Plan B (3 page)

I hung my head and smiled to myself.

“I forgot your name,”
she shouted. I told her, and she waved and headed down the hillside. I closed my eyes, breathed in calm, and grass; and then, the pièce de
résistance: the smell of dog shit filled my nose, sharp as ammonia, and foul.

God, I thought, self-righteously: This woman brings her barking dogs into this open space, and they shit all over everything, and she doesn't clean up after them. I stood to move away, but when I looked down at the grass, there was nothing there. Then I looked at the sole of my shoe.

My entire childhood passed before my eyes—kids holding their noses in schoolyards, parents commanding us all out of the car, demanding that we check our feet. Nothing isolated you so instantly as having stinky heat-lines wafting visibly off your foot, like in the cartoons.

It's a miracle that more of us didn't shoot up our neighborhoods.

When I was young, I wore camel's-hair coats when I took the bus to San Francisco with my mother to see the dentist, and then drown our sorrows in coffee-toffee cake at Blum's. Back then everyone dressed up to go to the city. I wore patent-leather shoes and white gloves. I had a felt hat, with a red grosgrain ribbon around the brim, and tucked into that, a feather: can you imagine? Sam would die laughing if he could see how I dressed, like a
rebellious Amish girl. But I felt so beautiful. However, not even finery, not even
feathers,
could protect you from dog shit. You'd instantly be stuck in a game of Chutes and Ladders, feeling beautiful and proud one moment, people holding their noses the next.

I got up and pawed the offending shoe against the wet grass, then sat down on the concrete piling and looked at my shoe. There was an enormous amount of doggage embedded in its elaborate treads.

Muttering, I searched for a stick in the grass, and once I found one, started picking out the shit, but it was pebbly, and stuck. Trying to dislodge it was like picking burnt batter out of a waffle iron.

It took forever. Then a light drizzle started up again. I kept at the sneaker, and two things happened: First, the project turned out to be strangely satisfying—I'm really good at this sort of work. And second, after a while I found myself in a state of joy. I was focused, and it was beautiful up there, and the shit was nearly entirely out of my shoe. That's a lot. I don't know why God won't just spritz away our hardships and frustration. I don't know why the most we can hope for on some days is to end up a little less crazy than before, less down on ourselves. I don't know why we have to become so vulnerable before
we can connect with God, and even sometimes with ourselves. But by the same token, I don't understand how I got rings of laundry lint on my red cord.

I guess we're simply not meant to understand some things. Bono, of U2, who is a Christian, says that his favorite song is “Amazing Grace” and his second favorite is “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” and most of the time, I have to let it go at that.

I prayed for Sam and me. And then I called for Lily and headed back home in the drizzle.

I took off my shoes outside the front door, because I wanted to wash the soles off. Sam's shoes were on the front step, too, so muddy and worn that you might expect to find just one of them, at a flood site, or at low tide. This is how the guys wear them.

Sam was lying on the couch watching TV when I stepped in. I could tell he was still mad, because for a moment he did not look over. I closed the door behind me.

“I'm sorry I was awful,” I said. “I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes. Everything gets to be too much, and I can't breathe.”

He looked over in wounded silence. Then, as he actually saw me, there was an almost imperceptible shift in his face, as when he was a baby, first waking from a deep
sleep: you could see his inside eyes open before he blinked awake, as if something inside him had floated to the surface from far away. “Look at you,” he said, amused, parental. “You're all wet. Where you been? And where on earth are your
shoes,
dude?” Then he rubbed his forehead, wearily, but smiling, just like my mother used to do.

 

W
e have recently returned from another holiday with Sam's dad. It feels like a miracle to be able to say that, and it feels that way every time his father and I spend time together with Sam, watching him ski or draw or sleep. Because for me to be able to write that first sentence seemed, for the first seven years of Sam's life, an impossibility. I want to tell you the story now, of how Sam and his father met, because in these dark and scary times, it always makes me feel hope again. I've said this before: When God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship; when
God is going to do something amazing, He or She starts with an impossibility.

I have written about being a single mother but have rarely mentioned Sam's father, except in a memoir of Sam's first year, where I said things that made me sound perhaps a little victimized by and merciless toward his father. In early December 1988, I got pregnant by a man named John, whom I had been dating, in the biblical sense. We did not sit around all day making moo-goo-gai-pan eyes at each other, but we hung out and loved to talk and go to movies and libraries. It was very nice. Then I got pregnant, and John, who already had two grown children, was ready for independence and travel, while I was ready to have a baby. I was thirty-four and could not face more abortions, and my eggs were getting old, like eggs you'd get at the 7-Eleven. I decided to have the baby, and everything between John and me turned to shit, and he went his way and I went mine.

Then I had this beautiful kid. It was very hard in the beginning, and I hated that Sam didn't get to have a dad, but I provided him with the world's kindest men. I didn't even think of trying to find John, this man with whom I had such a bad history, yet who'd given me the greatest gift of my life.

When Sam asked about his father over the years, which was not often, I'd tell him the truth. Sort of. I did not mention how badly things had ended, that his dad and I had said things to each other that perhaps Jesus would not have said. I told Sam what a smart, sweet man his father was, which is true, that he was tall and good-looking. I told him I had two photos of John he could see if he ever wanted to, and that I'd help him if he ever wanted to try to find him. And I really, really hoped he'd never want to.

When Sam was in first grade, there was a fine crack in the wall of silence. A letter arrived from John, in response to a story I'd published about Sam and his first library card. It was one sentence of grief and pride and outreach—but there was no phone number or other way to contact him. It only made me feel more confused, and in my swirl of blame and fear, I put the letter away.

