Oliver nodded in the Japanese way. His father bowed and walked back to his car. Oliver watched. He waved as his father drove toward the road. His father waved back. Oliver thought he saw a smile, and then his father was gone.
He was getting wet, he realized. He stopped in Florence for a cup of coffee. There was no sign of his father. He drove back to Eugene and took a long hot shower. The envelope lay unopened on top of the table by the TV.
Oliver took a nap and went out for dinner. He sipped Glenlivet, a bit disappointed—he had learned so little about his father. Also, he was depressed because the meeting was over; he had accomplished what he set out to do, and now what? His father was controlled, impressive. Oliver felt good about that. If he hadn't found out many details about his father, he had learned something about himself. There was a sternness in his father—an inner honor—that Oliver recognized immediately. Same as me, he thought. His father helped put a face on it, made it more accessible and more acceptable.
But what did his father think of him? I didn't wimp out or fall in and die, anyway, he told himself. Muni had seemed guardedly approving. Hard to tell. Perhaps Muni had felt himself on trial, as well. He hadn't shown it. An architect—that was interesting. Oliver had a strong visual sense that had never found a satisfactory outlet. His work had always been secondary in some way. Teaching math and programming had kept him going, but he felt unused, wasted. Maybe he should have been an architect. At least, now, he knew where his visual ability came from.
Oliver mused over his drink and avoided opening the envelope in his pocket. He ate a piece of salmon grilled over alder chips and drank a glass of Oregon Sauvignon Blanc. The waiter brought a double espresso. Oliver opened the envelope with misgivings.
There was a check and a note:
Oliver, if I give this to you, it is because you are my son. I can not know until I meet you. I plan to be back home in Kamakura after the first of the year. Maybe you will visit. Years after 50 are extra. Who knows what will happen? My thoughts are with you. Muni
The check was for $72,000. Oliver stared at the numbers. Seventy-two thousand dollars? A lot more money than he'd ever had before. But the moment that he accepted the amount, he realized that the money was his only in the sense that he had control of it. He had it because his father had saved it. How could he just spend it on himself? The money wasn't his; it was theirs—his and his father's and probably his father's parents as well. He replaced the envelope carefully in his pocket. A door opened in his heart, and another door closed.
It would take time for these new feelings to sink in, but Oliver knew that something had changed for good. He lingered over the espresso. An awakened sense of time knocked in his ears and made the present moment more intense. University students at a corner table might have been figures on a screen or spread around a vase. It was right now, Eugene, Oregon. He wanted to shout: "It will never be this way again. We're here! We're alive!" He smiled as he imagined a full moon appearing from behind a cloud. Francesca was standing on Crescent Beach, looking up at the moon, her hands clasped behind her. Oliver stood and bowed slightly to the waiter and to the room.
The next morning he called Porter and told him when he'd be back. He took a bus from Eugene to Portland. The Willamette Valley was green and fertile, a nice after-image on the following afternoon as the plane lowered over the brown Maine woods and the steely blue Atlantic. He took a cab to State Street and had a reunion with Verdi. Porter had left the apartment in tidy shape. There was a letter from Francesca. She had received the box and the heart.