Читать книгу The Museum of Lost Love - Gary Barker - Страница 11

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Tyler

Tyler looked at the sleeping boys next to him. One shared his sandy blond hair, crinkly eyes, and surfer-boy softness. The other had wavy dark hair and dark eyes that reminded Tyler of the boy’s mother. When they were awake, it was all he could do to keep up with them. When they slept, he tried to pull himself together.

Where the Wild Things Are was open at the foot of Tyler’s bed. There were two matchbox cars on his nightstand. Sammy had wanted Tyler to read the story, while Joaquin had insisted on driving the matchbox cars over Tyler’s bed. Joaquin had pretended not to listen to the story but Tyler could tell that he had been fascinated by it. Before Tyler reached the last page, both boys were yawning. Tyler let them fall asleep in his bed, and then he took them one by one to their beds in the room they shared.

Before the boys came to live with him, Tyler had never felt time shift so acutely. This was the only moment in the day when his apartment was quiet. These two bodies of perpetual motion collapsed and a parallel universe opened up. In that space Tyler had time to think, to recollect, to regret. He felt relief when he, too, could sleep.

Most nights, as he crossed over into sleep, Tyler’s last conscious moment was one of longing—for warm skin touching him and a mouth close to his. It didn’t surprise him when a short time later his sleep was interrupted by one of the boys, or both, calling for a glass of water, or, more often, crying out for their respective mothers. He understood their cry, shared it even. Still, no matter how quickly he reached their room in response to their cries, he was an impostor parent.

This new life had started with a phone call less than a year before.

Tyler, it’s me. Melissa.

Melissa. It’s been a long time. How um … Where are you? Are you back in Austin?

Yes, visiting. I want to see you. I have something to tell you.

…

It’s not what you think.

…

I heard you made it back from Afghanistan in one piece. I mean, unless you have PTSD or something.

No, I’m okay. I think. But thank you for asking.

Can I come over? There’s someone I want you to meet.

…

It’s your son.

Jesus, Melissa. Shit, why didn’t you tell me?

And why didn’t you tell me you were joining the army, Tyler?

Melissa, you wrote me off long before I enlisted. If I had known …

Tyler, I told you I wasn’t looking for anything when we met.

And so you couldn’t even bother to tell me you were pregnant, and had …?

Look, Tyler …

Shit, I can’t believe you waited all this time to tell me.

…

…

You still with me, Tyler?

Yeah.

So are you back at being a cop?

Yeah. Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department.

You got a girl? Some good Christian lady you can take home to meet your momma?

No, Melissa, there’s no one at the moment, good Christian or otherwise.

Where are you living?

I’ve got an apartment in Bastrop. The county gave me one.

The county gave you one? What, are you on welfare or something?

It’s an apartment complex where battered women and their children live. County supports it. Run by the family crisis agency. They give me the apartment for free. Need a cop around. Makes the women feel safer. You know, just in case any of the guys try to come look for them.

Wow. There’s got to be a word for that. Lots of mistreated, lonely women and a hot, single cop. What would that be? Supply meets demand?

Can I meet him, Melissa?

That’s why I called.

It was Friday and he didn’t have patrol that weekend. As he hung up, the first thing he thought about was what four-year-old boys liked to eat. This was something he learned to do in Afghanistan. When that out-of-control feeling came over him, those moments on patrol when an IED or an ambush might be around the next corner, he learned to focus on something small, something obvious. A task to complete.

The next morning Melissa brought Sammy over. Tyler had thought about proposing that they meet at the park by the river, or at a coffee shop, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to see his son’s face for the first time with strangers around. He wasn’t sure how he would react, or how he was supposed to act.

Melissa rang from the front gate of the apartment complex and Tyler buzzed them in. He heard the knock at the door and stood up. He looked around his simple, mostly undecorated apartment to make sure it was presentable to a four-year-old, and to Melissa.

