One
Ben was anxious as he waited for his granddaughter to arrive—a granddaughter he never knew he had. Adam had written and said that he was sending his young daughter to the Ponderosa accompanied by her nurse, Mrs. Maxwell. His wife was no longer, he wrote, and he had been indisposed and therefore, Lilly Elizabeth Cartwright was arriving on the stage from Kansas City to Virginia City on April 6th. Adam wrote that he hoped that someone from the family would be there to meet them and asked that his daughter and the nurse would be welcomed at the Ponderosa. He would arrive once he was well enough to travel and had sold the family home. He also had some business matters to deal with before he could get away. Adam wrote that he hoped he would be welcomed despite his lengthy absence which he acknowledged was more like a disappearance; he offered his apologies and wrote that he now realized—more than ever-how important family was. And then Adam had written "I need your help, Pa." When Ben had read that, he almost wept. Adam needed him.
As Ben waited, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the stage office, he wondered who Adam had married, what she had looked like. After all, he had never been informed. He and his eldest son had a falling out after he completely recovered from his accident that paralyzed him from the waist down. Adam had lost his fiancée, Laura Dayton, to his cousin, Will Cartwright, and although Adam had been less than devastated, it reminded Adam of his age and the fact that he had nothing to call his own.
"I need to have my own family, my own accomplishments—my life has been a waste." Adam, his hands on his hips, was pacing behind the settee. His walk was still slightly awkward as he said that he still felt occasional pain shooting up his spine.
"But why can't it be here?" Ben asked.
They had been arguing of a sort. Adam said that he was leaving for parts unknown, that he was going out on his own where no one knew him and he knew no one—he had to prove to himself that he could not only survive but flourish as his own man. After all, Adam had said, seeming to delight in throwing it up in his father's face, "Didn't you do the same? Didn't you leave everything and everyone you knew, left all the comforts of Boston to head out for parts unknown? And you were a good ten years plus younger than I am and even had a son to drag along. Look at me, Pa. I'm more than halfway in my life and what have I done? I need to feel fulfillment, as if I accomplished something."
But despite all the things Ben had said, Adam had finally exploded and said that he didn't know why he was wasting his time talking; he didn't need his father's permission and Adam had packed his necessities and left that night and neither Ben nor anyone else had heard from him except once in seven years.
Christmases had passed and the family celebrated but Adam's absence was like a wound that could be easily reopened with a glance or a word. And every May when Adam's birthday rolled around, Hoss and Joe knew their father would be distraught if they mentioned Adam. They learned not to say anything about Adam around their father.
At first Ben nursed his anger with Adam and whenever Adam's name came up, their father's brow furrowed and he gave Hoss and Joe a lecture on how important family was. But they knew that it was just their father's way of handling his grief. And every time one of them brought in the mail or they were in town and stopped by the post office, Ben shuffled the envelopes scanning them for Adam's familiar handwriting but he was always disappointed except for once.
A letter came from Adam after he had been gone a bit over a year and was postmarked Boston. In it, Adam said that he had reached Boston and was visiting an old friend from college, and having the time and the paper available, he was writing to let them know he was well. He wrote that he wished them all good health and that he was leaving Boston in a few days-to where, he wasn't sure, but for them not to worry about him. That was the only letter and eventually, it seemed to Hoss and Joe, that their father gave up expecting to hear from Adam but one morning a year earlier, they went down to breakfast and Hop Sing rushed to shush them. Their father had fallen asleep and was still asleep in his favorite chair, Adam's old letter in his lap. They knew that it was because he had been grieving over the absence of his eldest son. And their father seemed to age more than only the seven years of Adam's absence.