Sighting

“Follow that car,” Mitch barked to the cab driver after hurriedly climbing into the back seat. His pointing finger indicated a green sedan that was already maneuvering its way to the outer lane that offered a fast exit from the airport.

He leaned as far forward as the plexiglass divider would allow and watched the sedan weave in and out of traffic along I-95. The cabbie stayed right behind it in the middle lane. Mitch could only make out the silhouette of a man in the passenger seat. It appeared that he was having a conversation with whomever was driving the car. Mitch’s heart fluttered in his chest, and he took a deep breath, not entirely sure about what–or who–he saw.

A half hour ago, when Delta #2279, Atlanta to Philadelphia, had finally arrived at the gate, Mitch unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up in the aisle. As the rude people in the higher numbered seats tried to push their way forward, Mitch held his ground and reached up to retrieve his carry-on from the overhead bin. At six feet, three inches tall, he towered over most people. With the aisle jam-packed, Mitch could see above quite a few heads to the front of the plane and estimated that he would be there for a while.

As his fellow passengers up ahead started to move forward, he caught sight of a familiar shape with a head of gray hair. Something about the way the man was holding his shoulders back made Mitch reel. He knew that posture. When the man turned to retrieve his own bag from the overhead bin, and Mitch could see the man’s profile, that’s when he was sure. Granted, he looked much older. But then again, it had been twenty years since Mitch had last laid eyes on him. 

The thought occurred to Mitch to shout out the man’s first name, but Mitch had never used the man’s name before in that way. But calling out “Dad” felt too intimate…and much more than he deserved. Besides, there were probably dozens of dads on this plane who would turn at hearing the moniker. 

No, Mitch would have to wait until the plane emptied out. 

When he finally emerged from the gateway into the terminal, a frantic glance around revealed the man to be standing at a kiosk buying something. Mitch headed in that direction. The man he was convinced was his father was walking about fifty feet in front of him. It occurred to Mitch that he should run up rather than risk losing sight of his father, but it seemed too eager, perhaps even too aggressive, so Mitch hung back and watched the old man move forward with the crowd. 

Just as Mitch was approaching the escalator that his father had descended moments before, a young family stopped in front of him, blocking his way with a stroller and three uncooperative children. In the few seconds it took Mitch to maneuver around them, the old man had found the exit door and was walking out. By the time Mitch exited the terminal himself, his father was climbing into the passenger side of a green sedan which pulled away quickly from the curb. 

Shit, Mitch muttered. Not ready to give up, he threw his hand in the air to signal the nearest taxi.

Mitch hadn't seen his father since he was a kid. No one, not even Mitch’s mother, knew where he went. One day he just up and disappeared. That very morning, he was sitting at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper, and eating his Wheaties with bananas. The muffled, crunching noise distracted Mitch as he tried to eat his Cheerios and read the back of the cereal box. 

"Dad, can you knock that off?"

"What?" his dad barked at him and went right back to eating. 

Mitch finished his breakfast as quickly as he could and raced outside to catch the school bus just as it pulled around the corner. His dad hollered to him as he left, "Work hard today, son." 

That was the last thing the old man said to him. 

Now, sitting in the backseat of a taxi that was careening in and out of traffic as the driver kept pace with the green sedan, Mitch doubted what he saw. Maybe it wasn’t his father. Maybe it was just some man eager to get home to his wife after a short business trip. Or maybe it was a professional gambler back from collecting from his bookie, his suitcase full of cash. Or maybe he was just a lonely old man flying into town for a funeral. 

But Mitch felt it in his bones that his instinct was correct. That this old man, the wiry-haired, thin-shouldered, yet proud-looking man was his father.

Mitch and his mom spent years trying to find him. The police conducted an extensive investigation but turned up nothing, and the case was filed away. When Mitch graduated college and got married, his wife Evelyn scoured the internet for clues, and even convinced Mitch to hire a private investigator. But it all ended with more questions. Was his father murdered? Was there a horrific accident, and they never found his body? Did he just leave? If so, why? And where did he go? 

As a husband and father to two beautiful girls, Mitch could not imagine that his own father would leave by his own volition. What kind of parent would abandon his child forever without a word? It just didn’t make sense to him. 

The green sedan slowed and took the next exit. The cab followed, driving into a suburb Mitch had never been to. Three more turns and the car was pulling up in front of a small bungalow with rose bushes by the mailbox. This detail took Mitch by surprise. His mother had planted rose bushes by their mailbox at their old house on Sycamore Drive. But he buried his mother five years ago, and this house didn’t look familiar at all. 

The taxi pulled up behind the sedan. Mitch grabbed a fifty from his billfold and handed it to the driver, his eyes on the car in front of them. Mitch’s father unfolded himself from the front seat and turned to face the taxi. His face didn’t appear alarmed. Instead he looked sad. No, actually, it was more like defeated. He stood, unmoving, arms at his side, and stared. 

Mitch’s brain told him to get out of the taxi, but it was a full thirty seconds before his body would cooperate. He remembered to yank his bag off the seat and closed the door. The cab pulled away and out of sight down the dark residential road.

“Hello,” Mitch finally managed, an awkward presence on the sidewalk. 

The old man didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. Mitch was staring at him, unable to say more. When the sedan’s driver-side door opened, Mitch’s peripheral vision noted someone getting out, but he couldn’t remove his gaze from the old man. The old man who, standing in a puddle of streetlamp light, was–without a doubt–his father.

Before Mitch could wrangle the words that were ricocheting in his brain to ask this man where he’s been all these years, a voice pierced the evening air. “What’s going on?” The voice belonged to the man who had driven his father to this house with the rose bushes by the mailbox. 

Seconds passed, and no one moved.

The voice spoke again. “Seriously, Dad, what’s going on here?”

A freight train passing through his chest would’ve hurt less.

Before Mitch could swivel his gaze from his father to the owner of the voice, his brain had already registered everything it needed to know. 

That this young man certainly walked proudly with his shoulders held back.

That there was a woman, perhaps with graying hair and kind eyes, waiting for his father to come home.

That inside that tiny bungalow with the rose bushes by the mailbox held a different life.