The Right Kind of Wrong Read online

  "Better put that address in here, otherwise we'll end up somewhere we don't want to be."

  I pull out the last envelope and input 4356 Bridgeport Avenue, La Crosse, Wisconsin in the GPS.

  "Wisconsin? What the hell is in Wisconsin?" Vince asks.

  "Cheese."

  It settles in that I made a joke and we both laugh, full and hearty. It's the most beautiful sound I've heard in a week. Vince slides his hand over the middle console and rests on mine. We lock fingers. He brings our hands to his lips and kisses mine. I wish this moment would last forever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  We arrive at 4356 Bridgeport Avenue in the early afternoon. The sun stretches the day out before us. We get out of the car and I examine the building in front of us. Gray, drab and lifeless. The sign in front of the building says Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation. I'm oddly hopeful Charlie's inside.

  "We should probably go in." Vince nudges me.

  "I guess so." The lobby is empty and there's no sign of life anywhere. The front desk is unattended and the place seems reserved for ghosts. I peek around the corner and see no one.

  "Should I look around?" Vince asks.

  "I don't know. This place is kind of creepy."

  "Not as creepy as your grandmother's attic."

  "Touché."

  "It's dinnertime." A guy who doesn't look any older than us sits behind a glass window in the lobby. His blonde hair is cropped short, his blue eyes a stark contrast to his dark skin, he wears navy scrubs and a photo id tag that reads, 'Willy-CNA.' He scowls at us. "Are you guys looking for someone in particular?"

  "Actually, yes. We're looking for Charlie Pierce," I say.

  "Hmm. No Charlie Pierce here. Maybe you've got the wrong place?"

  I shake my head and pull out one of Charlie's letters . I slide it through the hole in the glass. "This is the correct address, right? See, he put Charlie Pierce and this address."

  Willy examines the envelope and slides it back through the glass. "This is the right address but there is no Charlie Pierce here."

  I sigh. "This was sent two years ago. Could he have been here and passed away or moved?"

  "Sure." Willie shrugs.

  Vince steps in. "Could you check for us?"

  "You come in here griping about it being creepy and then want me to give you information? Even if I wanted to, any information we have on our residents is confidential. You know, HIPAA laws."

  I let my lips quiver and I hope I can actually pull off tears. "Listen, Willy, this is life or death here. We really need to find Charlie Pierce. I'm not asking for his medical records or anything. I just need an address. Charlie has been missing for a very long time and I'm his family. I need to bring him home." Big, alligator tears fall onto my cheek and I'm doing such a great job acting, I almost believe it's the truth.

  Willy swallows and his face softens. "Fine, fine. But you can't tell anyone I gave you this information."

  Vince clears his throat. "We just want to find Charlie, okay?"

  "Yeah, I got it. I need a name and birthday."

  Thank God he is my grandfather's twin. "Charlie Pierce. September fourteenth, nineteen twenty."

  Willy types it into his computer and then writes something down on a Post-it note. He slides it through the hole. "He was only here for a couple months after a fall. He's at a retirement community across town. I wrote down the address."

  I hold onto the paper like it's a life-line. I look up to Willy. "Thank you. We really appreciate it."

  "Whatever. You better not say a damn word about this."

  I give him my best smile as we walk out. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Exactly!" he yells after us.

  When we get back in the car, my heart is pounding so loud I swear Vince must hear it. "This is it. He's there. I just know it."

  Vince squeezes my hand. "I hope."

  The drive literally takes five minutes but I can't get out of the car. I'm frozen in my seat.

  "What's the matter?"

  My bones ache with worry and I'm so close to seeing Charlie in the flesh, I'm terrified. "I'm just nervous. What if he doesn't believe me? What if he has Alzheimer's or something and doesn't even remember his life?"

  Vince gets out and comes to my side. He pulls me out of the car and kisses me. "That's a lot of what-if's. Let's worry about them if they come up. We need to go in there and do what we came all this way to do. Tell him the truth."

