Two Much Alike

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Alex could see she was weakening and pushed even harder. “Can’t we, Mom, please?”

“I need to pay the bill. Sit here,” she ordered the three of them, then went up to the cash register near the door. Rosie immediately hurried over to help her.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, glancing back to where Alex sat slouched in the booth, frowning.

“It will be. Thanks for keeping an eye on Alex. I appreciate the kindness you showed him today.” She handed the girl several bills.

“It wasn’t a big deal.” She counted out the correct change into Frannie’s hand. “He still thinks Joe Smith is his father, doesn’t he.”

Frannie nodded. “How far is it to this Gunflint Trail?”

“Not very far at all. It wouldn’t take but maybe half an hour to find the Smith place. Then at least Alex would know for sure…” She let her voice trail off, giving Frannie an understanding smile that indicated she was more mature than her age indicated.

“Yes, he would,” Frannie said with an answering smile. “Thank you, Rosie.”

When Frannie got back to the booth, Alex was silently sobbing. She knew how much he hated to cry.

Frannie’s emotions were near the breaking point as well, yet she knew there was only one way for any of them to have peace of mind. She said a silent prayer that she wouldn’t regret what she was about to do.

“All right. We’ll drive up to this Joe Smith’s place.”

“I’M HOT,” Emma complained.

So was Frannie. When she’d left Grand Marais, she’d turned off the car’s air-conditioning because of the road’s steep grade. She felt the engine needed all of its power just to get them up the incline. Although the windows were down, the air inside the car was hot and sticky.

“Are you watching the signs?” she asked.

“There should be a lookout point coming up soon,” Alex told her, acting as navigator. “There it is—” His arm shot out to the right. “Now we just keep going straight on this road.”

Apprehension crept down Frannie’s spine just as beads of perspiration trickled down her forehead. Because of the tall trees, what little there was left of the sinking sun vanished as she drove deeper into the forest. As often as she told herself that this Joe Smith was not Dennis Harper, she knew that her anxiety wasn’t only due to what effect meeting this man would have on Alex. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t ignore the tiny voice that asked mercilessly, What if it really is him?

“We should be getting close,” Alex said, when she expressed her concern that they had gone a long way without seeing the next landmark.

“There! On the right!” he said excitedly.

Frannie glanced to the side of the road and saw a small sign: Nature’s Hideaway.

“Stop!” Alex called out.

Frannie turned onto the dirt road and encountered a wrought-iron gate barring the entrance. “It says Private and No Trespassing.”

Alex hopped out of the car and went to investigate. Within minutes he had pushed opened the gate and was motioning for his mother to drive through. When he got back in the car, she said, “We shouldn’t be doing this. It’s private property.”

“But the gate was open. If he didn’t want anyone coming in, he would lock it,” he reasoned.

The hair on the back of Frannie’s neck rose as she continued down the winding gravel road. The sun had completely disappeared, and if she hadn’t glanced at her watch, she would have thought it was much later. Having difficulty seeing the road, she switched on her headlights.

“How come everything’s such a funny color?” Emma asked, calling Frannie’s attention to the green pall that seemed to surround them. “Is it going to storm?”

Frannie’s apprehension doubled. “I sure hope not.” Frannie turned on the radio but found the static was so bad that it was impossible to hear. With an impatient sigh, she turned it off again.

“The sky’s a funny color, too,” Alex observed. Frannie wondered how he could even see the sky through the heavy foliage.

“I see something,” Alex called out. “I think it’s a house.”

It was a house, Frannie discovered as she pulled into a clearing. A beautiful log home sitting on the shore of a lake. She parked the car next to the SUV they’d seen in town. As she turned off the engine, she found herself short of breath, her uneasiness creeping into her throat. She didn’t want to let go of the steering wheel for fear her hands would tremble. She looked toward the house, wondering if anyone had heard their arrival. If they had, they weren’t in any hurry to come out and greet them.

The sudden buzzing of a chain saw starting up told her why.

“He’s over there,” she heard Alex say, then she looked behind them toward a shed where a man was sawing a fallen tree into logs.

In the blink of an eye, Alex was out of the car and sprinting toward him. “Stay with your brother,” Frannie barked at Emma, then went after Alex.

