That’s how she described it. I doubted Randy would have described his interest in the same way.
We pulled into the drive a few minutes later, and I noted the light in my father’s den. When I turned off the engine, I fiddled with the keys before getting out.
“I told you my father is quiet, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It doesn’t matter, though. I just want to meet him.”
“Why?” I asked. I know how it sounded, but I couldn’t help it.
“Because,” she said, “he’s your only family. And he was the one who raised you.”
Once my dad got over the shock of my return with Savannah in tow and the introductions were made, he ran a quick hand over his wispy hair and stared at the floor.
“I’m sorry we didn’t call first, but don’t blame John,” she said. “It was all my fault.”
“Oh,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“Did we catch you at a bad time?”
“No.” He glanced up, then back to the floor again. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.
For a moment, we all stood in the living room, none of us saying anything. Savannah wore an easy smile, but I wondered if my dad even realized it.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, as if suddenly remembering he was supposed to play host.
“I’m fine, thanks,” she said. “John tells me that you’re quite the coin collector.”
He turned to me, as if wondering whether he should answer. “I try,” he finally said.
“Is that what we so rudely interrupted?” she asked, using the same teasing tone she used with me. To my surprise, I heard my dad give a nervous laugh. Not loud, but a laugh nonetheless. Amazing.
“No, you didn’t interrupt. I was just examining a new coin I got today.”
As he spoke, I could sense him trying to gauge how I’d react. Savannah either didn’t notice or pretended not to. “Really?” she asked. “What kind?”
My dad shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Then, to my astonishment, he looked up and asked her, “Would you like to see it?”
We spent forty minutes in the den.
For the most part, I sat in the den and listened to my dad tell stories I knew by heart. Like most serious collectors, he kept only a few coins at home, and I didn’t have any idea where the rest of them were stored. He would rotate part of the collection every couple of weeks, new coins appearing as if by magic. Usually there were never more than a dozen in his office at any one time and never anything valuable, but I got the impression that he could have been showing Savannah a common Lincoln penny and she would have been entranced. She asked dozens of questions, questions either I or any book on coin collecting could have answered, but as the minutes passed, her questions became more subtle. Instead of asking why a coin might be particularly valuable, she asked when and where he’d found it, and she was treated to tales of boring weekends of my youth spent in places like Atlanta and Charleston and Raleigh and Charlotte.
My dad talked a lot about those trips. Well, for him, anyway. He still had a tendency to retreat into himself for long stretches, but he probably said more in those forty minutes to her than he’d said to me since I’d arrived home. From my vantage point, I saw the passion she had referred to, but it was a passion I’d seen a thousand times before, and it didn’t alter my opinion that he used coins as a way to avoid life instead of embracing it. I’d stopped talking to him about coins because I wanted to talk about something else; my father stopped talking because he knew how I felt and could discuss nothing else.
And yet . . .
My dad was happy, and I knew it. I could see the way his eyes gleamed as he gestured to a coin, pointing out the mint mark or how crisp the stamp had been or how the value of a coin might differ because it had arrows or wreaths. He showed Savannah proof coins, coins minted at West Point, one of his favorite type to collect. He pulled out a magnifying glass to show her flaws, and when Savannah held the magnifying glass, I could see the animation on my father’s face. Despite my feelings about coins, I couldn’t help smiling, simply to see my father so happy.