The Milkman's Son

by Randy Lindsay

  “Tammy,” I write. “Please tell me more about you and your family. What hobbies do you have? What does your family do for fun? What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

  I send off the email and try to return to my writing. It doesn’t work. My mind continues to drift away from the story. I keep wondering what it would be like to get together with my New Jersey family. My anxiety over meeting people I don’t know is still there, but it fades with each email, text, and picture I receive from them. They are starting to feel, a little bit, like family to me.

  My children trickle home. First the youngest, as he walks in the house from grade school. Then, later, my two high schoolers. And finally, the lone junior high student. All of them stop in my office so I can find out about their days.

  Their replies range from a simple grunt by my oldest to an overly detailed account of my youngest son’s every move during the day. I’m not sure which is better. I send each of them off to do their homework while I prepare for my book club meeting.

  A sign on the front porch asks members of the group to let themselves in. Charlie the poodle greets me as I step inside Deb and Dave’s house. I scratch his head and stroll over to my usual seat. My path takes me dangerously close to a pan of brownies.

  Hmmmm . . . brownies. One of my three publicly known forms of kryptonite. And sitting next to the pan is a bowl of M&M’s. I rationalize with myself that I have this opportunity only during book club and transfer the smallest brownie in the pan to a snack plate. Then I take a scoop of the candies and drizzle them around the brownie.

  “What’s the latest news on your family in New Jersey?” Deb asks.

  Why is everyone so fascinated with the story of me having two dads?

  “Yeah, what did your Dad say?” Rebecca asks.

  “Which one?” Now they have me doing it. In my mind, Dad means the man who raised me. The man in New Jersey is my biological father—or just father. But that is a distinction no one else seems to understand.

  “Have you contacted your biological father?” Deb asks.

  Pam straightens up in her chair. “Right. Have you stalked him on Facebook?”

  Stalking? Since when did looking at a few pictures on the internet count as stalking? The word has such a negative connotation. My activities so far fall more into the category of social browsing or possibly a long-distance, impersonal introduction. But definitely not stalking.

  “I don’t stalk people,” I tell Pam. Then I turn toward Deb. “As much as I would like to have a discussion with my father, I’ve only been able to exchange emails with my sister out there.”

  “Has he accepted you?” asks Dave.

  “No,” I answer and then look down at my plate of goodies. My friends seem to have an endless river of questions. Then again, so do I. The problem is that I don’t have all the answers. This situation is still too new, too unsettling.

  How long are people going to ask me about my two dads? Will this become the favorite topic of discussion between my friends and me? Is this unusual family dynamic going to dominate my social interactions for the rest of my life?

  And is it going to bother me if I’m perpetually known as the milkman’s son?

  Dave starts the meeting, saving me from any further questions. It isn’t as if I mind the attention that comes from being the milkman’s son. I don’t even mind most of the questions. But sometimes the probing into my life, my feelings, strikes a sensitive spot. They serve as reminders of things I’d rather not face. Like the possibility of my own flesh-and-blood father rejecting me. During those moments, I’d rather not be the milkman’s son.

  The meeting passes quickly. Two hours of book discussion is barely enough time to engage in one of my favorite passions. That must be why they invented writing conventions and book fairs. Everyone in the group tells one another goodbye, and the meeting is over.

  I drive home and check my social media before bed. There’s a message on Facebook from Joe. It’s about my comment on his picture, “Yeah, got to have fun.”

  Then in a second message he gives me his cell phone number. I’ve already responded with my own before it hits me that we have taken the next step in our relationship. We have gone from Facebook messaging to brothers with the potential to call one another. It seems incredibly nerdish to get excited over a little thing like exchanging contact information, but when I spend every day wondering if my family in New Jersey is going to accept me . . . it feels like a big deal.

  I send the message and then open a pending friend request. It’s from Mrs. Petrauschke. I check the picture on her account and verify this is my new stepmother—not a sister-in-law or other New Jersey relative.

  Why is she friending me?

  She has posted a picture of her, Tammy, and several other women/girls who must be the daughters-in-law and the granddaughters. Mrs. Petrauschke is short. Only the youngest of the granddaughters is shorter. I have the same reaction as when I looked at pictures of my father. She seems nice.

  If she’s willing to connect with me on social media, maybe she really is nice. Based on my status as a child of another woman, I expect her to resist any effort to include me as part of her family. Or part of her husband’s family. I wonder what sort of thoughts are running through her head.

  Of all the efforts by my New Jersey family to connect with me, this one impresses me the most. This single request, from someone not related to me by blood, does more than all the rest to make me feel accepted. The only thing missing is an acknowledgment from my father. A simple message or email from Mr. Petrauschke would validate my membership in his family.

  I go to bed, happy with the way things are progressing with my other family.

  On Monday, I rush to the computer as soon as I awaken. As usual, there’s an email waiting for me from Tammy. Maybe this will be the one that contains the confirmation from my father that I am his son and he wants to meet me.

  “I think we are pretty boring. We gather together as much as possible. We have Sunday dinners after church and picnics in the summer. That is what I like to do for fun. We all live close to one another. My parents and daughter live just down the street from us. My son lives just a few blocks away.”