She was no match for her son’s youthful speed. She watched him run up to the man, who wore a denim shirt and jeans. The chain saw stopped.

With his back to her, Frannie couldn’t see whether the man was Dennis Harper. He appeared to be the same height, and he had the same dark brown hair as her ex-husband. But when he turned and looked in Frannie’s direction, she felt as if someone had delivered a swift blow to her stomach. He did look like Dennis, even with the plastic goggles over his eyes. She paused, suddenly feeling as if her knees might buckle beneath her.

It can’t be him. She stared at the man, not wanting to believe she could be looking at her ex-husband. It can’t be, she repeated to herself.

“Are you lost?” he asked, the question directed more at her than at her son.

Not only did he look like Dennis, but he sounded like him, too. Frannie’s limbs shook so much, she thought she might fall to the ground. With great difficulty, she swallowed against the dryness in her mouth and walked toward him. This time she moved slowly, but her mind raced. How could it be him? Why would he be here?

When he removed the protective goggles and let them dangle around his neck, she saw that his eyes were brown—the same as Dennis’s—yet these eyes were looking at her as if she were a perfect stranger.

Again he spoke, “Do you need directions?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. All she could do was stare at him.

Alex, however, had no trouble finding his voice. “You thought we wouldn’t find you, didn’t you?”

“I think there’s been some mistake,” he began, only to have Alex cut him off.

Like a preacher in a pulpit, the boy wagged his finger to emphasize his words. “Yeah. You’re the big mistake. Mom never should have married you. You’re a deadbeat. It’s bad enough that you didn’t want to stay married to Mom and be our dad, but you don’t even have the decency to be any kind of dad at all—not even a rotten one. You just hid so you didn’t have to pay anything.”

Frannie found her voice. “Alex, that’s enough.”

“No, it’s not.” He defied her, continuing on with his sermon. “He needs to know that you had to work two jobs most of the time to pay the bills. When Luke was sick, we had to go to the food bank to get stuff to eat. But Dad didn’t care. All he wanted was to forget about us.” He turned back to the man who looked so much like his father. “Well, I’m not going to let you forget. I’m going to go to the police and tell them who you really are, and they’ll make you pay.”

Alex’s cheeks were red and his chest was heaving by the time he’d finished his tirade. Frannie knew he was close to tears, yet he stoically stood his ground, his head held high. Frannie thought it was strange that not even a bird chirped or an insect buzzed. All she could hear was Alex’s breathing. She wanted to wrap him in her arms and squeeze away all his heartache. She knew she couldn’t.

Alex finally broke the silence. “Well, aren’t you going to say anything?”

The man looked at Frannie, and she knew what his next words were going to be. She wasn’t surprised when he said, “I’m not your father.”

“YOU LOOK LIKE HIM.” A female version of the boy who’d just verbally blistered him approached Joe with curiosity in her eyes, but not hostility.

“Emma, I told you to wait in the car,” the woman said to the girl. “Where’s Luke?”

“He fell asleep. I left the windows down.”

That information had the woman hurrying back to the battered old station wagon parked next to his SUV. “Are you two brother and sister?” he asked the pair now standing before him, gazing at him as if he were the villain in a horror film.

“As if you don’t know,” the boy said with derision.

“We’re twins,” the girl said.

“Do you think we wouldn’t recognize our own dad when we saw him?” the boy continued.

“I may look like him, but I’m not him,” he replied, as the pair continued to scrutinize him. “My name is Joe Smith.”

“That sounds like a made-up name to me,” the boy said.

“It’s not. If you wait just a minute, I’ll go inside and get my wallet. It has my driver’s license in it,” he told them.

“It’s probably a fake,” the boy countered.

“If you’re not going to take my driver’s license as proof, what will satisfy you?”

The little girl whispered something to her brother, who then said, “Take off your shirt.”

“What?” Joe almost chuckled at the absurdity of the request.

“I said, take off your shirt,” the boy repeated.

“Look, I told you I’m not your father,” Joe said, trying not to lose patience with the kids.

“Then take off your shirt and prove it,” the boy challenged him. “Or are you chicken?”

