Chapter 33
Micah
The last hour has been one of the most surreal of my life, and I’ve had several to choose from as of late. Though we’d moved our conversation outside the chapel to the picnic tables above the river trail, I’m still operating under a cloud of disbelief.
Luella named me and my brother partial owners of a campground only ten miles from where we grew up. That scale of generosity and kindness didn’t seem plausible, and yet, so much about these last two weeks has defied logic.
Luella just started her tour of the grounds with Adele and Hattie, which gave Raegan and me a much-needed moment to catch up in private. As we walk hand-in-hand down a path I know almost as well as the house I grew up in, I ask her to tell me what happened on the road with her sisters. And when she does, the pride I feel for her soars above the rest of the emotions lurking in my chest.
We edge closer to the fork in the path—one trail leading to the water, the other leading to the common area. “I have a few things to fill you in on, as well.”
Her expression shifts to one of concern, but as soon as I start to speak again, my phone chimes in my pocket. Five times.
“Guess we know where we can find cell service on the grounds,” I say.
I pull my phone out and read the screen.
“Two texts from Adele, one from you, and ... oh.” I swipe to check the time stamp on the text. “Two from my father from just over an hour ago. He says he’s in Skagway for a couple of hours and was hoping to reach me.”
“Then go,” Raegan says, pushing my shoulder. “Go talk to him. I’ll wait here.”
Whatever she reads in my face when I hesitate has her taking in a breath. “Oh, Micah, you found something, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
She purses her lips and nods. “Then I’ll wait until you come back from your call.”
I grip the back of my neck, willing myself to move as my heart gallops in my chest. “I don’t know if I can do it—not like this.”
“You can.” Raegan moves in, touches my unshaven jaw, and looks me straight in the eyes. “You need him as much as he needs you. Go talk to him, tell him what you’ve found. I’ll be right here when you come back.” She places her hand over my heart. “I’ll pray God gives you the words and the strength you need.”
I pull her in and wrap her tightly in my arms, murmuring in her hair. “Thank you.”
“He loves you, Micah. Remember that.”
I swallow the thickening emotion in my throat, not sure whether Raegan is speaking of my dad or of God. Either way, I know she speaks the truth.
I’m standing at the edge of the spot in the river where I was baptized when I lift my phone to my ear. By the fifth ring, I’m certain I’ve missed the short window he had for coverage. And then he picks up. I can hear the wind blowing hard into the receiver. He’s still on shore.
“Son? Are you there? Hang on, let me walk back up the dock. There’s a shelter with a bench that will block the wind. I’ll tell the guys to give me a few more minutes.” His shout is muffled, but not more than a few seconds later I hear the distinct stomp of his rubber boots, and then the wind is silenced. “Is this any better?”
“Yes, it’s good, Dad.” The word resonates in my chest.
“Today must be my lucky day. I spoke to your brother a couple hours ago. He and Kacy put the kids on video, and I laughed so hard I thought my spleen would rupture. I’ve missed you boys. By the sound of your voicemail updates, you’ve had a full couple of weeks.” He chuckles. “I was more than a little surprised to hear you took after your old man, driving a tour bus across the country, but I nearly spit out my coffee when I heard you say you were driving for Luella and her girls. Gosh ... how old must Adele and Hattie be now? Late thirties, early forties? I never did meet the youngest one. She came along after we moved to Idaho.”
“Raegan.” Just the sound of her name brings me comfort. “She’s a few years younger than I am.” At the thought of her up at the camp waiting for me, I shift the conversation away from the Farrows. “I’m actually standing in front of the Saint Joe as we speak.” I glance out at the river that runs upstream from my parents’ house. My dad’s house now.
“No kidding?” He huffs a rugged laugh. “I wish you would have told me, I would have tried to get back in time to meet Luella’s family.”
“I think we can make that a reality soon enough.” I kick at a pile of rocks on the riverbank. “But first, there’s something I need to tell you before I get back on the road, Dad.” I pause. “And I’m afraid it’s not going to be easy to hear.”
