“Dad! This was a two-way street. This wasn’t a student having a crush on a teacher. You just said she had a crush on him.”
From the handbook of wishful thinking, he quoted, “Your mother maintained that she never violated her professional ethics.”
Now what? Stop there? Scrub the truth? I said, “I don’t need my parents’ marriage sugarcoated. I’ve become a realist. Do you think I’ll fall apart if you told me that all wasn’t rosy between you and Mom?”
Eyes closed, he shook his head. “This is not what I want to talk about. I don’t want the third degree. I’m sorry, but I’m going home. I’m not mad, but I’m not enjoying this conversation.”
I told him I’d change the subject. “We’ll talk about . . . me! About movies and politics—”
“Not tonight. I’m beat.”
“Okay. I’m sorry I chased you away.” I managed to plant a kiss on a fast-moving cheek as he left.
Now what? There went my evening. I picked up his glass, flopped onto the sofa, took a sip.
Without a knock, the door reopened in less time than it would have taken him to reach the elevator. “What did that sonovabitch tell you?” he demanded.
Well, there it was: full vilification. But before I had to confess the gigantic life-changing thing that Peter Armstrong couldn’t withhold, my father had taken back his Scotch and was pacing. “You won’t believe it—it’s such a cliché. It’s Peyton Place—you know that novel was based on a real town in New Hampshire?”
“Dad—”
“You want to know how I found out about your mother and that man, the moment I knew for sure that my wife had cheated on me?”
I very much did want to know but arranged my face into a look meant to convey If you must.
“They rendezvoused at a motel!”
“No!”
“And she paid by credit card! Why? Did she want me to find out? Or because he didn’t want a record of it due to his exalted position as an associate in a Nashua law firm? It didn’t take a detective to figure out what the charge on our Mastercard bill meant.”
What to say in the face of a tirade so uncharacteristic that it rendered me mute? I finally came up with a weak “Are you sure?”
“Of course! And the next time she was out late, ‘out with the girls’—how stupid did she think I was?—I was waiting up, Mastercard bill in hand.”
“Because it showed—”
“A room charge!”
“And?”
“She told me it was a hen party for somebody’s thirtieth or fortieth—who the hell knows?—birthday, anniversary, whatever.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t true—”
“Who throws a birthday party at a motel?”
I asked when this was—which month and year.
“I don’t remember! It’s not the kind of thing a husband commits to memory.”
“But at some point she admitted everything?”
“And promised it would never happen again, that it was over. That he had a serious girlfriend. That they’d met only to talk, to break up. All lies.”
“But you and Mom obviously worked through it. You must’ve.”
He shook his head.
“No? You were together for the rest of her life.”
“Eventually. But”—and here his voice sounded as bitter as I’d ever heard it—“how humiliating do you think it was? One of my graduates, the most likely to succeed, was bedding the principal’s wife! I knew damn well it wasn’t a one-time rendezvous. Essentially, I threw her out.” He paused, then added softly, “Like a trailer-trash husband except I stopped short of throwing her clothes out the window.”
Now I began rewriting my family history for the second time in one week. “You asked her to leave, but she didn’t, obviously.”
“Yes, she did, that same day, and moved in with her parents.”
“For how long?”
“Until she begged to come back. She rang the doorbell one night. It was late. I was weak—”
“You loved her.”
“I let her in. She cried. She apologized. Profusely.”
“So she stayed.”
“She had to. In those days she’d have lost her job.”
“Wait. Because she was having an affair? Had it gone public?”
“No. Not that. But if she’d been a woman, separated . . .”
It took a few seconds. I said, “She was pregnant.”
“She was pregnant,” my father said, and reached for me.
13
There’s Proof and There’s Proof
One might expect that my father and I would spend a few more hours—or at least minutes—discussing reopened wounds and mortal sins. We didn’t.
“I’m talked out,” he told me, hand back on the doorknob. “I never thought . . .”
“Never thought what?”
“That all of this would see the light of day.”
I had my hand flat against the door, blocking his departure. “One more question, and I’ll never ask again: Isn’t it possible that you and Mom together—”
“Conceived you? No.”
“You know for a fact because you had some scientific proof?”
“I did some wishful thinking that by some trick of the calendar you were mine. But I knew as soon as you were born.”
I waited, asked him to sit, to stay, to tell me how he knew from the get-go that I couldn’t be his.
The next two words were pronounced so softly I had to ask him to repeat them.
“Blood type.”
“Mine?”
“Yours. Your mother and I were both type O.”
“So? Doesn’t that make you the universal donor?”
“But not the universal parent. We two couldn’t produce a child with AB blood.”
And that was me: type AB.
“That was proof for you, but not for”—I now had a title for him—“the donor?”
Another barely audible answer: “There’s proof and there’s proof.”
I asked what that meant.
“Just because you weren’t my child didn’t mean you were his. He’s a lawyer. That’s how lawyers think. He wanted a DNA test. I said no, but all your mother had to do was swab the inside of your cheek. When I wasn’t home. Apparently, she had to prove to him that she was merely an unfaithful wife, not a slut.”
