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shop, and Deerhorn, in 1974, was the kind of place where Earl could leave the store unlocked while he had coffee at Jimmy’s, and walk back across the street if he saw a customer. Charlie had taken me to the coffee shop a couple of times in the summer, and although the men usually ignored me after nodding hello, I couldn’t have felt more privileged to be sitting among them if I’d been invited for a meal at the governor’s mansion. “You know,” Uncle Pete had whispered to me once; he often stopped by in the afternoon, “your grandpa, he brags about you all the time.” I couldn’t imagine what he said—I hadn’t done anything special—but I believed Uncle Pete, believed in my grandfather’s love; it was evident in the way his eyes softened when they fell upon my face; in the rough, gentle hand he rested on my shoulder.
    But during the school year, I rarely made it to Jimmy’s, and the hour and a half between the time I got home from school and my grandfather’s return from the coffee shop was the longest part of the day. That afternoon, I opened the door to the attic and went up to my father’s old room. Brett came with me. He was always at my heels as I moved from room to room; he slept in my bed; he lay on my feet during meals. Whenever I stood, he’d jump up too, and give me a look of excitement and questioning—ears perked, tail moving hesitantly, inquiringly, not sure yet whether the situation warranted a full-out wag. If I headed to the door with a leash or a ball, he was beside himself with excitement, jumping in circles and barking until my grandmother yelled for quiet. But if I just went to another room and sat down again, he’d continue to look at me for a moment, still hopeful, still giving me a chance to redeem myself, before lying down with a long-suffering sigh.
    This is what he did now, once he saw that no adventure was imminent. My mind was on something else that afternoon. My father had put some old photo albums into a closet before he left, and I took them out and flipped through them until I found what I was looking for. In a few pictures of my parents in California, and in others from Japan, there were black men and women, clearly friends. In one picture from Tokyo, my father and an older black man were leaning together and laughing. I remembered that I’d met this man and his wife; they’d come over to our apartment several times. A few pages later I found some pictures of my parents in Bakersfield with a black couple around their age. There was nothing strange or threatening about the people in the photos—but then again, I wouldn’t have thought that I was threatening, either.
    Seeing these photographs made me think about my father’s letter from the week before. I now considered the fact that it hadn’t come from California. Since he’d arrived on the West Coast ten months before, all of his letters had been from the Sacramento area. But this last one had come from Kansas City. Because he’d written from several places the previous fall as he’d made his way out west, it hadn’t struck me at first that this most recent letter didn’t fit the usual pattern. Now it did. And then I remembered that his postcard before that had been from Salt Lake City. He seemed to be moving in our direction. Did this mean he was on his way back to Wisconsin? Could it be that my parents had reconciled, and he was keeping it a surprise? My heart jumped at this possibility. Now I tried to think about what he had actually written. He’d gone to Missouri for a music festival in the summer, to cover it for a radio station in Berkeley, and he’d liked the area so much that he’d decided to stay on there with friends. It was so great, kiddo , he’d written in his careless hand. People relaxing, getting along with each other, just feeling the music. This is what the whole world should be like! I’ve got a couple of things to figure out and then I’ll come and get you. Sit tight—I’ll be ready