Tyler opened the door. Melissa wore a tropical print dress. His eyes were drawn to her tan neck. He remembered resting his head there. She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. Melissa smelled much the same as he remembered, like sandalwood. Tyler thought he could smell pot on her breath.

“You look good,” she said. “You can still break hearts. I bet the women here don’t mind having you around.”

Their gazes turned at the same time to Sammy, who was closely examining a Big Wheel outside an apartment two doors down from Tyler’s.

“Sammy, come meet Tyler. This is who I told you about. He’s your daddy. Remember what we talked about?”

Sammy lingered for a moment near the Big Wheel and then walked towards them.

Tyler felt a flush of his skin, like a first kiss or that moment when a girl he liked suddenly noticed him. That was the only feeling that came close to this. He felt Sammy’s eyes on him, but even more so he felt a stare from Melissa, a look that he could not understand.

He bent down and extended his hand. Sammy looked at him with a serious but calm face and shook it.

“So, Sammy, I’m Tyler. I’m really happy to meet you. I really am. I didn’t …”

“Can we come in?” Melissa asked.

“Yes, of course. Come on in. I got some juice and cookies for Sammy.”

Sammy part-hopped, part-jumped, part-walked in, and began to inspect the apartment. He saw Tyler’s guitars in their stands and walked over to one of them.

“Be careful with those, Sammy,” Melissa said.

“It’s okay. You can touch them if you’re careful,” Tyler said.

Sammy strummed one of the guitars and wiggled in response to the sound.

“Can you play something?” Sammy said, looking back at Tyler.

Tyler picked up the closest acoustic guitar and started to pick Blackbird by the Beatles.

Sammy smiled and Tyler smiled back.

“Do you like to draw?” Sammy asked, looking at Tyler.

Tyler stopped playing.

“Don’t get too excited, Tyler. Every three-year-old on the planet likes to draw,” Melissa said.

“I’m four,” Sammy said.

“Of course, I know, honey.”

“Yeah, I do like to draw,” Tyler said. “Hang on a second and I’ll get some paper and pencils and we can both draw.”

Tyler left the room and returned with a wooden art case that he set on the floor and opened in front of Sammy. Sammy stared, transfixed at the dozens of colored pencils and the paper and the drawings that Tyler pulled out from the case.

“You’re a good draw-er,” Sammy said.

Tyler opened up a drawing pad for Sammy.

“Do you like pencils, or crayons, or pastels …?”

“Yeah,” Sammy said and picked up a blue pencil.

A few minutes later, with the two of them engrossed in drawing, Melissa stood up.

“Hey, you two. I need to go to the pharmacy to get something, okay? I’ll let you two get acquainted. I’ll be back in a little while.”

As she closed the door, Tyler stopped drawing long enough to think that it was a little strange that she was leaving Sammy alone when he and Tyler had only just met.

They continued drawing. Later, Tyler made them both sandwiches, and then he played guitar again and he showed Sammy how to strum while he held the chords. Then they drew some more, taking turns finishing each other’s drawings.

“My mommy’s not coming back,” Sammy said calmly, his gaze on his drawing. His voice had an unusual weight for a four-year-old.

“Of course she is, but we’ll have fun until she does. And even after you and your mommy leave, you can come see me anytime you want and I’ll go see you too.”

“Nope, she’s not coming back.”

“I’m sure she is. Your mom probably just got delayed. I can call her.”

“Mommy told me she wasn’t coming back. Mommy said you were going to take care of me for a while,” Sammy said, still not looking up from what he was drawing.

Tyler had his mobile phone in his hand and was getting ready to dial her number. Sammy had looked up from his drawing now and was staring at him. Tyler was surprised at how calm Sammy was in stating that Melissa would not return. Tyler pulled up recent calls and dialed the number Melissa had used to call him. A message informed him that the number did not accept incoming calls. Tyler tried not to show any expression to Sammy as he called the number a second and a third and a fourth time. Then he texted a message to the number and immediately received a response: Error: invalid number.

