Chapter Text
Sam looked through the shop’s window. It wasn’t a single piece of glass like that of a supermarket or other store you might go to when shopping. It was a bay window made from small squares fitted in a wood frame that stuck out from the brick building. His old house had a bay window in the living room made of three large glass panels which looked out onto the street and on rainy days when Sam was little his mother would carefully move her plants and allow him to sit him on the window’s sill so he could watch cars. The new condo where Sam moved to with his parents didn’t have a bay window. But, this story isn’t about windows. It is about ten-year old Sam and it is because of Sam’s father I have it to tell.
Sam had to stand on his toes to get a good look into the shop. Even though it was dark inside he easily saw the statuette on the window sill. It was about a foot and a half tall posed on pedestal decorated with a colored cut glass. Next to the statuette, there was a radiometer. A radiometer looks like a light bulb, except it has little black and white vanes inside which spin about when you put it in sunlight. There was also a kaleidoscope, a tube you look through and turn to see moving colors and shapes, as well as an old wood pencil box covered with stickers. Sam wasn’t interested in the pencil box or the kaleidoscope or the radiometer. Sam’s eyes were drawn to the figurine which was a cat with white fur. But, unlike a real cat, the figure stood upright as if it was a person dressed in a long bright red old fashioned ruffled dress that reached down to the top of the pedestal. The dress had a frilly white collar and there was a golden locket around the cat’s neck. She held a bouquet of tiny white flowers in white gloved hands and a violet colored broad brim hat decorated with a white blossom was set between her ears. The little cat person had long white whiskers and bubble gum pink nose which matched the insides of her ears. Sam thought she winked at him with one of her sparkling green eyes. But, that was impossible, her eyes were glass. Her whiskers were made of wire and the rest of her; the locket, the necklace, the frilly collar, the ruffled dress, her fur and even the flowers she held was a painted sculpture.
Sam pushed open the shop’s wood framed door of dozen glass panes which was under a hanging white sign with black lettering that read, ‘Seeker and Finder’s Shoppe’. He was accompanied by the jingling of bells as he stepped inside. The shop was a small about the same size as the neighborhood barbershop he used to get his haircuts from with his father. But, instead of two sinks and two chairs, there were tables in the middle of the room and the walls were lined with counters and shelves. All kinds of stuff had been piled high on the tables and counters as well as jammed into the shelves in a disorganized, organized way. It was the kind of stuff you would expect to find in a thrift store or antique shop. There were books and trinkets; toys and pails full of pens, jars of change, baskets of hair and tie clips, and cuff links. By the way, cufflinks are buttons with snaps on the back for long sleeve shirts that don’t have buttons already sewn on them.
One wall had hundreds of keys hanging from hooks. There were ties, scarfs, mittens, gloves and shoes. Not just pairs but single mittens, gloves and shoes and there were socks, lots of socks. Sam started towards the cat figurine. But his attention was caught by a large teddy bear sitting on a counter by itself. The stuffed bear was old. It looked as it had been flattened by a thousand hugs. Its brown cloth fur had been worn smooth in spots and there were places where threads were showing. The bear’s head hung to one side and it was missing a button eye. It wore a partly undone dark red bow tie with golden polka dots around its neck. Sam reached over to pick the bear and woke up.
“SAM!” This is your last warning. You gotta get ready, we have to go.”
Sam shuddered. Not from his mother’s shouts coming from the hall outside his door, he shuddered from his dream, a dream that was so real he looked about to see if the teddy bear was sitting on his bureau. Every detail about the dream, the bear, the cat, the radiometer, the kaleidoscope, the pencil box, the sign and store window stuck out as if he had just left the shop. Sam often had realistic colorful dreams. He especially loved his flying dreams, although the falling ones startled him awake. When Sam was little, he was so terrified by nightmares he’d wake up screaming. His parents always sat on the end of his bed until he fell back to sleep. They patiently told him dreams weren’t real and they explained ever since he could remember how dreams were a way for his brain to store all the things he saw and thought about during the day.
“Our dreams are symbols, they stand for the things that bother us,” reassured his father after he told his parents of a horrific nightmare where he was chased by slimy monsters with octopus tentacles who killed and ate his friends.
“Dreaming of death can be a way our minds tell us we are going through changes,” added his mother. It was Sam’s mother taking a new job that caused Sam and his family to move from his old home in Portland Oregon to a small New Jersey town.
“Like going moving here and going to a new school?”
“That’s right. We’ve gone through a lot of changes the last few months and leaving your friends is a biggie” his father replied smiling in the way parents often do. But, Sam’s father’s smile was heavy, just days before they moved, Sam’s grandfather passed away.