A year later, when Sam was seven, he started wondering more frequently where his dad was, and what kind of a man he was. The man I was with at the time told me point-blank that I had to help Sam begin his search. That it was time. I wept. I was so afraid—sore afraid—and hopeless that Sam would never get to find his father or that, even worse, he would.

When Sam would ask about his father, I'd say, “Do you want to see his pictures?” He always said no, thank you. (He has good manners, which I believe can cover a multitude of sins.) But one day when we were sitting in the car after church, he looked solemn. Clearly he had something on his mind. He said, “I think I'd like to see those pictures now.”

I felt as if I had swallowed a bunch of rubber bands. When we got home, I took the photos out of the file and handed them to Sam. He studied John for a moment, the big round eyes, small nose, dark hair, all like his own.

“How could we find him?” he asked.

I didn't know, except that with writing, you start where you are, and you usually do it poorly. You just do it—you do it afraid. And something happens.

I called John's old number, the one in the phone book, and no one answered. I called John's father's house, and no one answered there. I called his best friend, with whom I had lost touch, and there was no one there, either. Then I prayed, because when all else fails, you follow instructions, and I began to pray the way my mentors had taught me: I prayed, “Help me, help me.” I prayed, “Please. Please.” I let go of an angstrom of blame. That was the hardest part. This batch of blame had more claw
marks than most of the things I try to let go of. Blame is always my first response: figure out whose fault things are, and then try to manipulate that person into correcting his or her behavior so that you can be more comfortable. I put a note to God in a box, asking for direction. I told God I was taking my sticky fingers off the steering wheel, that God could be the driver and I would be just another bozo on the bus.

“Help” is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray—with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, “Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom.” Prayer usually means praise, or surrender, acknowledging that you have run out of bullets. But there are no firm rules. As Rumi wrote, “There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” I just talk to God. I pray when people I love are sick, and I prayed when I didn't know whether I should have a baby. I pray when my work is horrible, or suddenly, miraculously, better. I cried out silently every few hours during the last two years of my mother's life. I even asked for help in coping with George W. Bush. I
prayed that he would make decisions for the common good, which he has not done, but I pray that he might slip up and do it anyway. I do not pray for his success, as I do not pray for mine. I pray that he and his people do not destroy everything on the way down.

When I am in my right mind, which is about twice a month, I pray kindly.

Sam prayed for his dad every night.

Nothing happened. I determined to take this up with God when we meet:
Would it have been so much skin off your nose to give my child an answer?
I couldn't believe it. Usually if you pray from the heart, you get an answer—the phone rings or the mail comes, and light gets in through the cracks, so you can see the next right thing to do. That's all you need. But nothing happened at first. I secretly believed we'd bump into John at the market, perhaps, or at the movies, but we didn't. I kept calling the best friend, but it turned out I had the wrong number. Finally I found the right number, but the friend didn't know where John was, except that John's dad had been sick, so John was probably in town taking care of him. I called John's father again. No one answered.

Things got worse. I decided it would have been better if we'd never even tried. Sam had been doing fine before
we'd started looking. Now he was frustrated, mad at his dad and more so at me. He said that if I were a better person, I would not have driven his father away. I wanted to find John, for Sam, but at the same time, I hadn't seen him in more than seven years, and I had, at best, mixed feelings about him. It was a mess. We got more frustrated, more stuck, less hopeful. Wendell Berry once said, at a coffeehouse in Mill Valley on a dark, rainy December day, “It gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born.” That line came back to me, from out of nowhere, and I decided to practice radical hope, hope in the face of not having a clue. I decided that God was not off doing the dishes while Sam sought help: God heard his prayers, and was working on it.

And within a week, the local paper carried John's father's obituary. This is God's own truth. The story said that Sam's grandfather had been cared for until the end by his only son. Sam's father was in town. I felt like a cartoon character who is standing too close to a huge Buddhist gong.

“I think I know where he is,” I told Sam after school that day. “He's at his father's home.” We decided to let a little time pass, so John could heal from the loss, and then Sam would write him a letter.

His letter began, “Hi, Dad, it's me, Sam, and I am a good boy.”

He said he wanted to know him and to be friends. He put the letter in a small red box, with his favorite action figurines and some candy, and we took it to the post office.

A week later Sam heard from his father, who said he couldn't wait to meet him.

This is the only part of the story I am allowed to tell, except to say that a week after their first, shy meeting, a few days after their first meal together, John was standing in the doorway of Sam's second-grade classroom when school ended for the day. He was holding a soccer ball. Sam reported later that all the kids turned to look at him, having been prepared by Sam's teacher for the introduction, but one kid said anyway, “Who's that guy over there?”

And Sam said, “Oh—that's my dad.”

Things are not perfect, because life is not TV and we are real people with scarred, worried hearts. But it's amazing a lot of the time. Where there was darkness, silence, and blame, there's now a family, and that means there's mess and misunderstanding, hurt feelings, and sighs. But it is a family: Sam and his father love and like each other. Can you imagine how impossible a dream this was for Sam? He even gets to whine about our shortcomings, like
any old kid. For instance, on our first winter visit with John, the three of us making snow animals in a busy park, Sam said: “Why doesn't this family ever bring thermoses of cocoa, like other families?”

Things go wrong every time we visit, yet more things go well. Since we visit at Thanksgiving, it is always cold, and we are lit mostly by domestic fires, logs in the fireplace, candles. One year John took us to a frozen lake on a mountain, which you got to by gondola, where you could rent ice skates and buy hot food. John and I watched Sam skate. We got to be really proud at the same time. Maybe married parents always do this and it is not that big a deal. But it was to us. When we got too cold, we warmed ourselves over trashcans at the edge of the rink, in which people had built hobo fires with paper cups and wrappers and twigs they had found in the snow.