  I nod and let Vince lead me inside. A large board of names and room numbers hang in the lobby and we search until we find C. Pierce. Apartment 227. The lobby has locked doors, and we can't get in without using the intercom. I don't want to be turned away before we even get a chance to explain ourselves. So we wait until an older woman walks out and we slip inside. She turns back and yells, "Hey! You can't do that!"

  "We're going to see my Grandpa, but he didn't answer the intercom. He's probably sleeping or something."

  The woman accepts this and moves on.

  We take the stairs to the second floor and find Apartment 227. I take a deep breath. Knock. Do it now. But my hands remain at my sides. You're okay, Kara. Everything will be fine.

  I rap on the door three times. A gruff voice inside calls, "Who the hell is it?"

  I look to Vince. "Cable company, sir." The lock turns, the door opens and I'm face-to-face with an exact replica of my grandfather.

  "You ain't the cable company."

  "Charlie Pierce?"

  "Obviously."

  "My name is Kara Pierce. Can we come in?"

  His expression changes and he opens the door wider and gestures us inside.

  White walls. Bland couch. Brown, leather lazy boy. Old TV. Charlie's home is as nondescript and boring as one can get. Vince and I sit on the couch while Charlie hobbles over and collapses in his lazy boy. I look at him and it's like seeing my grandfather in the flesh. A ghost of a man I would do anything to have back.

  "What did you say your name was?"

  "Kara Pierce. My grandmother is Elaine Pierce."

  At the mention of her name, his eyes bore into mine. "What are you doing here?"

  "I…" I'm tongue tied. I rehearsed every word in my head on the way here and now, everything in me is frozen, again.

  He turns his attention to Vince, "She's not going to pass out or something, is she?"

  "I don't think so…"

  "I need to tell you something," I blurt.

  He looks at me expectantly.

  I open my mouth but nothing comes out. I fumble for the right words, the right way to tell him the truth, but the right words don't exist."I'm sorry, I've been thinking about this moment since we found out about you. Now that it's here, I don't know what to say to you."

  His expression softens. "How about you start with what you're doing here."

  I inhale, trying to suck in all the air in the room as if it will give me the courage to just say it. "We came here because you've been missing for a very long time."

  He laughs, but it's the I'm-laughing-at-you-not-with-you kind of laugh. "I'm here aren't I? Can't be missing if you've found me."

  I'm starting to understand why a lot of people weren't Charlie's biggest fan. "I think you know what I'm talking about. Everson, Iowa. Wesley Pierce. Ring any bells?"

  "They're not part of my life anymore," he says so quietly I barely hear him.

  "But he was your family. So was my grandma." How can he act like this isn't a big deal?

  "Family don't cheat, steal and lie."

  "You're right," I say, hoping he's admitting his transgressions. "But family also forgives, accepts and moves on."

  "Well, there's not much of us left now is there?"

  "That's the reason I'm here. You have more family than you know."

  "I don't know what you mean by that."

  I sigh, not sure I'm ready to drop this bomb. My heart thumps wildly against my chest and the scratch in my throat is back. "After you left Everson, Grandma fou
nd out she was pregnant. Charlie, you're a father. A grandfather. My biological grandfather."

  His hand goes to his mouth and his chin quivers. If he starts crying, I'm a goner. He looks so much like my grandfather right now, it's like I'm trapped in some sort of déjà vu. I want to reach out to him, to tell him I know what it feels like to be betrayed by your own family. But Vince whispers in my ear.

  "I'm going to leave you two for a couple minutes. I need to do something quick."

  I nod and when Vince leaves I decide to go for it. I move off the couch and sit by Charlie's rocker and reach for his hand. He surprises me by holding on and squeezing instead of batting me away. I'm not sure what the appropriate words are. I wait for it to come to me but it doesn't. So I sit there and watch Charlie processing the bomb I just dropped on him, and it breaks my heart.