What his parents didn’t tell him was how he could have the same dream twice. The dream about the shop, the cat person figurine and the teddy bear was the same dream as the one he told his mother about after the day his father left to visit Sam’s grandmother.
“Sam, do you think you had the dream because you are nervous about your father going to Boston without us?”
“I don’t think I’m nervous.”
“Sometimes we are and we don’t know it. It’s ok to be nervous. You know how I get nervous about driving.”
“Oh yes, you say ‘Sam please be quiet I have to concentrate’.”
Sam’s mother smiled with a chuckle.
“That’s right. Now do you remember how when you lost your pencil box with your drawing pencils it took you days to tell us?”
“Yes. But, that was when I was in my old school.”
“Weren’t you afraid we’d be mad because it was the box your father had when he was a boy?”
“I was scared, I thought you and dad would be angry and… I was nervous.”
“What happened after you told us?”
“I was glad you weren’t mad at me.”
“And when you found your pencil box? How did you feel?
“Great”
“Now, what do you think about your ‘Finder Keeper’s’ dream?”
“I…I think it’s a place for things that are missing and I miss dad” Sam replied not wanting to correct his mother about the shop’s name, “but, what about the cat and bear?”
“Hmmm…well, you said you went to the teddy bear and not the cat. Why do you think you did that in your dream?”
Sam thought for moment.
“I’m allergic to cats. But, I’m not allergic to teddy bears.”
That conversation happened the day before and when Sam came down stairs to have his breakfast, he wanted to tell his mother he had the same dream. But, Sam’s mother was too busy getting ready for their trip to Boston and he decided he had the dream because he was scared about his father. Sam’s parents planned to visit Sam’s grandmother as a family for the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend. It would have been Sam’s first visit to his father’s childhood home since he was a baby. Then earlier in the week his father announced he had to see his mother to help her with a few things. Sam offered to be his company for the drive from New Jersey to Boston. He told his parents he could miss a few days at his new school because he was so far ahead of the other kids in his class. Sam’s parents held him back one year when they moved and he was well ahead of his grade level. Sam was bright and liked school. But because he was born late in the year, he was the smallest boy or girl in his old class. But, his argument why he could go, didn’t work and he was told he would have stay home with his mother. Then Sam’s mother got a phone call during supper on the night Sam had his second dream about the cat and teddy bear. Sam’s father had a stroke and was in the hospital.
The morning was a blur. Sam and his mother rushed about gathering things they needed for their trip. The ride share arrived on time and took them to the airport. Sam and his mother flew to Boston and when they arrived, Sam’s mother rented a car at Logan Airport and they started the drive to his grandmother’s house in Brookline Village. Brookline is a small Massachusetts town so close to Boston you can’t tell were Boston ends and Brookline begins and Brookline Village is a small section of Brookline with little stores, houses and apartments.
Now, I don’t know if you have ever been to Boston. I have and I can tell you even though Boston has tall modern buildings, a subway, an airport and a highway that goes under the bay and another highway that goes under its center, Boson is one of America’s oldest cities with lots of twisty narrow one way streets. There is always construction someplace, roads are torn up and traffic gets detoured. That is what happened to Sam and his mother.
The travel app on Sam’s mother’s phone said the drive from Logan to Brookline Village was less than a half hour with the traffic. But, instead of heading west, his mother missed an exit and they ended up driving to South Boston. Even from the back seat Sam could tell his mother was nervous and as they drove under Boston Harbor. She gripped the wheel in the way people do when they are new drivers and she turned off the rental’s radio so she could hear the phone’s directions better. Sam wanted to make her laugh or smile and he remarked how the tunnel’s yellowish ceramic tiles reminded him of the toilets in his new school. Even though she smiled back at him in the rearview mirror, her expression was full of care.
Just after they left the tunnel, the phone announced there was an accident ahead and gave her an exit to take. I remember the first time I followed a direction finder’s instructions. I was driving in a place I had never been before and the device’s voice told me to make a “legal ‘U’ turn”. Sam’s mother didn’t have to make a ‘U’ turn. But, they ended up driving in the opposite direction they wanted to go. Instead of going west towards Brookline, they drove into north Boston along the waterfront.
“There’s the aquarium Sam,” Sam’s mother announced loudly so he could hear her over his tablet’s headphones, “do you remember going with your father and me? When he’s well, we’ll come back. I’m sure you’ll love it”. Sam gazed at the large “IMAX” sign on the aquarium’s sleek metal paneled walls. He didn’t remember being there before and asked her about the trip. Sam’s mother recounted how he cooed excitedly and reached for fish from his stroller as she pushed him through the glass tunnel inside the aquarium’s giant ocean tank and how he seemed fascinated by the octopi. In case you think I made up the word, octopi is plural for octopus.
There were more detour signs and instead of finding their way back to the highway, they drove down narrow one way streets.
