Free Crave by Laurie Jean Cannady Page B

hugging. I hadn’t said much as I’d stood in his home and he’d given no indication he wanted me to say more. I bounced home, anxious to dial those ten numbers.
    That first day, after the first dialing, that number was a dead end. The phone hiccupped a busy signal from the time I put my quarter into the phone booth to late at night, when Momma said it wasn’t safe for me to go outside anymore.
    I visited Uncle Benny several times after that. Each visit he stood guard over his foyer until he’d written ten new numbers. Each time, I either got a lady on the other end, singing, “This number has been disconnected,” or her twin chiming, “This number is not in service.”
    There were those times the phone just rang and rang and rang or the busy signal’s broken chirp kept pace with my tears. Those were good days because there was the possibility someone would pick up the phone after I let it ring for the one-hundredth time, and there was the chance the busy signal would be silenced once they put the phone back on the receiver. As long as Uncle Benny lived on Peach Street, as long as there were ten numbers he could write, there was hope I could find the man that filled my imagination with the life we were supposed to be living.
    One day Uncle Benny’s ten numbers silenced the incessant ringing in my mind. The voice of a girl, nasal, twisted in a southern drawl, breathed, “Hello.” I almost dropped the phone, almost ran from the booth when the ringing was replaced by a live person on the other end. I met my cousin, Tiffany, daughter of my uncle, Frank, Jr., who introduced me to my grandfather, Frank, Sr., whose laugh reached through the phone and poked a dimple into my cheek. He introduced me to my grandma, Ms. Mary, and she whispered, “Laurie? Carl’s girl?” so quietly I thought she didn’t mean for me to hear.
    We became a family, in the span of minutes, me on one side of the phone, them on the other. I didn’t even ask where Carl was. If I got where they were, I was sure I’d find him.
    They lived in Ivor, right outside of Suffolk, the same house my daddy was born in. Momma had been there many times, but she had never taken me there. I’d never thought to ask where my daddy had lived when she met him. The obvious can easily be overlooked when one’s search becomes blinding.
    Momma agreed to take me to see my family soon after that conversation. Address and phone number in hand, I was on my way to meet my daddy. That summer morning, Momma loaded all five of us into Uncle Bruce’s car. It didn’t matter that I and my middle brother, Dathan, were my father’s only biological children. We all wore his last name, so by law and according to Momma, he was everybody’s daddy. We all sat in the back seat, amidst fidgetingand chattering about all of the fun we’d have in Suffolk with the other half of our family. Dathan wondered about cousins we’d never met and Mary asked if we’d see goats or pigs since we were going to the country. I prayed quietly my father would be there. I wanted to look into the eyes of the man I had imagined for so long.
    On the hour ride to Suffolk, I rewound mini-soap operas I had orchestrated around my father’s existence. Would he, as I’d often imagined, be a drug dealer with lots of money, houses, and cars, and I’d have to arrest him, and turn him from a life of crime once I became an undercover detective? Would he be on his deathbed, drenched in sweat, begging for medicine, and I would walk in, wearing doctor’s scrubs, with a serum I manufactured myself just to save his life? Or, would I meet him through the love of my life, after I learned my new beau’s stepfather was actually my real father, and then we would all live happily ever after? I was anxious to learn which scenario fit. Wedged in between Mary and the door, I peered out of the window, watching as road, trees,