his eyes, which could punch holes through faces with one glance. My father was not a big man, not a tall man, but the way that he walked, long, like he knew people were watching, added six inches to his stature. His gait was lengthy, hurried because he had places to go, people to see—namely me. And when he moved, his arms propelled him forward as if they were oars and life, his boat, cutting through seas constantly working to toss him over. In my mind, my father had never been capsized. He was not somewhere clamoring for air, every second drowning. My father had just drifted away because arms weren’t meant to be oars nor life, a boat, but he was finding his way back to me. This I knew because Momma told me that is what fathers do.
When I was twelve, I decided I would no longer search for my father in the bathroom mirror. He was in the world somewhere, which meant he could be found. I started in my small city of Portsmouth, Virginia, where the only limits were my two feet and the will to walk. First, I walked the streets, from my own projects, Lincoln Park, to the projects of Ida Barbour, Swanson Homes, and South Side. That search led me straight up Deep Creek Boulevard, with a left on Scott, another left down Elm, and back around to Prentis Park. During those expeditions, I traveled a perfect square, ending where I began, but I did not know that then. I just walked the road in front of me, with no destination in mind, hopeful my daddy would find me, just as I was trying to find him.
After months of walking, I grew physically and mentally tired of that strategy. My next step had to be more guided, purpose driven. Then I turned to Momma’s stories, the ones which dropped seeds into the garden of my imagination. He had an uncle, Uncle Benny, whose house Momma pointed out each time we visited my Aunt Vonne in Prentis Park. The small house sat quietly on the corner of Peach Street. It was a ranch with deep, emerald grass sparkling from the foundation to the curb. When we walked past, the windows were never open, neither was the front door. It looked as if the house were a time capsule waiting for someone to open it.
Each time, Momma pointed, “This is where your Uncle Benny lives. He’s your Grandma Mary’s brother.”
I wanted to ask if we could stop there, if I might ask him where my daddy was, but by the way Momma picked up speed and kept her face forward as she pointed at Uncle Benny’s home, I knew the answer would be “No.”
When I walked alone, I did not have to ask if I could stop. I didn’t need permission to go where directions to my father might be housed. One humid Saturday, I walked that perfect square, but I wasn’t staring into the windows of cars. I wasn’t looking to recognize faces whizzing by. I focused on my future with my daddy, something I believed Uncle Benny could give me.
I prayed the whole way there, asking God to make Uncle Benny love me, to make him see how good of a girl I was, so good he’d call my daddy and say, “We found your baby and she’s as perfect as you left her.” I prayed that the whole of the Carter family would descend upon that little house on Peach Street bearing gifts, money, food, so much food I would have forgotten ever being hungry. And I’d see me in them, my face in theirs, my color on their skin.
I knocked so softly it was as if I didn’t want the person inside to hear. I listened for movement on the other side, just in case the door never opened. I’d never met Uncle Benny before, so he couldn’t have known who I was by looking through the peephole, but I believed he could recognize my father, Carl, in me. There was part of me that celebrated and feared that.
Momma had described nights of merriment between Uncle Benny and my father. They sang, played cards, told jokes late into the night. Later, as if the room and all of its occupants had been turned inside out, the merriment would vanish. Curses would be flung like horseshoes clanging around a pole. Fists would be thrown for insignificant reasons. It didn’t take much for the laughter and hugging to turn to screams and heads clamped in headlocks so restrictive they put everyone in the room to sleep. Momma said most arguments ended with either Uncle Benny or my daddy sprawled on the floor, nursing a busted lip or a bruised head. I prayed Uncle Benny wouldn’t recognize that part of my father in me.
I knocked again, a little harder the second time. Whichever Carl he saw, I had to see him. I heard a shuffle on the other side of the door, but no lock turned. “Who is that?” His voice cut through the wooden slab. I cleared my throat and plastered a smile across my face, in case he could see me through the peephole.
I spoke directly into it as if it were a microphone. “I’m Laurie, Carl and Lois Carter’s daughter. Their eldest girl.” There was silence on the other side of the door. I wondered how much of me could he see through that tiny hole. The lock turned. The door squeaked open. There stood a short man, with salt-and-pepper hair, and skin darker than Momma and all of my brothers and sister combined.
I leaned forward, ready to apologize for having the wrong house and the wrong person for so long.
“So, you Carl’s girl,” he said.
I fought to stand still as I stared into his yellowed eyes, swimming in cataracts. He looked nothing like the father in my mind, so much shorter, darker, and his hair held no hints of the red that streaked through my ends.
“I am Carl’s,” I replied.
“Girl,” he responded abruptly. “I ain’t seen your daddy.” My face burned with his gruffness. I hadn’t asked any questions and he’d already decided he had no answers. Still, I prodded. Maybe my father’s location would slip past his nonanswers.
“Have you talked to him lately?” I asked.
“No, I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing. He’s probably up to no good if he’s doing anything.” He stepped aside and waved me into the foyer with the flick of his hand.
The house smelled like hickory-smoked sausages mixed with the scent of decaying pine. I stood in the hallway, eyeing the rabbit ears of the floor model, wrapped in balls of aluminum foil. The carpet, like the lawn, was a sea of green, the color and consistency of a dirt-covered tennis ball. The walls where white, but under the haze of the room they looked like a roaring gray sky. I could only see two chairs, a sofa, and a lone armchair sitting in the middle of the room like a person with elbows pressed into knees, waiting for something to happen.
I had seen enough to know Uncle Benny wasn’t a man of money. In fact, I wondered if my family was better off than he was.
“Are you Carl’s uncle, my Uncle Benny?” I asked.
“Yep, but like I said, I don’t know where your daddy is.”
“Momma said you probably didn’t know where my daddy was, but that you could get me in touch with my grandma. I just want to meet her.”
He paused, peering at me through the sides of his eyes.
“How is your momma doing?” his voice softened.
“She’s good. She told me to see you because she wanted to see my grandma, to see how she was doing.” I could tell by the way he reversed to that lone chair that he had cared about Momma. He could shut me out, but Momma was already in.
I pried again. “Have you talked to my grandma lately?”
“Nah, I haven’t talked to her in a minute. She and your granddaddy up in Suffolk.” I turned my head toward the door, trying to hide my smile. I had another granddaddy. He would be a new person, a new life for me to imagine.
“Can I get their number?” I asked as he leaned back in his chair.
“Well, I think I have it somewhere in here.” He brought his hand up to his chin and tapped. Uncle Benny rose from the chair, like a mechanical hand was pressing him forward. I remained still, hands clasped in front of me, careful not to move as he made his way to a small dresser. He rummaged through drawers as if the number were hidden under years of mail. His hand surfaced holding a pen and piece of paper adorned in grayed wrinkles. He scribbled ten numbers, no name, no address, just numbers. With his crooked, gnarled fingers, he slid the paper toward me.
I wanted to hug him, to tell him I’d do the right thing and he wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore, but he didn’t look like he was up for hugging. I hadn’t said