“About your mother.”
And here I was having such a good time.
“I could be pretty angry at her,” he tells me, “for keeping you from me all these years.”
I nod, and all of a sudden I’m realizing that, yeah, I really missed out.
Actually, I was robbed.
“But here’s the thing,” he says. “I like the person you are, and you wouldn’t be you without the experiences you’ve had. You wouldn’t be you without your grandmother’s influence or your mother’s lack of attention the last few years, or if you’d grown up as a rocker’s daughter. You would be somebody else.” He gives a little shrug. “And the truth is, I’m almost positive that I wouldn’t respect and admire and love that person the way I do you.”
All of a sudden, there’s a big ball of cement in my throat. And I can’t really say anything, so what comes out is a grunt.
I can be so articulate.
He doesn’t seem to mind, though. He smiles at me and says, “So I’m not going to dwell on what she did wrong. I’m just going to focus on how you turned out and be grateful that you’ve come into my life.”
Hearing him say that, I’m reminded that even though I always knew I had a dad, he had no idea he had a daughter—who he was was a surprise to me, but that he was wasn’t. And for some reason what comes out of my mouth is, “I used to carry your catcher’s mitt around with me everywhere.”
He sits up and flips up his sunglasses. “You have that?”
“I found it in Grams’ closet. It’s the only connection I had to you. So I kept it with me all the time.”
“Marko!” he calls across the loungers. “She’s got my mitt!”
“Dude, no, you’re serious?” He looks at me. “You have no idea the mourning he’s gone through.”
“Why?” I ask Darren.
“Marko and I were the battery on our baseball team, senior year. He was the pitcher, I was the catcher.”
“Dude, I told you to ask Lana if she had it! Remember that? I told you.”
“Yeah, you said it was probably a hate crime.”
“See? See?” Marko says, pointing. “You should listen to me more.”
I laugh, “Well, you can’t have it back, because I actually use it—Marissa was pitcher and I was catcher on our school’s team.”
“You’re serious?” Darren asks.
So Marissa jumps in with stories about our softball adventures—and believe me, there are some wild ones—and when we’ve talked that completely out, we all agree on one thing:
It’s time to eat!
So once again we hit the buffet for dinner, and once again Marissa makes us check out the show at the Poseidon Theater afterward. We actually stick around for the whole thing, too, because the ventriloquist/puppeteer guy is hilarious.
“Not as good as us,” Marko says on the way out, “but definitely worth the price of admission.”
And then it’s time to pack. And say good night. And roll our luggage out into the hallway, where Marissa assures us it will mysteriously vanish and then safely reappear in a warehouse onshore when we “disembark.”
Walking into our room, I feel really … sad.
Like I’m waking up from an amazing dream and realizing it was just that.
A dream.
And then I see the box on my bed.
“No!” I gasp. But there’s no mistaking this box.
It says CONVERSE right on it.
Marissa’s jaw drops and she says, “Wow, money talks, huh?”
I laugh, “No kidding!” I zip across the room and flip the lid open, and not only is there a pair of size 11 high-tops inside, there’s a multipack of Sharpies. “Holy smokes.”
“Well, I guess I know what you’re going to be doing tonight,” Marissa says. “You want me to do one?”
I shake my head.
And after I’ve done all my packing and everything I’m supposed to do, I sit cross-legged on my bed with Darren’s shoes in my lap and totally choke up.
I mean, where do I start?
How do I say what he’s become to me?
How do I say, I love you, Dad?
I just sit there for the longest time.
Then finally I uncap a black pen and take a deep breath.
Let the adventure begin.
Wendelin Van Draanen, Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise
(Series: # )
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