AT THIRTEEN, I WANTED TO BE A FATHER.
Our failing family farm had two trailer homes sitting vacant. To make ends meet, my parents rented one to Valerie, a pregnant, unwed twenty-three-year-old with tomato red hair who worked at the Kroger deli, where my mother was the manager. The day Valerie moved in, I watched from my bedroom window as she toted a suitcase up the three steps to the trailer. That’s all she had: a faded pink suitcase, the vinyl peeling. I thought her hair looked pretty. A small herd of Holsteins, my 4-H project, bawled at her from behind a fence. It was springtime but still cold out, and from my window I could see Valerie’s breath escaping her body. My mother, who’d opened the door for her, patted Valerie’s swollen stomach. I stopped spying from behind the curtain and went to the stereo to put on Air Supply’s “Lost in Love.” Then I lay in bed and thought of how I would propose to Valerie: I’d tell her the baby needed a father. I would get down on one knee, my hair feathered just right for the occasion, and present her a ring. Maybe my sister Dina would let me borrow one of hers.
