The Question of the Absentee Father

by E. J. Copperman

  During the years beginning when he left until the present, I had not asked Mother much about my father other than any relevant medical history I might someday need to know. She has volunteered that he had started in the printing press business and then sold musical instruments to school systems, which in turn would rent them to students who wanted to play in marching bands. That was his profession. I never met my grandparents on the paternal side. Mother informed me that they died before I was born.

  It came, therefore, as something of a surprise when Mother suddenly asked about his whereabouts on this particular evening. I ignored the turkey leg in front of me for a moment.

  “I have no information regarding my father,” I said to Mother. “Are you asking me to research his whereabouts and report them to you?”

  Mother appeared to be having some difficulty expressing herself tonight. Every sentence was preceded by a pause during which she appeared to gather her thoughts. “Yes,” she said finally. “That is what I’m asking. But that might not be all I’m asking.”

  That was puzzling. I cut a piece of meat off the turkey leg with my knife and ate it while I thought. “What else might you ask?” I said when I had swallowed.

  “That’s for later. Right now, I’d like you to find him for me.” Mother, I realized, looked distressed. It had taken me a while to recognize the facial expression because it was one I did not see on her very often. The redness around her eyes might have been an indication of recent crying. I could not conceive of a situation that might cause such feelings in my mother.

  “Right now?” I asked. I looked at my plate.

  “No, Samuel. Not this moment. Go ahead and finish your dinner. But I’d like it to be a high priority for you. Will you promise me that?” Mother had not taken a bite of her lasagna yet. Although I could understand reluctance to do so, she usually enjoyed such things. It was another indication that she was unusually upset.

  There was no option. “I promise, Mother. But you know very well that I cannot guarantee results because the question might be beyond my talents. And if I do find enough data to answer the question …”

  She finished the sentence for me. “The answer might not be what I want to hear. I know. I just need the information. That’s all for now.”

  “I will add one condition to my promise,” I said.

  Mother looked up pointedly with an expression of surprise and possibly a little irritation. “What?” she asked.

  “You must eat your lasagna,” I said.

  Mother smiled but it was not her usual warm smile. There was something else in it and I could not accurately say what it might be. We did not converse much more as we ate. Mother seemed preoccupied, and I always prefer to dine without talking because then I don’t have to watch someone else eat.

  After dinner, I cleaned up the kitchen and went up to my attic apartment. Upon entering, I reached for my cellular phone and called Ms. Washburn.

  She listened to my account of the evening and did not ask a question before I had finished. “Was the letter from your father?” she said.

  The thought had not occurred to me.

  “I suppose it’s quite possible,” I told her. “There was no return address and she immediately asked for his whereabouts.”

  “What did the letter say?” Ms. Washburn asked next.

  I ignored the idea that a piece of paper might speak because I understood she was using a popular idiom. “I have no idea,” I answered. “I did not read it.”

  “Your mother didn’t say?”

  “I did not ask her.”

  Ms. Washburn did not respond for four seconds. “Samuel, I think you need to ask your mother about the situation. Why does she need to find your father after all these years? What did the letter say that prompted all this? Maybe it’s too personal to ask her if you can read it. But you need to know what you’re getting yourself into because we can’t research a question if we don’t know what it’s about. You know that.”

  Her argument made sense. “Am I treating this question differently than most?” I asked, both to Ms. Washburn and myself.

  Ms. Washburn, of course, heard the question as intended just for her. “It’s natural that you would,” she answered. “This is not something you’re doing because you need the money or because someone asked you a question you found intriguing. This is about someone you care about very much, and about something that directly affects your life.”

  I searched myself for feelings. There are those who believe that people like me, with what was once called Asperger’s Syndrome or another “disorder” on the autism spectrum, have no feelings at all—that we somehow are born without the capacity to have emotions. That is not at all true. We have the same feelings as most people, but we often express them differently. Sometimes I don’t express my emotions at all because the people around me have shown me through their behavior that my reactions are outside the norm. There are those who find my displays of emotion, when I exhibit them, disturbing.

  Of course, I find most displays of other people’s emotions disturbing, but that is seen only as another “symptom.” There are times I feel that I am living a conundrum.

  When Ms. Washburn kissed me after we answered the Question of the Felonious Friend, for example, I did not have time to process the feelings I had and react appropriately. The act caught me so by surprise that I did not react at all. It was not until later that I had realized I quite enjoyed being kissed by Ms. Washburn, even if the presence of lipstick did make the sensation somewhat uncomfortable.

  Mother had often suggested that I had romantic emotions for Ms. Washburn and I had denied it honestly. But the impulsive action on Ms. Washburn’s part had me questioning my own thought process.

  I had let Ms. Washburn kiss me and then we separated and she took a step back. “Did I scare you?” she’d asked.

  As I said previously, I was processing many emotions at once and that is not easy for me. But fear was definitely not one of them. “No,” I had said. “I simply wasn’t prepared.”

  Ms. Washburn looked at me for a moment. I could not read her expression. “That’s fair,” she’d said. “I’ll tell you what. If you ever want to try that again, you let me know.” Then she had walked out of the office to deliver the documents finalizing her divorce to her attorney.