The shock of “slut” pronounced by Thomas Maritch testified that this had been festering for possibly my entire life. “Did you think there were others, because that would be too crazy and too”—did “out of character” fit now that June Winter Maritch was a woman I knew not at all?—“unlikely?”
My father said, “I’ve gone too far,” and after an exhausted sigh, “What’s the point of this, Daff? I wish you’d never gone to that damn reunion and I’d never opened my big mouth.”
Me, too. Could we ever walk this back to the twosome we’d become, the Dad and Daughter Club of New York City? I said, “Stay! How about souvlaki from that place you liked on West Fifty-sixth? I have a five-dollar-off coupon.”
“Not up to it. If I’m hungry later, I’ll scramble some eggs.”
I caught him by the jacket sleeve as he opened the door. “If you’re worried that I’m going to make friends with P. A. just because he sent me flowers, you don’t have to worry”—realizing and regretting as soon as I’d pronounced the letters that P. A. spelled “Pa.”
“He did more in this life than send you flowers.”
“You’re my father in every conceivable way!”
“You might want to rephrase that,” he said.
Was the whistling across the hall meant to broadcast Jeremy’s arrival home? Guessing yes, I used the opportunity to dump some trash.
“Long day?” I asked, wastebasket prop in hand.
“Miss Daphne. Fancy meeting you here. Nope, this is standard.”
I didn’t have anything to contribute with regard to a standard work schedule, so I said, “Maybe we could have another drink som
e time.”
“Sure.”
In my new role as a loose woman, I asked, “Such as now?”
“Give me a half hour.”
“Not too soon?”
“No. Just a quick shower.”
“I didn’t mean too soon to come over. I mean too soon since . . .” I completed the thought with a lowered gaze meant to imply our last intercourse.
“Your call.”
I told him I’d be over after I jumped in the tub and changed from the clothes I was wearing earlier this evening when I told my dad what I’d found out at the reunion.
He had his bike resting on his shoulder and a backpack strap in one hand. “Do you want to discuss this?”
I said no. It was still so raw.
“Clearly.”
“He’s upset, possibly even mad at me. He’s never mad at me.”
Jeremy had unlocked his door and was waving good-bye, the good-humored kind that translates to Enough/Shhh/Save it.
14
Gold-Dome Dirt
I woke up in Jeremy’s big bed, my clothes a room away, the sun shining from an exposure not available next door. I thanked him for his hospitality and his other talents, said yes to coffee but no to an oversize bagel, and was back in my apartment by 7:30 a.m. I waited an hour before calling my dad, who’d sent a rather stingy good-night text in reply to mine.
“Are we okay?” I asked him.
“I didn’t sleep great, but that’s not your fault.”
I said I think it was.
“Let’s not go round and round on this. What’s done is done.”
But it wasn’t. My not sleeping great had to do with the ugly breaking news that my entire existence was based on a lie. Shouldn’t I have been warned of inheritable diseases that might be down the road? Or told to work harder in high school because I could apply as a legacy to Dartmouth? Such were the 2 a.m. agitations of a dispossessed daughter.
But by the light of day, I was asking, “Can we have lunch? Or take a walk? Or anything?”
“Not today. I’ve made some plans.”
“A date?”
“I have to go,” he said.
I was hearing announcements now, a list of towns and cities that sounded loudspeakerish. “Are you at Port Authority?”
“Just cutting through.”
“Let me know when you want to get together.”
“I will. Gotta run.”
I asked, “To where?” but he’d already hung up.
I got my answer by late afternoon that day. After taking a bus north to New Hampshire’s capital, he’d walked to the State House and straight to the office of Senator Peter Armstrong.
No, he told the receptionist, he didn’t have an appointment. No, he didn’t want to take a seat. Was the senator in? Was the senator through that door? Without permission, he rushed past her into Armstrong’s office, where he found the senator on the phone, a sandwich unwrapped and sitting prissily on the open square of a cloth napkin.
Senator Armstrong had no reason to recognize this intruder as the cuckolded husband of his old flame. He said into the phone, “I’m putting the receiver down, but stay on the line. I might have trouble here.”
He addressed the gray-haired receptionist swatting at the intruder and hyperventilating. “Marie? What’s this about? No, stay back.”
“I couldn’t stop him!” she cried.
“You called security?”
“Of course!”
He asked my father, who hadn’t done anything but plant himself in front of the massive wooden desk, if he’d passed through the metal detector at the public entrance.
“Of course I did! Everyone has to.”
Backup arrived—one armed security guard and a New Hampshire state trooper whose dull beat was the State House, both wielding metal batons.
“Sir,” everyone seemed to be saying at once. “Sir. Please back away from the senator’s desk.”
My father told them he’d come only to have words with the senator on a personal matter. Still, they asked him to back away.
How did I get every word and detail? From a 603 number not his own. “I can’t talk long. I was allowed one phone call.”
“You’re in jail?” I yelled. “Dad? Where?”
