What about Mom? I think. And what does this have to do with the talking box in the bedroom?
“We had a son,” he pushes on.
Now I am numb. This is a wilder story than I imagined. Does this mean I have a new brother?
“His name is Jack, and, uh, they’re waiting for me to send for them.”
I can’t stand it. “Where are they?” I find myself blurting out.
With an intense flash of his light blue eyes, Dad finally looks at me directly. “In a village in the north of Thailand.” His arm points up as if to indicate north. “As soon as this divorce thing is over with, I’m gonna send for them and meet them in California.”
I stay silent for what seems an eternity. I have so many more questions. Surging emotions threaten to explode in ebbs and flows of both fear and rage, and I want to scream, “What about us?” But instead I am quiet. My head hangs low and my shoulders are slumped at the years of rejection. I want to burst into a flood of tears. I am immobile and struggle to find some hope. Then I begin to understand that Dad trusts me with his truth. As messed up as it is, it is his truth, and our continuing relationship hinges on how I will react.
“It’s just the way things happened, Dawn,” Dad speaks up, acutely aware of the long silence and my pain. “After Vietnam, things were just different between your mother and me. I was—I am different…,” he continues. “Things can never be the same again between us. I mean, I love you and Terry and Wayne, but it’s all just different.” He is rambling, explaining his side of things awkwardly, unable to find the right words.
“So, you’re moving to California?” I ask shyly, still not looking up and scared to death that he is going away again.
“Well… that’s the plan.” Dad breathes a heavy sigh, then shuts down. “Why don’t you roll us a joint, Dawn, and let’s toke one?” I get up to retrieve my stash box and roll a fatty. My fingers are shaking and it takes me a while, but I finally manage to piece together a loose “pregnant” one and light it up. Dad and I take a few turns pulling drags from the joint before it starts to fall apart and he drops it in an ashtray. For a long moment we both sit and stare at the brown walnut finish of the dining room table.
“What about the box in the bedroom, Dad?” I remind him, and realize my stomach is churning. “What’s in there?” I am overwhelmed and anxious with all this latest information, but very aware he hasn’t finished explaining everything.
“Ahhhh, yes… the box in the bedroom.” He leans slightly into me; his tone is low, mysterious. “Well, now here’s the story about that.”
My eyes widen with excitement, and I manage to settle my hands in my lap and listen intently.
“Up country, in northern Thailand,” Dad begins, “me and this other guy, a Thai guy, were planting rice in the paddy fields when we hit something in the dirt with our plow. We thought we broke it and were pissed off. So we pulled the dirt back to clear it out and saw a, uh, kind of a faint green light coming out of the ground.”
“Far out!” My mouth drops open, and I nearly jump from my seat, but Dad refuses to be interrupted.
“We went to check it out and found these two round stones lying in the hole, green light all around them.” Again, Dad gestures wildly. “We pulled them out and a guy, or well, uh, what looked like a guy, really old looking… you know, with the long white beard and hair thing, and he kinda came glowing out of the stones and spoke to me and my friend.” Dad’s hair falls into his face as he stops, avoiding my gaping expression, but I catch him steal a glance my way from the corner of his eye.
“What did he say?” I ask in absolute amazement. My body is stiff and my hands clench tight as I hang on his every word.
“You ready for this?” Dad turns to look me straight in the eye.
“Yeah.” Now I’m holding my breath.
“He said he was a spirit who lived a long time ago. He said he had been hidden for many years. He said we were lucky, that he was a gift to those who found him—and now, we could speak to him whenever we wanted, that he would guide us.” After a long pause he adds, “Then he told us our future.” Dad hangs his head lower and glances from side to side before continuing. “He told me how I would find my fortune and that coming back here to the States was where I would find it. It’s something I had to do. At first we didn’t believe it, but he told us that the stones, one for each of us, couldn’t be destroyed. He dared us to try and break them.”
I take a deep, trembling breath and try to absorb the phenomenal unraveling of the green stones. Dad sees my reaction and waits a few beats for me to catch up.
“Pen Ci and I took my stone to all kinds of places to see if it really could be destroyed. We tried everything—smashing it, running it over, and banging it with anything we could find—but not a scratch. We even took it to a shooting range, but the bullets just ricocheted off—no mark, nothing.” Dad went on, “Nobody could believe it. It was written about in the local Thai papers and everyone considered it to be this big spiritual thing. Then… it got scary.” His voice was hushed now.
“Scary? Why scary?” I’m even more worried now.
“Well, there was too much publicity. We were afraid people would want to steal it, and if they wanted to steal it, they wouldn’t care if they hurt or killed us for it.”
“So… so what did you do?”
“We had to leave the village and go to Bangkok to stay with some of her family,” he ends the story abruptly as if he has said enough.
“Oh,” I say flatly. “And no one came after you? What about Pen Ci and Jack?” I press on anyway, wanting him to be less vague.
“Yeah… uh… I… uh,” he stammers and his feet begin to shuffle under the table. “I’m… uh… working on that.”
I don’t answer. I have already figured out that Dad speaks only when he is ready to speak. I’m confused about his ultimate intentions and after a few minutes of silence and trying to sound as nonthreatening as I can, I ask, “Working on it? I thought you were going to meet them in California?” Then in a soft voice, still not wanting to piss him off, I come straight to the point. “When are you going to do that?”
“Gotta have a plan, Dawn, gotta have a plan,” he replies with a half smirk almost to himself. Still not looking up from his cards, in an “I dare you to question me about life” way, he turns, looks deep into my eyes, and asks, “Don’t you got a plan, Dawn?” His mood changes rapidly as he shifts the questioning toward me.
“Plan?” I answer, taken off guard. I’m fifteen, and I live under my mother’s roof in a neighborhood going nowhere, I think. I don’t believe I even have any choices, much less the ability to plan anything. I stammer on, “Uh… I… uh.”
“Awww, come on. Don’t give me that.” His voice sharply accuses me of lying. “Everyone’s got a plan!”
Well, I don’t! my mind screams. Dad’s mood swing has shocked me, and I stay silent, afraid that he is getting mad. He continues playing his solitaire hand, slapping the cards down hard, making it uncomfortable to sit next to him. Finally, I can stand the tension no longer, and while Jethro Tull’s Aqualung plays menacingly in the background, I make a gesture of peace. “Wanna smoke another doobie, Dad?”
“Yeah!” he says, sounding lighter again. “Why don’t you roll us another one, babe.” His mood is sweet. As if he is sorry he had sounded harsh, he cracks a smile and it immediately melts the tension.
“Snot is running down his nose,” ring the lyrics from the cabinet encased stereo. I look up at him and smile.