“It’s true,” she said. “A.J., this is your father, James Sanders. He’s offering to give you a car.”
A.J. took the proffered hand and shook it. “Glad to meet you, sir,” he said.
That was the first real lie he ever told his mother, and he knew at once that it wouldn’t be the last.
“I got my first car when I turned sixteen,” James explained. “I thought you should have one, too. Did you see that Camry outside in the driveway? It’s yours, if you want it.”
A.J. turned to his mother. “Are you kidding?” he asked, trying to act as though he hadn’t known it already. “A car of my own? Really?”
Sylvia nodded again. A.J. understood why. His mother was nothing if not practical. The car parked in the driveway and the contents of the envelope had wiped out all her objections to his having a car. The car was paid for; the insurance was paid for; the gas was paid for. End of story. Besides, if A.J. had access to his own transportation, his mother’s life suddenly would be far less complicated.
“Happy birthday, son,” James said with a grin. “Maybe you and your mom would like to take it for a spin.” He tossed a set of keys in A.J.’s direction, and A.J. plucked them out of the air.
“Thank you,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”
Sylvia sighed and got up. “I’ll go get my purse,” she said, heading for her bedroom.
While she was out of the room, A.J. and James stood in a conspiratorial silence. Between that first meeting and now, A.J. had come up with a million questions he wanted to ask his father, but there in the tiny living room, he didn’t give voice to any of them. He didn’t want to make a mistake and say something that would arouse his mother’s suspicions.
“Nice car,” he said. “I was looking at it as I came inside.”
“Only two years old,” James said. “Got a good deal on it. It’s got a couple of dents in the trunk, like maybe somebody backed into a bollard, but other than that, it’s in great shape.”
Sylvia returned with her purse. “Can we drop you someplace?” she asked.
James took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth. “Sure,” he said. “You can take me back up to Indian School. I’ll catch a bus from there.”
Since Indian School ran for miles, east and west, catching a bus there offered no clue about where he was going or where he was staying.
After dropping James off at the corner of Indian School and Seventh, right across the street from Madeline’s drugstore, A.J. drove his mother as far as the nearest Pizza Hut. He was self-conscious about having his own car, and he felt guilty about it, too. It was as though he had helped trick his mother into accepting it.
“Why’d he show up now?” A.J. asked while they waited for their pizza. “Why after all this time?”
Sylvia shook her head. “I have no idea, but one thing you can count on.”
“What’s that?”
“You can’t count on him. He paid for the insurance and gas three years in advance. That probably means you won’t see him again for at least that long.”
“But I thought I could get to know him,” A.J. objected. “Find out about where he’s been all this time; find out what he’s been doing.”
Sylvia shook her head. “I doubt that,” she said sadly. “James isn’t that kind of guy.”
Her words proved prophetic. For over a year after that, A.J. saw and heard nothing from his father, not a single word. Then, the previous afternoon, when he got home from school, there had been a letter addressed to him, with no return address but postmarked Las Vegas, Nevada, waiting in the mailbox. The address on the envelope and the letter inside had been written in a tiny but legible cursive.
A.J. stood with the letter in his hand for a long time, trying to figure out if it was real or if it was James’s idea of some kind of practical joke. And what about those last four words-“have a great life”? Did that mean A.J.’s father was out of his life forever, that he had seen James Sanders for the very last time?
Eventually, before his mother came home, A.J. did what he’d been told to do. After memorizing the instructions, he took the letter out into the alley behind the house, burned it, and then ground the ashes into the dirt. As the match flared and the paper caught fire, he remembered that old
Now, driving north as he’d been told to do, A.J. couldn’t ditch the idea that he was doing something stupid, all because of a father who evidently wanted very little to do with him.
“Dumb and dumber,” A.J. muttered to himself. “Like father, like son.”
3
The persistent ringing of a cell phone was what roused Gemma Ralston from a cocoon of blessed unconsciousness. At first she thought it was the doorbell-that was the last thing she remembered, going to answer the door in the entryway of her spacious Paradise Valley town home. She tried to remember who had been there when she answered the door, but her mind seemed shrouded in cotton candy. As she came to her senses, she realized it wasn’t her cell phone, it was someone else’s-ringing nearby but with no one answering.
She turned her head, trying to locate the source of the sound. She was astonished to find herself lying flat on her back on the ground, staring up at a clear blue sky with no idea where she was or how she had come to be there. Next to her was an old burned-out couch, with tufts of scorched, charred batting and rusty springs spilling out of the back and arms. Beyond that was what looked like an old dishwasher. A wrecked fridge lay on its side, its doors permanently opened. The ground was littered with trash-beer cans and broken bottles and moldering fast- food containers.
The sun was bright overhead, but she knew it was cold because every time she breathed in or out she could see her breath. Somewhere in the far distance, beyond what looked like a scraggly clump of juniper trees, she could hear the rumble of heavy traffic-freeway traffic, most likely. Juniper trees meant she was miles from home, because juniper trees didn’t thrive in the Valley of the Sun.
For a time she lay there, trying to clear her head and listening to the welcome sounds of civilization. Cars sped past, their tires whining on the pavement. Growling trucks, eighteen-wheelers probably, shifted gears up and down, but nothing in the passing traffic gave her any useful information. What the noisy traffic did tell her was that calling for help was useless. No one would be able to hear her voice.
The phone, silent for what must have been a matter of minutes or maybe longer, rang again. Moving her head, Gemma could see it lying on the ground just out of reach, but when she tried to turn her body so she could grab it, nothing happened. Her arms and hands refused to obey her brain’s commands. They wouldn’t move. That was a shock. She couldn’t move-not at all. Not a finger; not a toe. Gritting her teeth, Gemma tried again, but again nothing happened. Tears of frustration spilled out of her eyes and rolled down her face. She could feel them slipping unchecked into her ears, but that was all she felt. The rest of her body told her nothing at all. She was alone, helpless, and trapped. For the first time it occurred to her that she might die. Once again she drifted into
