What If?

Black’s nostrils flared. Alec was shouting in the background. I slid the bookmark between pages 167 and 168, set The Black Stallion on my bookcase, turned off the flashlight and covered myself with the blanket. The following day was Sunday, a day of rest in our family, one of worship, praise, and being thankful to God.

I was seven.

The sweet smell of the griddle awakened me. Pancakes or waffles, I thought, but that couldn’t be. It was Sunday. I threw off the covers, put on my robe and NY Yankee cap, and ran to the bedroom door. My father, on the other side, opened the door before I turned the doorknob. The index finger of his left hand pressed against his lips. “Quiet,” he whispered then pulled the door shut and motioned for me to follow him downstairs.

The stack of pancakes on my side of the breakfast table was bigger than any stack I’d ever seen. He ran his fingers through my hair, patted my cowlick and pushed the chair in behind me. “How many?” he asked.

“One,” I said, feeling confused and wanting to please.

“Oh come on,” he continued, “help yourself to as many as you’d like.”

I looked around the kitchen searching for something that wasn’t there; bearings to ground me, something familiar, like Mom, my brother, Shredded Wheat, toast and orange marmalade—absent family and everyday breakfast foods. Instead I saw syrup, a cup of hot chocolate and a plate covered with bacon, whose tantalizing, greasy fat smell had escaped me. I was grounded in Sunday tradition—bare necessities, simplicity, but most of all no fun. Pancakes, syrup and bacon were fun. Something was wrong.

“Have some bacon,” he said as he slid the crisp strips onto my plate, five in all. “How’s that for a start?” He was smiling as he removed the plate and rubbed my shoulder with his free hand. There were only two place settings on the table, and my father was having pancakes, bacon and syrup, too.

“I cut up some fresh strawberries and thawed some of the blueberries we picked last summer,” he said. “Help yourself. Remember when we went to the blueberry farm and picked these? I’m sorry for yelling at you that day. Can you forgive me?”

I looked up at my father, the man who was my hero, but never admitted mistakes. I sheepishly nodded yes then looked away. He placed his hand under my chin and turned my face toward his. There were tears in his eyes and one rolling down his left cheek.
“Thank you,” he whispered.

He poured another glass of milk for me and one for himself. “Are you enjoying Walter Farley’s book about Alec and Black?”

Usually he lectured and talked loud and long, but now he was quiet and soft. I wasn’t ready for the question and coughed. “You can tell me later,” he said. “You’re probably right in the middle of one of their adventures. If you want to you can take the plate with you to the bedroom and read while I clean up in the kitchen. Here, let me carry the milk and syrup for you.”

I was afraid to ask where they were—my mother and brother.

He sensed my discomfort. “It’s just you and me today, son, go ahead upstairs where you can have some privacy,” he said. “I’ll come up when I’m done in the kitchen.”

I opened to page 167and read the words, “Alec jumped the fence and ran across the race track toward the stalls underneath the grandstand,” but my ears were tuned to the sounds of water and dishes. He was becoming more interesting to me, this strange, new father. And so I read and turned the pages, but I really wanted this new father back.

I heard the stairs creak. This time he knocked before opening the door. He had something behind his back. “I have a surprise,” he said. “I’m holding something in both of my hands, and to find out what it is, you have to pick one of them.”

I closed the book, pulled the covers up around my chest and thought about my choice. “I’ll take the left one,” I said.

“Good choice,” he replied, as he extended his closed fist toward me. By this time he was seated on my bed, the same side he usually sat on when he was going to tell me something with his stern face on, or recite, “Now I lay me down to sleep—”

This was serious, but he was smiling, which made me smile too.

“Go ahead,” he said, “open my fingers.” He turned his fist over, and I began to pry his fingers away from the surprise: a ticket printed with the New York Yankees in the familiar script on the front of my baseball cap. “Now open the other one,” he said. I did.

There was a second ticket. I held them both, one in my right and the other in my left hand. I asked, “Are there other tickets?”

“No,” he said, “only one for you and one for me.”

I looked over at my brother’s empty bed and noticed it was neat, as my mother asked me to make for him every day. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done it. It wasn’t last night.

“What do the tickets say?” he asked.

I looked at the middle where the names of the teams where written, something I knew from tickets in my scrapbook. “It says Chicago White Sox,” I replied.

“And what else?”

“Doubleheader,” I said as I turned the tickets over in my hand.

He smiled. “Want to go?” He asked as he playfully put his fist to my right cheek. “Yes,” I said as he put his arms around me and gave me one of his big bear hugs.

He smelled of bacon grease, and I could hear him swallow hard because my ear was pressed against his throat. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. It almost seemed too good to be true. This was not the way life usually went in my home. What if it could have been like this every Sunday?

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