  What Tammy describes as boring is an image from a Norman Rockwell painting brought to life. A scene that could easily be placed in a handbook for the American lifestyle during the ’40s and ’50s. Families living close together and participating in one another’s daily routine is something I thought existed only in fiction . . . or my dreams. That sort of existence isn’t boring. In my eyes it’s heaven.

  She continues to write. “I’d like to know more about your family also. And my favorite flavor of ice cream is vanilla and chocolate mixed and stirred until it’s like soft serve.”

  Amazing. That’s what I like to do with my ice cream. No one else in my Arizona family does that. But my sister in New Jersey does.

  “I haven’t had a chance to sit down and talk with Bill. The last time he was over, there were a lot of people around. I’m sure he’ll want to contact you.

  “My kids haven’t said a lot. I did show them the pictures you sent me, and my son thinks your younger son looks a little bit like him when he was younger. We used to call him Scrawny Shauny because he was so skinny.

  “Dad seems to be having a hard time with the situation. I think it’s because he didn’t have any idea that he had another child. It’s hard for him to wrap his head around it. I think we might have to resign ourselves to the fact that we will probably never know exactly what happened with our parents. We will just have to keep moving forward.

  “We keep mentioning the DNA test to Dad, but he doesn’t believe it. He thinks it has to be a mistake. It looks like the only way we’re going to convince him you’re his son is to have him take a DNA test and match it to you.”

  Chapter 9

  Another Skeleton in the Clos
et

  The man can’t be serious. Who needs a DNA test? All anyone has to do is look at the high school pictures of me and Mr. Petrauschke to see that we’re father and son. Look at the lips. A DNA test should be necessary only if a person is determined to avoid the embarrassment and inconvenience of having to recognize me as his son.

  I push myself away from the computer and march out to the kitchen. Last night’s leftovers are in the fridge. None of them hits the right gastronomical note for the eating binge I have in mind. I decide I need tacos. Or possibly a quesadilla. Maybe both.

  It takes a couple of minutes to dress and grab my car keys. As I drive, my mind returns to the subject of Mr. Petrauschke’s DNA test. The initial flare of anger over being rejected fades. I mentally put myself in his place.

  I try to imagine what it would be like to wake up one day and find out I have a son who is fifty-seven. Especially with no memory of how that might have happened. A son who grew up without my guidance. A son who grew up without ever having heard me tell him, “I love you.”

  A host of similar regrets floods my mind. If I were him, I wouldn’t want the news to be true because it would mean I wasn’t there for my child. It would mean I had failed him as a father. I feel for the man, just like Daelyn felt for me when the gravity of the situation weighed uncomfortably on my shoulders.

  Let him take the DNA test. The results aren’t going to change the past. All it will do is destroy his current fortress of denial and force him to accept the truth . . . that I am his son.

  I return home and call Jana. “What’s up with Dad?”

  “Other than being his usual cantankerous self,” she says with a question in her voice. “It might help if you clue me in on what you’re talking about.”

  “Dad refused to take a DNA test.”

  “I can’t imagine why he would want to,” Jana says.

  A creeping suspicion tells me that Jana and I aren’t having the same conversation. Or, at least, we aren’t addressing it from the same direction. I ask, “Is Dad not interested in me doing anymore family history research?”

  “Family history?” I can clearly hear the confusion in her voice. “What are you talking about?

  “The whole reason I took a DNA test was to help me find which branch of the Lindsays in Ireland belongs to us. And since I’m not a Lindsay by blood, I need either Dad or Mark to take the test. What did you think I was talking about?”

  “I . . . thought . . . you wanted Dad to take the test to prove he isn’t your biological father. Or something goofy like that.”

  Now it’s my turn to be confused. After all the time I’ve spent worrying about how the family will react to my news, how does it make any sense for me to want to prove Dad isn’t my blood relative? “That’s the silliest thing I’ve heard all day.”

  “It’s only 9:00 a.m.”

  “And your point?” I ask.

  “As late as you sleep,” she says, “how many silly things have you heard already?”

  “You’re changing the subject,” I tell her. “I need Dad to take a DNA test.”

  “Then ask him again. Make sure you tell Dad it’s for family history work. He’s just worried about your feelings being hurt. He doesn’t care that you’re not his biological son, and he wants you to know that.”

  “Absolutely,” I say. “I got it already. None of us cares. All of us love one another. Dad is my dad, and I am his son. And at the next family gathering we can all sing ‘Kumbaya.’”

  “You’re such a dork.”

  “Yep. Love you too.”

  I decide to call Dad later in the week, or even next week, to arrange another visit. Confident in my ability to talk him into taking the test, I order another DNA kit from Ancestry. Then, with that concern out of the way, I open my email and respond to Tammy’s last message.

  “I don’t think your life sounds boring. I think it sounds great. I love to spend time with my family, whether it’s my children, or my siblings, or my parents. It’s great that all of you live so close together. If I lived that close to my siblings, I’d probably never get any work done. When we are together, we talk for hours.

