The Question of the Absentee Father

by E. J. Copperman

  I am not well versed in social interaction and there are times when gestures are difficult for me to interpret. This was not one of those times. I took the envelope from Mother and sat back in the chair. I removed the two sheets of paper and, remembering how she had treated them when she first read them, I smoothed them out on my left thigh. Perhaps Mother believed the paper was especially fragile or dry and that it might somehow decompose. In any event I felt it best to mirror her motions.

  The letter read as follows:

  Vivian—

  I am sorry I could not send money this time.

  My situation has taken an unusual turn and you might not hear from me again. I want you to understand that I have done the best I could. From what I have heard, Sam has grown up to be a remarkable man. That is a testament to your hard work all these years. You know I wasn’t cut out for that.

  I hope you are in good health. I find that is the most important thing in life now that I have reached this age.

  Suffice it to say you deserved better than me. I hope you found that. In the meantime, if this is our last communication, know that I remain the man who asked you to marry him on that carousel so long ago. Unfortunately, that man couldn’t give you the life he wanted you to have.

  Say hello to Sam for me.

  The rest of the letter was more personal and Mother has not given me permission to share its contents. It was not relevant to the question she had asked.

  I looked up after completing my reading. “I would imagine I am the Sam he mentions?” I asked.

  Mother laughed. “Yes, Samuel. Your father thought your name was too formal for a little boy.”

  “He clearly did not understand the little boy in question,” I observed.

  “He didn’t have time. He was gone most of the time on business even then, sales trips for the music company. He tried very hard, but he didn’t realize having a family meant more than just paying the bills.”

  “There is very little information in this letter to help locate my father,” I told her. It was best under these circumstances to be certain Mother’s expectations were realistic.

  “I know,” she said. “But he keeps saying we might never hear from him again. That sounds very dire, Samuel. Your father needs your help.”

  “I doubt I can be of help if his problem is medical, Mother. You have asked me where Reuben Hoenig is and I will do my best to answer your question for you. But I can’t promise to fix any of his problems once I do. I intend to provide you with an address, not to travel there for a reunion with a father I don’t remember.”

  Mother looked at me for a moment. “We’ll see when that happens, won’t we, Samuel?” she said. I did not understand what she meant by that, but the look on her face, which appeared to be hurt, stopped me from asking.

  I could not comprehend Mother’s apparent pain at my logical attitude toward the question she had asked. I would have to consult with Ms. Washburn in the morning because I could not get an explanation from Mother herself without risking causing more emotional upset unintentionally.

  “Mother, I have read the letter you received tonight and I have agreed to answer your question,” I said. “Perhaps it is best if we both get some sleep before I begin to work on the answer.” I stood up, although I had every intention of commencing my research once I reached my attic apartment. I don’t lie to Mother, but in this case I was not telling the whole truth. It is a distinction that took me a long time to comprehend.

  “Maybe so,” Mother said. There was something in her inflection that I found strangely unconvincing.

  Before I reached the door I turned back because a question had suggested itself and I was struggling to find the proper way to ask. Emotional people like my mother can be upset with a turn of phrase even when the intention is clearly not malevolent.

  “Mother,” I said. “My father has been gone from this house and our lives for many years. It is … confusing to me that you obviously still harbor such deep feelings for him while I truly have none. After all, he has not been your husband in a very long time.”

  Mother’s eyes widened a little and I briefly believed I had offended her, but then I recognized her expression as one of surprise. When I was a teenager and starting with Dr. Mancuso, he had given me drawings and photographs of people’s faces with words indicating the emotions their expressions were meant to convey: Sadness, Joy, Anxiety, Anger, and so on. I had practiced my observations mostly on Mother for the bulk of my life and had been studying Ms. Washburn for over a year now. I knew Mother was not angry but I was not prepared for her to be startled by what I had asked.

  “Oh no, Samuel,” she said. “Reuben has always been my husband, and he is my husband today. We never got divorced.”

  three

  “They’re still married?”

  Ms. Washburn sat at her desk, which is to my left in the Questions Answered office. The room is large and mostly empty. In the center are the two desks, both wooden but acquired from separate manufacturers because I was not anticipating having an associate in the business before Ms. Washburn arrived with a question and stayed to work with me. Behind us and to the right when one enters are the two pizza ovens left over from when the space housed the San Remo’s Pizzeria. They have not been used in some time but are still functional because I find them interesting.

  “Yes,” I answered her. “Apparently my mother never filed for divorce and my father has not been in touch.” I shook my head in wonderment. “There are times I don’t understand even what my mother does. The circumstances were clear. My father had left and never returned. If she had gotten a divorce, there might have been monthly alimony and child support payments instead of the occasional envelope of cash. Is there something I’m missing, Ms. Washburn?”

  She did not hesitate in her response, and nodded her head affirmatively. “She still loves your father, Samuel. She doesn’t want to declare their marriage is over.”