“Concord. Not strictly speaking jail. It’s the booking room.”
“They arrested you?”
“For criminal trespassing. They took my phone, so if you tried to—”
“Criminal trespassing? Did you say criminal?”
“That’s the formal charge.”
“I’m coming right up!”
“No, you are not.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I’ll take a bus and be there by . . .” When? How many fucking stops does a bus between New York City and Concord, New Hampshire, make?
“They need the phone—”
“Do you have a lawyer?”
“Could you call Julian? I don’t have his number.”
“Are you actually being locked up?”
“I don’t know. I think there’s talk of a bail bondsman.”
A male voice was grousing, “Wrap it up, buddy. I gotta get back on the road.”
Now in tears, I demanded, “Wait! Are they putting you in jail?”
No answer because the line had gone dead. How rude! The cop or sheriff or trooper or warden or next criminal in line to use the phone must’ve lost patience and hung it up.
It didn’t take long, only one minute of mental paralysis, to realize there was another avenue to pursue besides catching a plane or renting a car. I dug out Armstrong’s business card and called what I hoped was a direct line. When a woman answered, I said, none too calmly, “This is the daughter of the man you sent to jail today. I need to speak to Senator Armstrong immediately.”
She didn’t answer. Had that snitch hung up on me? I waited until a male voice intoned, “Peter Armstrong.”
“You arrested my dad!”
“Who is this?” he had the nerve to ask.
“Daphne! My father called me from jail!”
“I assure you, it wasn’t my decision.”
“Aren’t you the one who pressed charges?”
“He trespassed. And threatened me.”
“What threat? What did he say that scared you so much?”
“You don’t barge into a government office without permission. He was loud enough to be heard in my waiting area—”
“Oh, boo-hoo. Did you not know he was my father?”
“He made that quite clear. And you’ll have to prepare yourself for what this might bring.”
“Prison?” I yelped.
“I meant for you. There were visitors out in my waiting area—one was a reporter waiting to interview me about a bill . . .”
I was already appalled that a law-abiding man of impeccable everything would be arrested in his own state capitol. But there was more. What my father had yelled at Peter Armstrong, loud enough to be heard beyond the inner sanctum, was a warning to keep the hell away from me. From Daphne. His daughter. His! Do not call, do not write, do not email or send flowers!
The Concord Monitor didn’t have a gossip column, but the reporter on hand had a blog titled Gold-Dome Dirt, which usually carried no juicier scoops than hirings, firings, and snow closings.
But finally, blessedly, this: The state senate’s most eligible bachelor had been warned by a furious father, a disturber of the peace, to keep the hell away from his daughter.
15
It Still Sounds Fishy to Me
My father called from the bus on his way back to Manhattan. After my first gush of relief over his not being incarcerated, I yelled, “What’s wrong with you? Since when did you become a guy who breaks into people’s offices?”
“Calm down,” he said. “This is why I didn’t let you in on my plan.”
“Plan! So this wasn’t just a visit that got out of hand? You intended all along to break down his door and threaten him?”
“You’re hysterical, Daff. I
did not break down any door. I was released on personal recognizance. Bail was set at $250, so I had to put down $25 to get out of there. Look, I’m getting a low-battery warning. I’ll call you when I’m fully charged.”
Fully charged in what sense? When he didn’t call, I worried on and off for three days, interspersed with nursing grievances over what no one had ever bothered to tell me. Had I missed some subtle hints in the past ten or twenty years? Had I never wondered why I was the hazel-eyed daughter in an otherwise blue-eyed family?
And what was my dad dwelling on now that the truth was finally out? Legally, she’s mine, but there is the shiny object of Armstrong, who’d never grounded her or given her an 11:30 curfew or made her take AP calculus.
Enough wondering where we stood! I called him. He answered, sounding out of breath. “I’m on a brisk walk!” he announced.
“Tell me where. I’ll catch up with you.”
“You can’t. I’m on the job.”
“Did you say job?”
“The best one I ever had!” And then, “No, Punkin. Wait. Stay. I have to pick it up.”
“Pick what up?”
“Not you—Punkin. A pitbull-Lab mix. She just pooped.”
“Did you get a dog?”
“No, it’s a client’s.”
I heard more baby talk, presumably aimed at Punkin, and then a monologue with someone named Gizmo. “How many dogs are you walking?” I asked.
“Three. You start with one and work your way up.”
“When did this happen?”
“Two days ago. I answered an ad on Craigslist. They liked that I was from New Hampshire, which sounded—who knows what they were thinking?—rural, good with animals. I didn’t disabuse them of that.”
“Did I know you loved dogs enough to be a dog walker?”
And with that, I got the first near-ironic answer of our unfortunate past few days. “I guess you’ve figured out by now that you don’t know everything about me.”
“Everything? How about next to nothing? What do you call running off to Concord like a lunatic?”
“Calm down. I’m having the time of my life. And I’ve been told by Manuel that dogs can be a magnet for the ladies.”
Good Riddance Page 8