Sons from Afar Read Free Page B

sky.
    â€œYou know what I mean,” Sammy said. James guessed he did. “What would a father do, anyway?”
    â€œFathers are—like a constant,” James tried to explain. “They’re always there, they don’t change, they know how things go, they have experience, or knowledge, anyway, they’re pretty wise—so they can help you decide.”
    â€œNot ours. Not our father.”
    â€œYou sound angry.” James thought maybe he shouldn’t have brought the subject up.
    â€œWhen I think about him, I am,” Sammy said. “I mean, you don’t go around just starting babies and—ignoring them. Abandoning them. Or their mother, either.”
    â€œThat’s what our father did,” James pointed out. “We don’t know anything about him. Not anything. We should know about him.”
    â€œWe do,” Sammy’s voice insisted.
    â€œNo, we don’t. We don’t know —although, if fathers take responsibility—you know, keep you safe?—because they’re bigger and stronger like ‘my-daddy-can-beat-up-your-daddy’—and help you out of trouble.” James made himself draw the logical conclusion: “If that’s what fathers do, ours is pretty much of a bust.”
    â€œYou can say that again.”
    â€œBut maybe he didn’t have a chance, or something. We don’t know.”
    â€œYou mean maybe he died?”
    â€œHe could have. We don’t know anything about him. Nobody would even know to tell us if he was dead and couldn’t have taken care of us anyway.”
    â€œBut what difference would that make?” Sammy asked. James waited while Sammy worked it out. “Do you mean a father would be on your side? Like the Professor and Jeff, like the Professor is on Jeff’s side? Like, the way the Professor knows what Jeff means, or what he wants.”
    â€œOr what you needed, and he’d want you to have that.”
    â€œDo you think Momma might not have died, if we’d had one?” That thought got Sammy up onto his feet.
    â€œI dunno about that, Sammy.” James kept emotion out of his voice. The trouble with Sammy was, when he did care, he never stopped. He cared too much. “It doesn’t do any good to think about that. You can’t change what’s happened.”
    They didn’t say anything then, for a while. Sammy lay down on his back again. James moved down the dock, lifting his backside carefully to be sure not to get splinters, and tried his brother’s position. His calves dangled down over the water and the boards were uncomfortable against the shoulder bones in his back. That was the place where wings would be attached, if you had a pair of huge wings attached to you, if your father had designed a pair of wings made out of feathers and wax so you could escape. The wind flowed over the water, over the two of them, over the marsh grasses and into the pine trees. The noises of the wind rippling the water and echoing in James’s ears, the wind running along the tops of the grass and then tangling itself up in the thick-growing pines—sometimes, what really scared James was the sense that he was being blown along on some wind, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
    â€œI thought, maybe we could try to find him. Or find out something about him,” James said.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œAren’t you even curious? I mean, especially if they’re right about how much we inherit from our parents, what Mendel discoveredabout dominant and recessive genes—don’t you want to know?”
    â€œNo,” said Sammy.
    â€œI do.” He wasn’t about to try to explain to Sammy how true that was.
    â€œWell, if you do find out, don’t come telling me about it.”
    James guessed he wouldn’t. He guessed he was sorry he’d even asked Sammy about it. He guessed—it was a pretty stupid thing, anyway, and impossible