Joe could hardly believe what was happening. He was being confronted by two kids who were accusing him of being their deadbeat dad and demanding that he take off his shirt. “No, I’m not chicken, but I’m not your father, either,” he said evenly.

“Then, why won’t you take off your shirt?” the boy persisted.

Joe decided to humor the kids rather than stand there arguing with them. If it took revealing his bare chest to convince these two that he wasn’t their father, he’d do it. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, leaving him bare-chested and the object of their wide-eyed stares.

“Oh my gosh! It is him!” The little girl stared at him as if she’d seen a ghost, then went running back to the car.

“And you said you weren’t him!” the boy accused him before racing after his sister. They met their mother, who was coming toward them with an even younger child in tow. The two jumped up and down excitedly and pointed in Joe’s direction. Joe couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was enough to stiffen their mother’s shoulders and put a frown on her face.

She approached him cautiously, carrying a sleepy child in her arms. She looked like a mother hen about to do battle for her chicks.

He put his shirt back on, unsure what it was that had triggered such a response in the kids. “If these are your biological children, you must know that I’m not their father.”

From her expression, he could see that she didn’t.

“Dennis, if you’re playing some kind of joke with these kids, it’s not funny.” A shadow in her eyes told him that whoever this Dennis was, he’d hurt her badly.

“I’m not Dennis and I wouldn’t play such a cruel trick on any children,” he answered a bit impatiently. “My name is Joe Smith. I don’t have any kids. If I had, I wouldn’t deny their existence. Surely you, their mother, must see that I’m not the man they think I am.”

“Stop lying!” she shouted. He could see that she was close to losing control. “You’ve been running and lying all your life. Just for once tell the truth.”

He ran a hand over his hair in exasperation. “I’m not their father. Whatever it was they saw when I took off my shirt…it doesn’t mean I’m their father.”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him. “They saw your tattoo.”

Suddenly he realized the reason behind the children’s demand. It had been to see if he had a tattoo on his upper arm. He wasted no time in explaining. “You can’t possibly think I’m their father because I have the same tattoo as he does on my arm. Do you know how many sailors get tattoos while they’re in the Navy?”

“Let me see it,” she said quietly.

This time he didn’t take off his shirt, but pushed up the sleeve until the anchor with the letters USN could be seen. She took one glance, then looked away, her teeth tugging on her upper lip.

“If it’s the same as your husband’s—”

“My ex- husband,” she corrected defiantly, as if reminding him she couldn’t stand to be around him. “Ex-husband,” she repeated like a warning.

“If it’s the same tattoo, it’s a coincidence.” He stared into deep blue eyes. What he saw in them was contempt, and it annoyed him that those beautiful eyes contained such venom toward him because of what another man had done. “Look. All you have to do is come inside and I’ll show you proof of who I am.”

“Now that is something I will not do,” she said through clenched teeth.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Joe glanced at the sky, then said, “I think you’d better come inside just the same. There’s a storm moving in. You’re welcome to stay until it passes.”

“I will not stay anywhere with you. All I want is to get as far away from here as possible,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. She called to her kids, “We have to get in the car. It’s going to rain.”

“Are we going to call the police?” Joe heard the boy asked.

Police. Joe knew he needed to convince this woman that he was not her ex-husband. What he didn’t need was for some kid to mistake him for a man who was in trouble with the law. He had his own past to haunt him. He didn’t need another man’s.

“Would you people listen to me?” he said in frustration as big raindrops began to pepper the earth. “I am not the man you’re looking for.”

A gust of wind sent the boy’s baseball cap sailing through the air. He went chasing after it, but it kept tumbling on the wind.

“Don’t worry about the hat, Alex. Just get in the car,” the woman said, as a sudden downpour pelted them. She herded her kids toward the station wagon.

Joe watched them struggle to reach the car, the gusty winds impeding their progress. Then he took another look at the sky and knew he couldn’t let this woman and her children leave. He caught up with her and grabbed her by the arm.

She flinched when he touched her, and he immediately let go. “You can’t drive in this,” he said as large raindrops stung his cheeks and dampened their clothing. “Please. Come inside. Your children will be safer in the house.”