  “That is not supported by the facts,” I argued. “They have not seen each other in twenty-seven years. The legal definition of marriage is upheld only because neither of them ever acted to end it. Financially that could have been a very large mistake on my mother’s part.”

  Ms. Washburn shrugged. “Maybe, but love isn’t always about what makes the most sense, Samuel.” She looked down at her keyboard for a moment and did not speak again. That was a signal I did not comprehend. I chose not to act.

  I looked at my computer screen. I had in fact not done any research intended to locate my father the night before. I had been distracted by my mother’s revelations and the lingering feeling that I had somehow caused her some emotional distress, although she denied it. Instead I played With the Beatles, a British pressing on vinyl, because it helps me to think. I had taken more time than usual to fall asleep.

  Mother had seemed herself this morning, being sure to cook a breakfast she knew I would appreciate and speaking of ordinary things. She did not mention Reuben Hoenig, the letter, or her question at all. She must have felt her message had been delivered.

  I did not consider that odd, but I did wonder if she was trying to avoid a painful subject. The traits of my Asperger’s Syndrome make it difficult for me to know. But since the morning had been normal and not unpleasant I felt it was best not to question Mother and treated the day as I would any other. Routine is important to me. I was at my desk, after Mother had driven me to the office on Stelton Road, at the usual time.

  I began the search for my father’s location as I always do. The simplest devices are often the best to launch one’s research.

  A Google search for the name “Reuben Hoenig” returned only eight results, which is highly unusual. Apparently my father’s name is among the rarer ones in the world.

  There were only six such listings that referred to a specific individual and identified his location. One was in Austria, one in Finland, one in the Nethe
rlands. There were American Reuben Hoenigs in Houston, Texas; Painesville, Ohio; and Billings, Montana. None was listed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Seattle, Washington, the only two cities in which my mother could be certain my father had resided after he left our home in Piscataway, New Jersey.

  I would at some point have to ask my mother if she knew of any aliases my father might have used during his life. For some reason, the thought of broaching the subject with Mother again made my stomach feel tight, a sensation I have had during times of anxiety.

  I will confess that I had walked into her bedroom that morning when I knew she would not be there and had taken the letter in its envelope from her nightstand. It was a breach of trust that I would normally never commit, but I thought Mother would prefer not to discuss the subject and would want me to have the letter to analyze it for data that might prove helpful in discerning my father’s location. I would return it when I went home for lunch at twelve thirty this afternoon.

  The Google search had yielded very little, but perhaps that made the task easier. If my father was not living under an assumed name, it would be simple to contact all three of the Reuben Hoenigs in the United States and determine if one of them was the man in question. If none proved to be my father, we could move on to the Europeans in the group and possibly eliminate all six in a short period of time.

  Ms. Washburn broke the silence that I had settled into rather comfortably. “Do you think your father loved your mother, Samuel?”

  I did not see the relevance of the question. My father’s emotional state, particularly in reference to his feelings for my mother more than two decades before, would not help discover his location today. “I could not say,” I answered. “I have very few independent memories of my father, and even those might simply be the product of repeated stories my mother has told me.”

  “What do you remember?” she asked.

  It was twenty minutes after the hour and that meant I should begin my exercise program for the day. I stood up and began to walk briskly around the perimeter of the Questions Answered office, raising my arms above my head to increase my heart rate. Ms. Washburn knows I do this routine three times every hour between nine a.m. and five p.m., so she did not react at all. In fact she did not even look up from her computer screen to chart my progress.

  “Not very much,” I reiterated. “I remember being at a petting zoo and sitting on my father’s shoulders. It seemed like I was very high in the air, but from what I know of him my father is not an especially tall man.”

  I did not see Ms. Washburn but I could hear the smile in her voice. “To a little boy any grownup is a tall person,” Ms. Washburn said.

  I completed one circuit of the offices. Twelve more to go and then I could purchase a bottle of spring water from the vending machine we keep in a corner next to the pizza ovens.

  “It is an issue of perspective,” I agreed. “I remember my father urging me to pet a goat and my resistance because it looked very dirty.”

  Ms. Washburn did not comment on that. “Do you recall anything else? What was he like?”

  I had not thought about my father this much since before I started kindergarten so the answers were not definitive or quick to my mind. “He smelled of aftershave lotion,” I said. “I do not know which brand.”

  “That’s probably not really important,” Ms. Washburn suggested.

  “I have seen a few photographs,” I continued. “Mother keeps one in her room and I made a point of examining it last night. My father is, or at least was a quarter-century ago, a man with curly brown hair, clean-shaven and well attired. He had no distinguishing marks on his face or neck and none on his hands that I could see. His eyes were dark and I believe brown, but the angle of the photograph and the distance from the camera made it difficult for me to reach a conclusion on that issue.” I had completed seven rounds of the office space and my breathing was becoming a bit more labored, although certainly nothing I did not expect. This was the point of aerobic exercise, after all, to increase heart levels and strengthen the system.

  “It would help to have a more current photograph,” Ms. Washburn mused.

