“Is there a café or a restaurant nearby?” There was. Cookie had researched it and sent him four places. She didn’t know the reason for his visit, and she’d kill herself before asking.
“Yes. Um, this way.”
They didn’t speak, though a few times, someone said, “Hey, Professor,” or “Hi, Dr. Zane!” Joshua’s father didn’t acknowledge their greetings. Maybe he didn’t even hear them. The cold air put some color back into his face, and he kept glancing at Josh, who returned his looks calmly. He waited for feelings to come. They didn’t. They probably would, he imagined. Just not yet.
On the next block was an Irish pub. Christopher Zane opened the door and held it for Josh. Inside was dark and warm.
“Chris! How you doin’?” called the bartender.
“I’m good, Tim, I’m good.” So he was a regular here. No introduction for Josh. “Hey, we’re gonna take a booth in the back, okay?” He turned to Josh. “What would you like to drink?”
“Coffee.”
“Coffee and club soda, Tim,” he told the bartender. “We’ll save you the trip and take them with us.”
An interminable minute later, and they had their beverages.
It was almost four, and already getting dark. Josh followed his father to the booth farthest in the back. They took off their coats and sat. It was a nice pub. Rather ordinary, but homey.
“So this is . . . quite a surprise,” Christopher said, taking a big breath.
“I’m sure it is.”
“How old are you, Joshua?”
“Thirty-one as of October fourteenth.” The worst birthday of his life, this last one. The first without Lauren. The first as a widower.
“Jesus. God. I . . .” He took a long pull of his club soda. “I guess I should ask what you’d like to . . . do. Or say.”
“I wanted to meet you. Ask you a few things.”
“Right. Right. Of course.” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “Sorry, this is a lot to take in.” Another swallow or two of club soda. “Uh . . . how is your . . . your mother?”
“Alive. That’s all you get to know.”
Christopher flinched. “Fair enough.”
“I know you’re married and have three children with cowboy names. I know where you grew up, where you went to school, that you have a sister named Eileen. I know your parents sold their farm in Indiana and now live in Arizona. I know you owned a café in Wicker Park.”
“Jesus, the internet really does tell all.” He blew out a breath. “Do you want money?”
Josh couldn’t help a bitter laugh. “It’s a little late for child support.”
“I mean, I do owe you. And there is money. Now. There wasn’t always. The farm sold—”
“I know, and I don’t care. I want you to tell me how you could leave a pregnant twenty-year-old and your unborn child.”
Christopher M. Zane leaned back in his seat and looked at the ceiling for a long minute. When he looked back at Josh, his eyes were full of tears.
“I don’t have a good answer for that. There is no answer, other than I was a shitty, stupid kid—”
“You were twenty-five.”
“And as immature and stupid as a sixteen-year-old.” He drained his club soda. “Let me text my wife and tell her I’ll be late. Hang on a sec.”
Josh waited.
Christopher texted, then turned off his phone and put it in his coat pocket. Josh appreciated that. The man took another deep breath. “Listen, I can’t justify what I did. Walking away, I mean. I didn’t plan it. I was taking part in a summer project in Austin that year, and I fully intended to go back to Boston. And then I stopped home in Indiana. I hadn’t told my parents about . . . you. Or Stephanie.” He looked at his hands. “They . . . my parents, that is . . . they were so happy to see me.”
Josh waited. “My father immigrated from Pakistan when he was seventeen.” Ah. So that’s where Josh got his dark hair and eyes. “He worked ninety hours a week for ten years as a janitor and a farmhand before he could buy his first piece of land. Thirteen acres. He ended up with eight thousand. I was the first person on either side of the family to finish college. My mom didn’t even finish high school.”
Christopher stopped to let that sink in. Or just to gather his nerves, maybe. Josh had to hand it to him; he wasn’t tap-dancing around.
Josh wasn’t really here to listen to the story of his invisible grandparents and their American dream, but it was interesting. Pakistan. He was Pakistani. Cool. He’d have to do some reading on the culture and history. After all, it wasn’t his ancestors who’d dumped his mom.
“Is your mother also Pakistani?” Josh asked.
“No. She’s white. Her parents didn’t approve of her dating a . . . well, they had ugly words for my father. So they kicked her out, and they got married when they were really young.”
“You think they’d approve of you walking out on your pregnant girlfriend?” Josh asked, his voice almost amiable.
“God, no. I never told them. They . . . were so proud of me. I was supposed to be proof that they’d made all the right choices. I wasn’t supposed to be an idiot and get a girl pregnant.”
“And yet you did.”
“Yes. Joshua, I have no excuses here. I was scared and selfish and entitled and weak. I couldn’t go back to MIT, and so I dropped out. I—” His voice broke. “I just stayed. Like a coward. Like a selfish asshole.”
He wiped his eyes. Josh was unmoved.
“The longer I stayed, the easier it got. I told myself your mother would go back to Sweden.”
“Why would she go to Sweden?” Josh asked. “She grew up in central New York. She spent one semester in Sweden. She’s a second-generation American. She knows maybe ten Swedish words.”
