s like a James Bond movie-and we’re disarming a bomb.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that. But that’s how it works. And once you get the box out, she will leave you in the vault to look through things. Just make sure you put everything back in before you lock it back up.”
Up to this point I had been enjoying my diversion away from Thad and his crap, but suddenly my OCD perked up. What it heard was: ‘If you do this wrong, bad things will happen to important items.”
“Can’t you just go do it? I’ll go with you.” I said tensely, trying to hand her the key back.
“No, no.” She pushed it back to me. “You can do it. You’ll be fine. I have to go to Becky’s.” She smiled and I just frowned.
The bank teller was a tall, plain, middle-aged lady. I told her my story and she seemed unimpressed by the irony. She asked for my license.
“But it’s expired….” I began, but she didn’t care. She took it and frowned, scribbling down my name on a ledger, I then had to sign.
“Follow me.” She said solemnly.
We went to the creepy vault and using the keys in choreographed unison, the box popped out as prophesied by Mother.
“When you are done,” Sarah Plain and Tall said in a drab monotone, “just put the box back in the wall. And when you want to leave, push this button here and the bars will release. Take your time, please.”
Closing the barred gate behind her, she left me alone with the box in the vault.
Suddenly wishing I had not run out on Thad, I was afraid. I wished he was here comforting me, telling me I was being silly and that everything was going to be alright. I just wished I wasn’t alone.
Opening the big metal box, I found a panoply of oddness. There were copies of wills and insurance policies, some random old valuable jewelry, ancient family photos, boxes of tiny tchotchkes I vaguely remembered from childhood, and reams of business papers. Still with the thought that I was disarming a bomb, I didn’t feel like I could take too long, so I leafed through the business papers until I found the envelopes labeled: Children’s Birth Certificates.
I found Becky’s first. I opened it, remembering the day she was born and how proud I was to have a baby sister. As I scanned it, I noticed Dad’s name printed at the top: Father: Charles Stiles. How odd to see it written, and how glaring to come across it so casually.
I put that away and continued flipping through until I found my own birth certificate. I looked it over and there was Dad’s name again printed at the top: Father: Charles Stiles. It made me miss him, even though I had not seen him in 27 years. This was a wound I was not anticipating opening today, here perched atop the fresher wound caused by the departure of another man in my life.
Pocketing my birth certificate, I began shuffling everything back in. I just wanted to be done and out. This was all too weird, too much, especially now on an empty stomach. But then something caught my eye.
It was a stark lilac envelope addressed to Mom. It stuck out because it was so normal among all of the other businessy items. It had a postal date stamp of 2004 and the slanted cursive handwriting was vaguely familiar. My stomach turned over as I turned the envelope over: the return address was C. Stiles. It was from Dad, to Mom, from six years ago.
Without thinking, and not sure why, I opened it up. Inside was a folded letter. It was short, addressed to Mom. All it said was:
Trudy-
Was forwarded your letter. Glad you are well, as am I. Happy that Rebecca is
engaged. It is fine if she wants to write me. Use this address:
1775 East Tropicana Avenue
Las Vegas, Nevada 89119
Give to Michael too, if he wants to write. Hope he is happy too.
-Charles
My father had very pretty hand writing for a man.
This must have been where Becky got Dad’s address when she wrote him back before her wedding. Mom must have written him and then he sent this letter back with his address. Mom then had given Becky the address, but he never responded. Mom had offered me the same address but I did not want it. Six years ago I was not in a place where I could have accepted him, still too mad at him for leaving us, giving us up.
But now, today, I felt different. Maybe I could.
Feeling like I was doing something monumentally wrong, I pocketed the letter next to my birth certificate and shoved everything else back in. Shutting the safety deposit box, I popped it back in the wall and it clicked locked. Removing my key, I pressed the red button and the bar gate opened. I had to get out of there.
The sadly plain teller scowled as I left.
In the cool of the parking lot, I felt like I had just robbed the bank.
In the car I did not look at the letter from my Dad again, but I was happy that I could if I wanted to. Maybe I was ready to contact him now. In the letter, he said I could. It almost even seemed like he wanted me to. He hoped: “he is happy too.” But he never responded to Becky. Would he respond to me? Would he tell me why he left us? Why he hadn’t been in contact in such a long time? Did I even want to know these things? Maybe. But at least I now I could try, like Becky had years ago. And maybe it would work this time. But I did not want to now. But I could. And somehow this made me feel better today.
I drove back to the DMV and waited in line again and handed the gargantuan woman my birth certificate. As she ordered me to stand for my new picture I said, “You know getting my birth certificate was just ridiculous.”
“Uh huh,” she was fussing with the camera.
“I had to get it from my Mom. It was in her safety deposit box in the bank, but the key was back at her house…”
“Uh huh,” the woman snapped her red gum.
“It just reminds me of these German fairy tales I talk about in class sometimes. I teach English up at the University.”
“Uh huh.”
“The hero always has to find something important, like a key. But it’s been hidden by magic inside a fish- that’s inside a duck -that’s inside a well -that’s inside a church -that’s on an island. And he has to go through all of these to get it. And I just feel like I went through all of that today …”
“Look here,” she said.
“What?” I said looking up as she snapped the photo.
Five minutes later I walked out with my new license. The picture wasn’t half bad: I had an inquisitive, questing look on my face. As I drove home I felt lighter than when I had originally run out on Thad, much lighter in fact.
Walking back into the house after being gone for almost an hour and a half, I heard Thad in the kitchen.
“You finally back?” he came towards me with a look of relief on his face, a dish towel in hand.
“Yeah. Sorry. You won’t believe this story…”
I did not tell him about my father’s letter; I later put it away in a safe spot.
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