  "I always wanted a son."

  I look up at his blotchy, wrinkled face. I have to remind myself I'm looking into Charlie's eyes and not my grandfather's. "Well you have one. You need to come home and meet him, Charlie."

  "And Elaine...?"

  I smile. "She's waiting for you at home."

  A gasp escapes his lips and he start to sob. Almost immediately, the tears well in my eyes and the floodgates are open. I'm sure we're quite the sight. I maneuver my hand to his back, unsure if it's wanted.

  Just when I think I've composed myself enough to say something, the jerking motion of his body keeps the tears coming.

  "Are you… okay?" I ask when his sobs and sniffles subside.

  "I thought I'd never see her again. And you… it's just all a little much to take in."

  "You're telling me," I mumble.

  "How did you even find me?"

  "It wasn't easy," I say. "If it weren't for Vince actually, we would have never known. He found some pictures of you and Grandpa in the attic and when I told him that my grandfather didn't have a twin named Charlie, things got pretty weird."

  "I've hidden myself pretty well. What gave me away?"

  I grin. "Your reluctance to give up on my grandma. We found the letters you sent her over the years. The last one had the address to a nursing home. We followed it and well, here we are. We had no idea whether you'd be here or not. Especially since the content of your last letter wasn't positive. We were afraid we were going to be too late."

  "Time is a funny thing. You wait for so many things your entire life. You wait to grow up, wait to get married and have kids, start a new chapter in your life, wait to die. Eventually, you learn to accept it, to welcome it when it comes. I was ready to die, but not now. I'm not ready yet."

  "Then come home with us."

  "I haven't been back to Everson since the day I left. I'm not sure going back is the wisest thing."

  "James is dead. Grandpa is gone. If there was ever a time to come home, it's now. Please, come home."

  We lock eyes and I plead with him. He tears his gaze away from mine and he wheezes. It sounds painful.

  "What if your grandmother doesn't want me to come back?"

  I squeeze his hand. "I think she's wanted you to come home since you left. I'm not saying things will be easy. I just... I think it's time."

  He starts to cry again and when he looks at me, I see so much of my grandfather in him. I see why my grandmother could have fallen in love with this man. He's quiet for a long time.

  And then, it's like he's done wasting time. "Okay, I'll go," he says.

  I hug him just as Vince walks in.

  I smile at him. "Guess who's coming home with us?"

  Once we pack enough of Charlie's things to get him through a few weeks, we set off for Everson. Vince opts for the backseat so with Charlie in the front seat, I intend to use up every hour in the car we had to grill him on his life.

  "Where did you go after you left Everson?"

  "Everywhere. I had a friend who was a rancher in Texas so I took the train down there and worked for him for a few months. When I got restless there, I took the train west and spent a few months working at a Casino in Vegas. Spent a few months in Oregon, too. Pretty place."

  "How did you end up in Wisconsin?" Vince pipes up from the back.

  "My wife Sara had family there. When she got sick, she wanted to be near them. I guess, I was tired of never staying in one place, so I stayed in Wisconsin. Hasn't been bad. Reminds me of Iowa a little bit."

  "You sent a letter to Grandma saying you saw her and Grandpa once. Where was that at?"

  Charlie rubs his temple. "Des Moines."

  I don't say anything and he closes his eyes. Minutes later he's snoring. I look at Vince through the rearview mirror. He stifles his laughter.

  "He's an old man. Leave him alone," I tease.

  "Yeah, whatever. So, what now?"

  "I don't know. We get him back in one piece, let him and Grandma work things out and then we figure out how to piece all this together for the project."

  "You know we have something big here, right? Huge, actually. If we do this the right way, we could be looking at winning the entire thing."

  I laugh. "Yeah, but you said that when we were doing it on my grandfather."

  "Well, with me behind the camera lens, it doesn't matter what the subject is. We're bound to win."

  "I'm surprised your head fit through the car door."