My father goes quiet on the other end of the line, and I close my eyes right then and pray for guidance. For all the schooling I’ve had and all the hard conversations I’ve mediated, I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to break the heart of the man who raised me as his own and never once led me to believe I was anything but wanted.
“I’m listening,” he says. It’s the respectful response he taught me and Garrett to say when we were boys, and the response we still offer each other as adults.
“Before I left on this road trip with the Farrows, I learned some surprising information regarding my blood type. At first, I didn’t think the findings could be accurate, but after some more testing, Garrett confirmed it at the lab.” I fight for the return of moisture to my mouth. “What I’m about to tell you—is not a theory, Dad. It’s fact.”
He’s quiet on the other end, yet I know he’s there. I know he’s giving me room to say whatever it is I need to say. That’s always been his way of parenting. His patience has been my guide in navigating both the still and raging waters of life.
On the tail end of an exhale, I let it out. “I’m not your biological son.”
I wait for my father to absorb what I’ve just said, allowing him the same space to process as he allowed me, only when his reply comes, I’m sure I’ve misheard him.
“I know,” he says. “I just wish you hadn’t found out without me with you.”
For the life of me, I can’t seem to interpret what he’s just admitted.
“What are you saying? That you knew I wasn’t yours?”
“You are mine,” my father says in a constricted voice. “In every way that’s ever mattered to me, you are mine.” He clears his throat. “I’ve long wanted to have this conversation with you, but out of respect for your mother’s wishes, I’ve stayed quiet. My plan was to tell you when I got home—I even have a letter for you from your mother.”
“You have a ... a letter?” I blink rapidly. “You knew? All this time?”
“Please, son, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
I close my eyes. “I’m listening.”
“I was in love with your mother for several years before she trusted me enough to share the darker parts of her history with me as a friend. I drove for their summer tours and escorted her to dinners when she asked, and sometimes, on the rare nights when she felt particularly open, she would stay up late with me to count the stars. Those were the nights she’d tell me about the monster who lived in her home when she was growing up and all the reasons she vowed never to marry or have children of her own. She didn’t want to carry on her pain, and she struggled to believe she could ever be truly healed. I was honest about my feelings for her, but I respected her enough to honor her wishes and learn to love her as my friend, even though I wanted her as my wife.”
I search the waters beyond, mirroring my father’s words with my mother’s voice in her journals.
“Your mom was at the peak of her career in the early ’90s, but she wasn’t happy. I remember being shocked when I saw her on that last summer tour with Luella. She’d lost so much weight due to whatever new prescription she was hooked on at the time, and her relationship with Luella was a constant guessing game—sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes nonexistent. The stresses and pressures of fame had taken a toll on them both.” He takes a breath. “The night before we rolled into Nashville, I told your mother I loved her, but she replied with all the reasons it would never work between us. Despite what I wanted, I left to go back home to Montana without her. I’ve never regretted a single decision more in my life.”
He’s quiet for so long this time, I’m not sure if he’s still there.
“Dad?”
“I’m sorry, son. I’m trying.” He takes a breath. “Your mother and Luella got into an argument after I left, and she met up with a man she used to trust, someone who’d known her a long time.” Bile rises in my throat, and everything in me wants to tell him I’ve heard enough, but the sound of my father’s hoarse baritone on the other end of the line keeps me quiet. “He consoled her and offered her the validation she was desperate for at the time. He took advantage of her trust in every way possible.”
I try and fail to block the smug face of Troy from my mind. “And she found out she was pregnant soon after,” I surmise. “How did she tell you?”
“She flew to Montana. She quite literally showed up on my doorstep and asked me if I’d meant what I’d said. I confirmed that I did. And then she asked if I’d be the father of her baby.” His words are choked, strained. “She told me I was the only man she’d ever known to show her love, and she wondered if that love was big enough to include a child that could never be mine by blood.”
“And you ... you just agreed?”
