Out of Left Field Read Online Free

wake and the craziness back at the apartment. She’s a good egg, like a sister—only better; we don’t fight.
    Andrea, her blond twin, looks whiter than white surrounded by kids in South Africa where she’s volunteering this summer. She couldn’t fly back for the funeral but she e-mails me almost every day. A family photo takes center stage on the piano. Spare me. Too much happy togetherness.
    Dammit! All those years I wished for a sibling—I actually had one? And Dad never told me? Didn’t I say to him, age eight or nine, straight up: “I wish I had a brother.” And what was his excuse? Something like: “One’s the perfect number. Like a one-run game.” This is so frigging unfair.
    My elbow knocks over a small black-and-white photo propped up on the bottom shelf. I rub the dust off on my shirt. A kid in a Lone Ranger outfit grins at me: black eye mask, Stetson too big for his head, cowboy boots, chaps, even a holster with twin toy pistols. Is this Dad? Wearing guns? Sure doesn’t look like Uncle Leo.
    I grip the photo. Coming here was not a good idea. I’m about to bolt when Aunt Cora hurries downstairs, carrying an old shoebox. She stops cold. “Brandon—what happened? You look murderous.”
    “Sorry. It’s like a wave. Who should I curse? The guy who had a crisis at three A.M., or Dad for going in, or fate?” My toes tap out a rhythm on the floor.
    Aunt Cora pulls me down on the couch beside her. “Maybe you should come to an improv class. Channel that rage.” She gives me a nervous smile, like she’s afraid of what I might do next, and notices the photo. “Where’d you find that?”
    “Behind the piano. Is it Dad?”
    “Definitely. He was obsessed with the Lone Ranger. Drove our parents crazy. Hi oh, Silver, away! ”
    I force a smile. “You’re good at that. Check out the guns. Some pacifist. I had to save up my allowance to buy my own squirt gun, for God’s sake.”
    “His four years with the Jesuits changed his life.”
    “At Boston College? But Dad left the church.”
    “I know. We all did, except for my mom. Pat followed the Berrigan brothers, the priests who came out against the war.” She sighs. “Those were crazy times. I was in high school; too young to understand what was going on.”
    Does that mean I’m too young to understand now? If so, too bad.
    Aunt Cora lifts the box. “You ready for this?”
    “I guess.”
    She pulls out a pack of letters, cinched with rubber bands. Dad’s messy handwriting scrawls across the top envelope. My throat feels tight. “They’re all from Dad?”
    “Yup.” She hands it over. “Back in the dark ages, people sent actual letters on paper.”
    My knee bounces. The packet feels like a time bomb. “Wonder if Mom has personal stuff like this at home.”
    “Ask her,” Aunt Cora says.
    “Sure,” I say. Maybe.
    “Here’s my old address book.” She opens a small, red leather book and flips to a page that says PATRICK at the top. “Look how many times your dad moved.” I squint at the list, scribbled in different colored inks, as Aunt Cora reads them off. “He crashed on Baldwin Street in Toronto for a few months. They had a support system for draft resisters there…some commune with ‘bus’ in its name…” Her finger trolls down the page. “Four addresses in Montreal, when he was in grad school. Then Halifax.”
    Halifax. The city mentioned in Dad’s will. “What was he doing there?”
    “He set up a private practice. In 1977 my dad—your other grandfather—got sick. President Carter pardoned the resisters, so Pat came home. He was in terrible shape; I assumed because our dad was dying. Now I wonder.” She gives me a long look. “Pat would never abandon a child. There must be some explanation.”
    He abandoned me ! But that’s pathetic; Dad didn’t leave me on purpose. “Do hospitals keep birth records?” I ask.
    “Of course. We’ll do some sleuthing.” Cora grabs my arm. “Maybe he didn’t know he’d had a son?