The Answer to the Riddle Is Me by David Stuart MacLean

Author:David Stuart MacLean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (www.hmhco.com)

The Friday before I left, my dad and I went to a matinee of some terrible action flick, and then went to a bar and drank scotch. I was limping a little, and my shins were killing me. Dad told me that I didn’t have to go if I didn’t feel ready. I told him that staying in Ohio was not an option. I needed to get back to my work, I told him. I didn’t understand what my work was, but I hoped that if I started doing it, I’d fall into a groove.

“When did I get so interested in India?” I asked.

“College. You first went with two of your buddies after you graduated. They were there for two months, and you stayed an extra two months after, bumming around.”

“Was I on a program or something?”

Dad signaled to the bartender and got us two more single malts. He liked to call them “drams” when ordering in public. He crunched the ice of his empty drink while he waited for the refills. “You were just out there. You’d call every once in a while and tell us you were okay, but we didn’t know what you were doing other than that. You read a lot. Even that James Joyce book that no one can read. You read it in three days on a train trip from the north to the south.”

“Were you worried?”

“Not really. You always took care of yourself. This was before everyone had e-mail, too, and so we were used to being out of contact more often.”

The bartender came over with the bottle, filled our drinks, and asked us which one of us was driving. My dad signaled that he was, and the guy tipped the bottle up for an extra splash in my glass.

“Why India?” I asked. “Was I into religion or yoga, or something like that?”

“No. Not that stuff.” Dad took a sip out of his drink and laughed. “You said you liked it because it was the farthest place away from Ohio.”

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