“Oh. I . . . I thought she was from Sweden, for some reason.”
“Wrong.”
“Well. It doesn’t excuse what I did. But that’s what I told myself. She was back there, they had . . . uh, better healthcare and, oh, shit, I was so stupid and self-centered and grasping at any straws. Call it magical thinking or wish fulfillment or me just pretending she’d floated off to a better life, becoming a doctor. After a while, I believed it. I pictured her in Sweden, having the baby—you—there, raising you there.”
“She moved to Providence. Transferred to Brown, because they gave her more money than Harvard. I was born at Rhode Island Hospital. She didn’t go to medical school. She couldn’t, not with me.” He let the guilt sink in. “She kept her old post office box in case you ever reached out.”
There was a long silence.
“I never did,” his father acknowledged.
“I’m well aware of that.”
Christopher M. Zane had a hard time making eye contact. “I want to tell you that . . . my decision haunted me. Not that I did anything about it other than drink. I hated myself. I flunked out of my master’s program and had to restart a year later. I knew I was being weak, but . . .” He shook his head. “But the longer it went on, the harder it felt to undo any of the harm I did. Eventually, I told myself you were both better off without me showing up and begging for forgiveness, because what I did was . . . unforgivable.”
“Did you even know that I was a boy? Did you bother to find out?”
His father looked at him, blinking. More tears fell from his eyes, Josh observed impassively. “No,” Christopher M. Zane said. “Once a certain amount of time had passed, I told myself it was for the best.”
“For you, clearly it was.”
“I don’t know about that. I think it made me a far worse person. I’ve lived with that shame for thirty-one years.”
“Good. You should be ashamed.”
His father nodded.
So there it was. His father had been a shallow, selfish idiot. Josh sipped his coffee, which was tepid now, and thought he
should design something for that problem. A heating cube that would warm your coffee or tea without making it taste old and bitter, the way the microwave did. Honestly, if there wasn’t something like that already on the market, he’d whip one up and sell it in a heartbeat.
It was comforting to think of himself back home, at his desk, rather than here, with the man who didn’t even know Josh had been born.
“If I could do it over, I would have made very different choices,” Christopher M. Zane said quietly. “When my wife and I had our first child, I went into a very . . .” He sighed. “A very bad place. I kept thinking about how much I loved him, and how I’d thrown you away, and I was afraid to love my boy.”
Josh felt his first flicker of sympathy. The kid didn’t do anything, after all.
“I couldn’t tell my wife, and I . . . I started drinking again. She threatened to kick me out, I got sober, got counseling. Then our daughter was born, and then our second girl, and it helped. By then, I felt it was too late to try to find you and Stephanie. Too much time had passed.”
“You could’ve tried.”
“Yes. Believe me, I know that. I try to be a good father to them, but I can never stop feeling doomed in some way because of what I did to you. If the universe ever took one of them, I’d probably deserve it.” His voice broke.
Drama queen. Still. Either he was a fantastic Method actor, or he was genuinely affected by Joshua’s surprise appearance, because the tears continued to rain down.
“I don’t think the universe works that way,” Josh said.
“I’m so sorry,” his father said. “I’m so very, very sorry.”
Josh inclined his head a little bit, acknowledging the words.
His father wiped his eyes on the cocktail napkin, blew his nose, then folded his hands on the table, and Josh realized with a start that those were his hands, twenty-five years from now. Same shape, same knuckles, same shape to the fingernails.
“Do you love your kids?” Josh asked.
His father’s eyes filled again. “I do.”
“Good.” He figured he should add something. “They have unusual names.”
“My wife picked them out. I didn’t feel like I—oh, God, I’m making this all about me. But I didn’t feel like I deserved to name anyone. If my kids’ names sound like something you’d name a dog on a horse ranch, well. They’re fine. They’re good kids.”
Josh almost smiled.
“Can I ask you some questions, Joshua?”
“Sure.” Why not?
“Was your childhood . . . okay?”
Josh nodded. “It was. It was very happy. I’m sure my mother could’ve used some help, but she figured it all out.”
“She was brilliant.”
“She is brilliant. No love lost for you, though.”
“I don’t blame her in the least.” He hesitated. “Did she ever marry?”
Josh considered not answering. Then again, why not? “No.”
Christopher nodded, looking at the table. “I had hoped . . . I pictured her marrying. I hoped you might have a nice stepfather.”
“Nope.” He had Ben, though. The memory of Ben, teaching him to ride a bike, making paper airplanes, made his chest ache. He had had a father. A great father. He still did.
“Does she need money? Do you?” Christopher asked.
“We would both burn your money at this point,” Josh said.
“If you needed it, that’s the least I could—”
A red flame danced in Joshua’s left eye. “Dr. Zane. We don’t need your money. If we were starving, we wouldn’t take it.”
His father nodded. “I get it. And I respect that.” The red flame died down.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. A few people had come into the pub, but they were at the bar. Snatches of conversation and laughter floated past like smoke.
“Um . . . what do you do for a living, Joshua?”