  "Ass," he says smiling as he punches my headrest so my head jerks forward.

  I smile. "Love you too." But after it comes out of my mouth, I gasp. "I mean, you know what I'm trying to say."

  Vince smirks at me, "Yeah, I do. And for the record, I do too.

  I let his words sink in. The way he says it replays in my mind, the contentedness seeps into my veins. It settles in my heart, and the past week's events play in my head like a movie. In under a week, I fell for the one person I hated more than anything. I discovered that my grandfather had a twin and said twin had an affair with my grandmother resulting in a baby whose father she lied about. I learned that my great-grandfather was a piece of shit and that my family is really fucked up.

  When we make it back to my grandmother's, the sun is dipping below the horizon. I get out and my back aches with the weight of this week's events. My eyelids droop with the promise of a deep slumber. I could sleep for days, but there's too much for me to do. Too much to hear. Charlie gets out of the car slowly and when he makes it to the front porch, he shakes his head.

  "It hasn't changed one bit."

  "Neither have you," my grandmother says from the swing. She stands up and he drops his bag and hobbles over to her. They stand staring at each other for a few minutes. His hand reaches up and touches her face, cupping her chin. He starts to sob. "I never thought I'd see you again. Oh God, you're just as beautiful as you've always been."

  Grandma puts her arms around his neck and lays her head on his chest. "Shh, it's okay. You're here now."

  Vince's hand slips into mine and he leads me inside the house which is perfect because watching the reunion between Grandma and Charlie was starting to feel a little like voyeurism.

  "Let them have a few minutes. It's been a long time since they've seen each other. They have a lot of catching up to do."

  "They have a lot of answering to do, too."

  Vince kisses me to shut me up. "All in good time."

  I follow him upstairs, to my room. He flops on the bed with his laptop and various cameras in hand. "What's going to happen when we get back to California?"

  I sit down on the bed next to him. "We have to get our asses in gear putting this thing together."

  "No, I mean, with us," he says.

  I try to play off the question. "I don't know. What do you want to happen?"

  "You tell me. I think you still have unresolved business with Kyle."

  "Just because we slept together and whatever this..." I point to the two of us, "is, doesn't mean you know everything about me."

  "I know Kyle affects you more than you let on. I know that you want me to think you slept with him just because you wanted to, bu
t that's not true, is it?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "I think you started whatever you had with him because you thought he might give you what you've been looking for since you left here. Validation. Attention. Love."

  "That's not true," I say, my voice shaky.

  He slides over and cups my face in his hands. He kisses my lips softly, and I can taste him when he pulls away. "It is true. But he wasn't the guy you thought he was. And I'm not either. I can be what you need, Kara. But you have to let go of our past. Can you do that?"

  I look in his eyes and I see myself waking up to them. I remember the way it felt in his arms, the way he's been exactly what I've needed him to be while we're here. "I can try," I say finally.

  "Then tell me, what happens when we get back to California?"

  I swallow. "We try this us thing."

  "Are you sure?"

  I nod and he kisses me again. "I was hoping you'd say that. Even though you drive me fucking nuts and I wonder why we didn't stick with the whole hating each other thing, I can't imagine things any other way. I'm not sure if I can go back to the way things were, even if I wanted to."

  I push him down on the bed and kiss his neck. "Then we won't."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  After a fairly awkward dinner, where no one really knows what to say, Vince sets up the video camera in the corner and Charlie goes through the timeline of his life after Everson. Every so often Grandma stops him to ask a question. But mostly he talks about all the places he's been and no matter how far he went, Grandma's ghost seemed to follow him. She blushes at this.

  She asks him about Sara, but he doesn't say much about her. He met her in Denver. Married her six months later. She couldn't have kids so they lived without them, until she got sick. He asks Grandma the same question.

  "We tried. Never could get pregnant again. Used to make Wesley crazy that we couldn't have more laughter in this house, but when we got Kara, he focused all his time and attention on her."