“Mom, that’s the Old North Church,” Sam announced as they drove down a street lined with a row of three and four story apartment buildings. Across from them on his mother’s side of the car there was a brick church with white wood bell tower which Sam could not see the top of from his side of the car even though he leaned over as far as he could without taking off his seatbelt.
“I read about Paul Revere’s ride. Did you know he never arrived at Lexington and stopped by the British. Do you it is true he had lanterns hung from the churches steeple? How do you think anyone could see them with all the buildings around it?” Sam knew there were no tall buildings or skyscrapers back in Paul Revere’s time. But he wanted his mother to smile again.
“Oh great, we’ve gone around in a loop. Sam, please be quiet. I have to concentrate.”
“Yes Mom.”
She kept on taking the turns the phone called out and they soon ended up driving beneath towering buildings on busy streets full of slow moving cars, buses and trucks. While Sam was distracted by the sights, his mother clutched the steering wheel looking for pedestrians, bicycle riders and fast moving electric scooters. The streets were lined with shops, banks, restaurants and offices and people were everywhere. Packs of tourists ambled along the sidewalks or were stopped as they took ‘selfies’. Some people hurried along in quick strides as if they were late going someplace. There were families, parents with children, couples and lots of college students, including one girl Sam saw carrying a musical instrument case that was almost as big as she was.
“That’s a Double Bass” replied Sam’s mother to his question, “it is the largest of the string instruments.” Sam’s mother played French horn in college and she taught music until she became an assistant principal. It was as I may have already mentioned Sam’s mother accepting a school principal’s position which brought Sam and his family from their quiet Portland neighborhood to a quieter New Jersey town. Sam’s father was a writer, who is often published in magazines and has a popular internet following. He worked from home when he wasn’t on assignment someplace.
Sam was excited by the adventure of his trip even though he was worried about his father. A friend once told me, an adventure is adversity fondly remembered. But, I am sure Sam’s mother would not agree with that definition as she was forced by more detours to turn up one one-way street full of traffic and down another accompanied by the insistent voice of her phone saying she had to go in a different direction. To help his mother, Sam kept a lookout for signs to the highway.
He saw one on the colorful tree lined boulevard that separated the ‘Boston Common’ on their right from the ‘Boston Public Garden’. It was as they followed a ‘Duck Boat’. Duck Boats look like a big boats on wheels where people sit up on top in the open. Because the day was a particularly warm early fall one, it was full of tourists enjoying the sights. Sam wished he too could be on it, sitting between his mother and father. Then when they stopped at a crosswalk behind the strange vehicle and waited for the signal to change, Sam saw a long low boat full of tourists and a huge swan figure at its back end.
“What kind of boat is that?” Sam asked.
“That is a swan boat. When you were little, your father and I took you on one. We can come back after your father is better. The “Make Way for Ducklings” statutes are nearby too, do you remember them?”
Sam didn’t recall the bronze statutes of the mother duck and her babies even though he remembered the book about the duck family who waddled down Boston streets with police officers stopping traffic for them. When his mother asked whether he’d like to see them again too, Sam agreed even though he was too old for swans and ducks. At the end of the boulevard was a sign which pointed left to the highway. But their route was blocked by orange cones and they turned right.
“Oh great, we’re doing another loop.” Sam’s mother exclaimed, “At this rate, we won’t get to Gran’s until dark and I was hoping to take you to see your father today.”
“You can still take me.”
“I don’t know. The hospital’s visiting hours are strict. But we’ll see. I have to call your father’s doctor when we get to Gran’s to let them know we are here.”
Sam and his mother continued to follow the Duck Boat past the ‘Common’ on one side and a row of tidy four story townhouses on the other until they passed a large brick building with tall white columns and a gold dome which Sam’s mother said was the “State House”. The phone instructed Sam’s mother to take a left. But, a stern looking policeman directed her straight and they slowly went down a one way street crowded with parked delivery vans on each side following a pack of riders on matching bright green bicycles. At the next corner they turned right as instructed and headed back towards the ‘Common’ towards a shady ancient looking cemetery next to a large brick church with towering wood steeple. But, once again their route was blocked. This time it was a tractor trailer truck with the biggest wrecker Sam had ever seen and instead of a policeman, they were waved down a very narrow one way side street by a woman in an orange vest.
They drove in shadow, the sun was blocked by tall buildings on either side and it was as if they were at the bottom of a narrow canyon. Their way was constricted by parked delivery vans and dumpsters. By the way constricted is another way of saying something is made narrower.
They were just about to turn left when Sam saw the sign. It wasn’t quite a sign. It was a white arrow someone painted on the wall of an alley which had bold black letters that spelled out ‘Seeker and Finder’s Shoppe’.