He’s quiet for a moment before he says, “There was no alternative, Micah. I loved her—all of her. Her past, her present, her future. I loved her through her pain, through her grief, through her trauma, and through all the healing that would eventually come. I loved her. There was no question I would love her unborn child, too.”
It takes me a minute to find my breath. “Why didn’t either of you ever tell me this?”
“We went round and round about it. It was the biggest conflict in our marriage for years. Ultimately, we were on two different sides of the fence. I saw it as necessary truth, and she saw it as a necessary protection in light of who and what that guy was. She did agree to a compromise when you were a boy, though: if there was ever a medical or safety reason to divulge the details for your sake, she would. Yet as active as you were, you never so much as broke a bone.”
I wipe my nose with the hem of my shirt. “I’m thirty years old now, Dad. Was she ever planning on telling me?”
“She always said she would tell you before you started a family of your own. But once we received your mother’s prognosis, she asked me if I would talk to you after she was gone. Neither of us wanted your last memories of her to be tainted by this, and I ... I can’t say if that was the right choice or not. It’s certainly not the first time in parenting I’ve felt out of my depth. I’ve been praying about the timing of this conversation since I got to Alaska. I’d planned to take you out on the boat once we were both settled at home—figured we’d discuss it while fishing.” His honesty nearly makes me laugh. My dad was forever saving significant conversations for fishing. Only, this time, I got to him first.
“Micah, when I held you in my arms that first time, I prayed God would allow me to be the father you needed, and wherever I fell short, that He would fill in the gaps. I knew, even then, that keeping your mother’s secret for her would come at a cost. I just prayed that the cost would be less than what it cost her to keep it.”
“I found him, Dad,” I say. “I sat with Troy Rigger at a bar last night at the Gorge Amphitheater.”
There’s a brief pause. “Oh, son.”
“He doesn’t know who I am, but I needed to know who he was. And now that I do, I want nothing more to do with him.”
“I’m sorry. I wish there was a better ending I could offer you than this.”
“There is,” I cut in. “I’m living it. I don’t even want to imagine the man I would have become under his influence. Or the kind of pain he would have caused Mom if she’d stayed with a guy like that.”
“I’ve laid awake many nights thinking the same thing. To me, you were always meant to be Micah Franklin Davenport. I love you, son. I hope you can forgive me for keeping this from you for so long.”
It’s several beats before I can speak again as I watch a hawk fly the distance across the river. “I do, Dad. And I love you, too.”
We’re quiet on the line for some time, each of us lost in our thoughts. It’s a familiar and comfortable silence, one we’ve practiced at campfires, hunting excursions, and hours upon hours of fishing trips. But today we’re not side-by-side, we’re an ocean apart, which means I can’t read him the way I normally can.
I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand and clear my throat. “I have other news to share if you have another minute. It’s of the good variety.”
“I think we’re both due some good news right about now.”
“Camp Selkirk has a new owner.”
“Really?” he asks. “Do you know who it is yet?”
“Well, technically, as of today, I’m one-fifth owner. Luella purchased it and gave it to her three daughters and to me and Garrett as a living inheritance. The deed is in all five of our names.” I hesitate. “I’m not sure where you stand with her, Dad, but ...” How do I even try to summarize what I feel for Luella after these weeks on the road with her? “But she’s not at all like I thought she would be.”
“I’ve always cared for her, but even more so after she made your mother’s last few days on earth so peaceful. That’s a debt I’ll never be able to repay. But I’m afraid I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around your name on a deed to a camp.”
I laugh. “That makes two of us, then. She’s asked me to do a bit of vision casting with her on our trip home to process through how we can use these grounds to give back to the community while keeping its core values intact.”
“Sounds like a dream come true for you.”
“One of them.”
I turn then and spy Raegan standing at the top of the river trail, her gaze fixed on me. I lift my hand and smile to let her know I’m okay, and then I tell my dad everything I can about the woman I fell in love with on a tour bus this summer ... the same way he fell in love with my mother on the same bus more than thirty years ago.