Excerpt of Included!

DOWN RIVERA deep flush crept up the fat man’s neck. Rathburn was an elitist bigot. Ifyou were rich and white, he was usually the judge you’d want. He’d oftencome to my father for campaign money, and had always left empty-handed. Ihad no doubt that his presence here had something to do with the money atstake on the river. He’d have his finger in the pie somewhere.I watched him search for words, then squeeze into his car when nothingcame to him. He turned in the grass of my father’s lawn, then blew dust up thehill. I waited until he was gone from sight, then closed the door and went inside.I stopped in the living room and heard a floorboard squeak upstairs. Janice,I thought, then walked to my father’s book-lined study. The door stood open,and I knocked on the frame out of long habit. I stepped inside. He stood at thedesk, back to me, and his weight was on his hands. He’d lowered his head to hischest, and I saw the length of his neck, the sunburned creases there.The sight churned up memories of how I’d played under the desk as achild, memories of laughter and love, as if the house had been steeped in it.I felt my mother’s hand, as if she was still alive.I cleared my throat, saw how his fingers squeezed white against the darkwood. When he turned, I was struck by the redness of his eyes, the pallor of hisface. For a long moment we stood like that, and it seemed like a thing unknownto us, a nakedness.For that instant his features were fluid, but then they firmed, as if he’d cometo some decision. He pushed himself off of the desk and crossed the worn rug.He put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me into a fierce embrace. Hewas wiry and strong, smelled of the farm and of so many memories. My headspun and I fought to hold the anger that sustained me. I did not return the embrace,and he stepped back, hands still on my shoulders. In his eyes I saw thesame raw loss. He let go when we heard a rustle at the door and a startled voice.“Oh. I’m sorry.”Miriam stood in the doorway. She could look neither of us in the eyes, andI knew that she was embarrassed.“What is it, Miriam?”“I didn’t know that Adam was here,” she said.“Can it wait?” my father asked.91