They drew and watched TV until it was time for dinner. Tyler suggested they go out for dinner and Sammy vigorously shook his head.

“I need my car seat,” Sammy said.

“Oh, yeah, of course. Well, I’ll tell you what. You sit in the back seat and we’ll put on your seat belt. I’ll drive slowly. I’m a policeman, so it’ll be okay just this once. I give you permission.”

Sammy nodded his head, apparently satisfied with this.

On their way back to Tyler’s apartment after dinner, Sammy was nearly falling asleep. As they walked inside, Tyler suggested he take a nap until Melissa came back.

The nap became a full night’s sleep. Tyler watched Sammy as the boy slept on his couch until after two in the morning. Then Tyler took off his own shirt and shoes and went to his bedroom and slept on top of the covers of his bed. It was about seven the next morning when he woke up and saw Sammy standing next to him in his bedroom.

“I told you she wasn’t coming back.”

“Hey,” Tyler said, his voice groggy. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Can I have some cereal?”

◆ ◆ ◆

With more than four years having passed since they had broken up, two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and both of them moving to new cities, Tyler had no other current phone numbers for Melissa. She had made it clear when she ended it that she didn’t want to stay in touch. She never told him where she had moved, although he thought it might have been the Bay Area in California. She had friends there, and a cousin she was close to, and she had sometimes talked about moving there.

After taking four days of sick leave, buying a car seat, finding a temporary babysitter, contacting Child Protective Services, calling his mother in Houston with the news, asking her to take a few days off work to come stay with him to help get Sammy settled in, filling up his refrigerator with food Sammy liked, and buying clothes and a mattress for Sammy to sleep on, Tyler remembered the name of one of Melissa’s close friends. It was one he thought lived in California. With a little online searching, he found a telephone number and a picture online that matched what he recalled the woman to look like.

“Ashley, I’m not sure if you remember me but this is Tyler Nielsen. I was Melissa’s boyfriend for a while. I don’t know if you’ve seen her recently but she has a son, I mean we have a son …”

“Yeah, I know about that.”

“Listen, Ashley, Melissa left Sammy with me and then just disappeared. I live in Bastrop, near Austin. I don’t know if this was something she planned, or if something happened to her, or if she’s been in touch with you. I’d never even met him. I didn’t even know about him and she just left him here with me. Sammy says she told him that she was going to leave him to live with me, which seems to me about the craziest …”

She cut him off: “Tyler, I can’t tell you anything more. She made me swear that I wouldn’t. You’re a cop, aren’t you? I mean, couldn’t you find her if you really wanted to? Don’t you have ways of tracking people down? Credit cards, phone numbers? Doesn’t sound very smart to leave your kid with his father who is a cop and think you can disappear without being found.”

“I guess not,” he finally said. “Unless you figure the guy is smart enough to know that you can’t make a woman be a mother to a child if there’s some reason she doesn’t want to.”

“You know, Tyler, she always said one of the reasons she liked you was because of your—what did she call it? —your ‘simple, decent common sense.’ So glad I could be of help. Good luck. I really mean that.”

“Yeah, ok,” he said, slowly taking this in.

He was about to hang up when Ashley spoke again.

“Tyler, hold on a second. Look, we tried to talk her out of it. I think it’s a stupid idea. But she thinks you can do this. She has her reasons. That’s all I can say.”

He waited, thinking she might offer more information, a motive, something to go on.

“Take good care of Sammy,” Ashley said.

Tyler thought it sounded like a threat. She hung up before he could respond.

About a week later Tyler received a registered letter. Inside was Sammy’s birth certificate, listing Tyler as the father, a notarized letter signed by Melissa saying that she relinquished sole custody of Sammy to him, and Sammy’s vaccination records. Tyler knew there would be more paperwork, meetings with social workers, and a court hearing to make it all permanent. The therapy was his own choice.