  “My dad is the real-life version of John Wayne. Take all those westerns and war movies John Wayne was in and roll them together. That’s my dad. He did competitive roping until about two years ago. Now, the doctors won’t let him ride horses anymore. Boy, is that killing him.”

  I send the message off without checking it. Much like the siblings I grew up with, I’m feeling comfortable with Tammy. There is no longer a concern that one of my failed attempts at a joke is going to drive her away.

  The conversation with Jana is still clunking around inside my head, making it difficult to concentrate on writing. I stare at the nearly blank page of a new chapter for fifteen minutes. The only thing on the page so far is “Chapter 6.”

  Eventually, I write a few lines of humorous dialogue. It’s funny but doesn’t actually have anything to do with what I have planned for the chapter. I delete the witty banter between my two main characters and start over.

  Some description would be nice. I stare at the blank page. It stares back at me. After a few minutes of this, I turn my head and gaze out my office window. Brown brick wall, some of my neighbor’s hanging vines, a few mismatched trees, and the roofs of the houses on the next street over. Nothing I can use for my current story.

  What I need is inspiration. I load up my liked videos on YouTube and watch “Feel It Still” by Portugal. The strange and seemingly unrelated scenes mesmerize me as I try to figure out what über-cosmic message the video might contain for those chic enough to figure it out. And what’s with the pig dude? The beat reminds me of “I Feel Love” by Venus Hum and the Blue Man Group, so I listen to that video next. Twice.

  An hour passes as I work through my list of favorite tunes. It isn’t as much a waste of my morning as it is a sign that I need to work on something else. Something that allows me to play videos in the background without distracting me.

  Family history.

  I ignore the Lindsays. They’ve caused me enough frustration and have eaten away more than their fair share of my valuable research time. The lack of forward progress with them convinces me to work on a different family line. It even prompts me to try something different in my search. I log in to Ancestry and find a family tree with a common ancestor and see how far back my extremely distant cousin has gone with their family quest.

  Most of the pedigree charts match the information I already have. Then I follow one on the Matheny line and find they have tapped into royalty. I check the citation of their sources to make sure they haven’t simply invented an impressive line of dead relatives for the purpose of connecting to history’s rich and famous.

  The information comes from parish records in Virginia. Those records extend back to 1584 and are a reliable source. The Matheny line eventually merges with the Wentworths around 1660 in Canterbury, England. I work back as far as I’ve ever seen any of my family lines go, the citations now listing King William the Conqueror’s commissioned Doomsday Book, which was completed in 1086.

  I follow the Wentworth family tree back through the 1700s and the 1600s before bumping into an ancestor with an attached portrait. Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford. The commanding figure in the portrait impresses me. He’s a good-looking guy . . . or was. A bolt of excitement shoots through me as I wonder which of England’s royals lent their rarified blood to the Lindsay line.

  “Dad,” one of my sons says from my office door. “I have to be at school in ten minutes.”

  I look up. It’s Nick. His band concert is tonight. I drag myself away from the computer and rush to put on my shoes and a clean shirt. We arrive early. Nick runs off to the band room, and I look for a seat in the auditorium.

  The seats are small and uncomfortable. Lovely. At least it should keep me from nodding off d
uring the beginning band’s hour-long performance. I want to show Nick my support and intently listen to every note he makes . . . sour or otherwise.

  After the concert, the two of us drive over to the local soda shop and order a congratulatory drink for my budding musician. We talk about songs the band performed and which part of the concert I liked best.

  And then we’re back home. Nick heads to the living room, where the rest of the family is watching reruns of Highlander, and I grab a salad from the fridge and then return to the office. The royal hunt awaits me. I sit down and fork a generous portion of salad into my mouth. My fingers tap ancestral names on the keyboard as I dive back into the search. Somewhere during the evening, my wife enters the office. I give her a quick kiss and mumble, or think I mumble, “Food . . . kitchen . . . microwave. Love you.”

  She leaves me in the thrall of my family history fever.

  The line of royalty meanders through Markingfields, Sothills, and Cromwells before reaching John Marmion, the fourth Baron Marmion of Winteringham, in 1292. A coat of arms with three red diamonds on a blue-and-white checkered field reminds me of the Lindsay crest, even though there’s no connection between the families.

  Eager to skip the third, second, and first barons of Marmion, I switch to the pedigree view of the family tree. I do a double take as I notice the title of “King” attached to a member of the family four generations previous.

  I let out a whoop loud enough to disturb the rest of my family in the kitchen. Then I call for them to share this discovery with me. As I wait for them to trudge into my office, I click on the record of the king.

  King John Plantagenet, born December of 1166 as the youngest of eight children to King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He is the younger brother of King Richard the Lionhearted.

  Wait a minute! That’s the jerk in Robin Hood.

  King John’s life sketch continues: his father gave him the nickname “John Lackland” because it was suspected that he’d never inherit any land. He was later known as “Joh Softsword” because of his military bungling. It turns out King John is widely considered one of the worst rulers in England’s long and glorious history, having lost Normandy to France and then being instrumental in plunging England into a bloody civil war.