  “If we had one, we probably would have found my father’s location and the question would be answered,” I pointed out.

  Ms. Washburn hesitated as I finished the eighth circuit.

  “Say what you are thinking, Ms. Washburn,” I advised her. “There is no need to worry about my feelings. I am dealing quite rationally with this question.”

  I stole a glance at her and saw her bite her lips lightly and nod.

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious?” she asked. “Once we find out where he’s living, wouldn’t you want to go see him? Ask him about his life? Tell him about yours?”

  “You know of my aversion to travel.” I much prefer predictable routine to a break in the usual schedule. I do not understand the appeal of surprises. “Besides, I see no point to such a trip. My father has made it clear that his life is not to be shared with my mother and me. I have lived this long without knowing him. I don’t understand why it would be relevant now.” Nine circuits and now my arms were feeling predictably heavy.

  “Because he’s your father,” Ms. Washburn said softly.

  “He has been my father for the past twenty-seven years plus the four when he lived with us,” I countered. “Nothing has changed.”

  My last four trips around the office perimeter were not supplemented with conversation. By that time I am breathing more heavily and concentrating on finishing the task. Ms. Washburn understands that and allows for the adjustment. I completed my exercise, walked directly to the vending machine, and purchased a bottle of spring water. On Tuesday a man named Les would come by, refill the machine, and pay me back a percentage of the money I’d spent on beverages during the week. It is an odd system but it works for both parties, apparently.

  When I sat down at my desk again it occurred to me that Ms. Washburn might want a bottle of the diet soda she prefers so I asked her. She complimented me on remembering to ask but said it was too early in the morning for such a beverage and that she wasn’t thirsty anyway. Ms. Washburn, I know, attends a gymnasium three nights each week and does not follow my in-office regimen.

  “So what’s our plan?” she asked. “Do we call all the Reuben Hoenigs and hope we get lucky?”

  There is a colloquial, less polite definition to the term “get lucky,” but I was fairly confident that was not what Ms. Washburn meant. “If you would agree to take three of the phone calls, I will do the others,” I said. Ms. Washburn, knowing that I am uncomfortable on the phone, has been urging me to practice more, so I have made an effort. I intended to give her all the numbers in the United States and hope that the Hoenigs in the European countries did not speak English, thus making the calls short and less stressful.

  She smiled, acknowledging the concession I was making. “But you get at least one in America.” Perhaps when a woman has kissed you, it is sometimes more difficult to disguise your intentions from her. There is no scientific data to support this observation, but I have found it to be true.

  I nodded, conceding the point. “First we should examine the letter itself for any indicators it might contain.” I picked up the envelope and turned on the desk lamp to better illuminate the surface. I have a magnifying mirror in my lower desk drawer and took it out with a slight feeling of embarrassment. Magnifiers are an investigative cliché. But in this instance it was necessary.

  Ms. Washburn walked to my desk and stood behind my chair, looking over my shoulder. I was aware of her presence but my attention was focused on the envelope. I removed the two pages and again smoothed them out carefully on the surface of my desk, side by side. I felt the best information, if there was any, would come from the envelope, so I held that back and examined the pages of the letter first.

  “What are we looking for?” Ms. Washburn said quietly. She was very clos
e behind me and no doubt wanted to avoid startling me. She would tell me later that she thought the moment held a certain solemnity to it, but I was not aware of any particular emotional charge. I was searching for data.

  “We won’t know until we find it,” I answered. “I am not a handwriting analyst so there will be little I can discern from the script itself. Perhaps the paper holds some secrets we can discover.”

  “It’s not stationery,” Ms. Washburn noted. “It doesn’t have an imprint.”

  I looked closely through the magnifier, which stands on its own on the desk. “You are correct, Ms. Washburn. And it holds no watermark that might help identify where it was purchased. This is stock paper, perhaps from an academic notebook, no doubt bought in bulk. There is nothing especially distinctive about it.”

  “What about the ink?”

  I examined it. “Nothing special. Not from a fountain pen, certainly. A ballpoint, again probably one of many. Perhaps my father works in an office supply store or selling for a paper company. He did once sell musical instruments, and I suppose a salesman can work with any product. There has been a very long gap in our knowledge of him, which makes even an educated guess very difficult to make.”

  “What was the postmark on the envelope?” Ms. Washburn asked. “Wouldn’t that at least tell us the city he mailed it in?”

  “Because my mother insists Reuben is not a dishonest man, we can probably eliminate the notion that he would have used one of the websites designed to postmark a piece of mail in a location other than the one in which the mailer is living,” I said. “I examined the postmark on the envelope. Please take a look and tell me what you see.”

  Ms. Washburn pointed at the envelope and I nodded that it was indeed my intention that she should pick it up. No crime had been committed that we knew about and there was no reason to think fingerprints would be an issue. Besides, the envelope had already been handled by postal sorters, a mail carrier, my mother, and myself. Another set of prints would not add very much to the confusion. Ms. Washburn raised the envelope to a level where she could examine it closely.