Google would tell him whatever he wanted to know, so Josh figured he might as well. “I’m a medical device engineer.”
“Really! That’s terrific! So . . . uh, what do you focus on?”
“Pediatrics, mostly. Some surgical devices. Adaptations for minimal invasiveness and pain.”
“That’s wonderful. That’s great, son.” He winced. “I’m sorry. Force of habit. I call a lot of my students that. Midwestern thing.”
“It’s okay. I am your son, I suppose. Genetically, if nothing else.”
“I can see a little bit of my father in you.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“Right. Sorry. It’s hard to know the right thing to say.”
“I understand. This is an unusual situation.”
“Are you always this . . . self-contained?” his father asked with a faint smile.
“Most of the time, yes.”
His father’s smile grew. “Good for you.” Another pause. “Where did you go to school?”
“RISD, Brown, MIT.”
“Wow. So you got your mother’s brains.” Neither of them acknowledged the coincidence of them both going to the same school. Stephanie had never breathed a word when he’d been offered a spot at MIT.
“And where do you live now, Josh?”
“In Providence.”
“You and your mother are close?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that.” He hesitated. “Are you married?” he asked, nodding at Josh’s left hand.
Josh looked at his wedding ring. “My wife died ten months ago. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.”
His father’s face fell. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
What would Lauren do at this moment? What would she have him say? If she were here, how would she make this situation easier? She’d wanted him to have some kind of closure, some kind of peace.
“Listen, Dr. Zane—”
“Oh, God, please. Call me Chris. Or . . . or whatever you want.”
“Okay. Chris.” The name felt strange in his mouth. He paused, trying to gather his thoughts. “Look. Not having any contact with you . . . it left a mark. I didn’t grow up hating you, and my mother never mentioned you in any way, except to tell me you left before I was born. But I always did feel a little . . . thrown away.”
His father nodded, his mouth wobbling. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
“But I’ve had a really good life. My mother is the best, and I have . . . I have people. And my wife, she was . . .” His eyes stung. “She was incredible, and we were very happy.” He cleared his throat. “So you didn’t ruin me. I never knew you, so you couldn’t. But I always wondered how I could be . . . tossed away like that.”
Chris nodded. “It had nothing to do with you,” he whispered fiercely. “Nothing. I was selfish. Completely self-absorbed. That’s the reason. I took the easiest, most cowardly path possible. I let your mother deal with everything alone, and I believe I’ll have to answer for that someday. I carry that with me. Every day, Joshua.” His voice broke.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Tim the bartender asked if they wanted a refill, and they both said no.
There was a perfectly symmetrical H carved into the table, and Josh traced it with his forefinger. A master carver, with the seraph base perfectly even. Well done.
“Why don’t you stop?” he asked his father.
“Stop what?”
“Feeling guilty.” He dragged his gaze away from the H and looked at his father’s face. “I don’t say this to be unkind, but we were probably better off without you.”
Chris gave a pained nod.
“It seems like you’re a better man now than you were then.”
His father bowed his head. “I appreciate that more than I can say,” he whispered.
Josh looked at him.
Weird, to think that half of his DNA came from this stranger. Then he stuck out his hand. “I forgive you.”
His father’s mouth opened slightly. He took Joshua’s hand and gripped it tightly. Josh squeezed back, and they stayed that way for a long minute before Josh withdrew.
“Do you . . . do you want to meet my family?” Chris asked. “Your . . . siblings?”
“Oh, God, no. I don’t see a reason to put this on them.”
He couldn’t tell if his father was relieved or disappointed. “Okay. Um . . . would you like to see pictures?”
“Uh . . . sure.” Huh. They had that in common, that hesitation of speech when they were unsure how to answer.
His father pulled out his phone, turned it back on and tapped the screen, then handed it over. “That’s at Christmas last year,” he said.
Josh looked at the screen—three kids, the girls in red dresses, the boy, tall and gangly, wearing a blue crewneck sweater. The older girl—Ransom—looked cheeky, and Josh felt a faint smile at the idea. He had a cheeky half sister who looked like him. Last week, he hadn’t known that.
“They look happy,” he said, handing the phone back.
“Thank you,” Chris whispered.
“What kind of things do you do together?” he asked.
“Oh, we, uh . . . well, we all like games and movies, so once a week, we have family night. And we go bowling sometimes. Ransom and Sawyer love baseball, so we go to a Cubs game once a year or so. Um . . . we do yard work together. Sometimes we go to the lake. We, um . . . we have a place up north. In Wisconsin.”
“That sounds nice.”
More tears fell from his father’s eyes. Well, Josh hadn’t inherited that trait. He was not a weeper. Sometimes, he wished he were. “You don’t have to tell them about me,” he said.
“I . . . I might.”
“That’s up to you. I don’t plan on visiting you again, Chris. I don’t need a father. I think it’s too late for us to be anything to each other.”
“I looked for you. On Ancestry.com. I thought maybe you’d . . . put yourself out there to track me down. One day, my kids will probably find out they have a brother.”
“Half brother.” Josh paused. “That’ll be a difficult conversation.”
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