  I had thought a number of times about broaching the subject again, now that I could prepare and control the timing of the event, but so far I had not done so, and Ms. Washburn had not attempted to repeat her action or mentioned it in conversation. I was not sure why I was delaying. It was a question worth considering.

  Tonight, that subject was not at the top of my priority list. “I don’t see how the question affects my life,” I told Ms. Washburn through the phone. “I see how it matters to my mother, but it does not seem like something that will make a significant difference to the way I live.”

  I could almost hear the expression on Ms. Washburn’s face, one that combined a knowing amusement with concern for my well­being. “I think you’ll find out, Samuel. The key is that you can’t turn down your mother, so we need to get to work on finding your father first thing in the morning.”

  The New York Yankees, the baseball team I follow, was not playing a game this evening because the baseball season had ended. I could play music by the Beatles or work on a painting, although my interest in art was waning. Those of us who have Asperger’s Syndrome (I refer to it that way for the sake of simplicity) tend to develop keen interests in certain topics. Mine include criminal justice, the New York Yankees, and the Beatles. Those have been areas of study for me since I was in school. Painting was something that had come and gone. “Special interests” don’t always stay with a person for a lifetime.

  “I think I might begin tonight,” I told Ms. Washburn. “I hope you don’t find that insulting.” Those who are considered neurotypical have rules regarding wha
t is and is not an offense that I frankly find baffling. But in Ms. Washburn’s case I was especially averse to behaving in an insulting manner.

  “Not at all.” There was a light chuckle in her voice. “If you find out anything interesting you can tell me at the office tomorrow morning, okay?”

  “Certainly.” I considered bringing up the idea of our kissing again, but since we were in separate towns at the moment it seemed inappropriate to initiate the conversation. “Thank you for your help, Ms. Washburn.”

  “No problem, Samuel.”

  “Would you like to know how I’m going to begin trying to answer my mother’s question?”

  Again, the small laugh. “No, Samuel. Not now. When I mentioned talking to you in the office tomorrow, it was a way of saying that I’m tired and need to end the conversation now. Is that okay?”

  I saw no reason she hadn’t simply said that. “Of course. I will see you in the morning, Ms. Washburn.”

  “Good night, Samuel.” She disconnected the call.

  Ms. Washburn gives excellent advice, and she had suggested first that I discuss with my mother the letter she had received this evening. If it had indeed come from my father, it would be a very valuable artifact in helping to locate him.

  I walked downstairs to the main floor of our house and looked for my mother, first in the living room, where she often watches television at night, and then in the kitchen. She was not in either location. A quick search of the front room and a glance at the open bathroom door indicated she was upstairs.

  Normally I am reluctant to enter my mother’s bedroom. That seems the ultimate of sanctuaries. Mother tends to stay elsewhere in the house before deciding to read for a while before sleeping. But it was an unusually early hour for that. I did not know what her plans for the evening had been, but it did seem clear she had retreated to that room.

  I stood outside the door for twelve seconds before knocking. It was a difficult decision to make; if Mother were sleeping, I’d be an unwanted intrusion. Worse, Mother tends to worry about me, so if I deviate from the typical routine she becomes anxious that there is something causing me distress.

  Still, Ms. Washburn had pointed out my lack of data on the letter Mother had received and thought it was best I ask her directly about the whole situation regarding her question. There was no other way to obtain the information. I knocked on the door.

  The response came immediately. “Samuel?”

  It seemed strange for her to ask. No one else lives in the house. “Yes, Mother,” I said without solving that conundrum. “Are you preparing to go to sleep?”

  “No. You can come in if you want.”

  I opened the door gingerly despite her assurance that it was all right to do so. This was something I did very rarely. It had the sensation of a mistake despite there being no risk involved. Mother was still Mother. It was not necessary to be on guard with her. But the letter had opened new issues between the two of us and I was not yet sure how to adapt to them.

  Mother was lying on her bed with pillows propped up behind her and her legs under her blanket. But I noticed a bulge in the area of her left knee. This was probably an ice pack. Mother had experienced pain in that knee for some years and frequently used ice to relieve the discomfort. She held a book in her hands, now closed with a bookmark at the page she had been reading.

  “Mother, may I ask you about the letter you received tonight?” I asked after walking in.

  “That is asking about the letter,” she pointed out. Mother likes to joke that my habit of taking words literally was inherited, not developed. “But if you want to know about it, that’s okay. Will it help you find your father?”

  “I can’t answer that question until I understand more,” I assured her. “Did my father write the letter?”

  Mother nodded. “He hasn’t written in years, so it caught me by surprise. That’s why I reacted the way I did. I’m sorry if that was upsetting for you.” Mother knows displays of emotion are difficult for me to process.

  “It was not upsetting but it was puzzling,” I told her. “Why was my father writing to you at this time?”

  Mother looked at me and seemed to make a decision. “Sit down, Samuel. I have a lot to tell you.”

  “I can listen while standing,” I pointed out.

  “Maybe so, but looking up at you is a stress on my neck. How about doing me a favor and sitting?” She pointed to a chair to the side of her bed, which I pulled out and sat on. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.” That is a statement made in response to the statement of gratitude. It is considered a polite comment, although it is said so often that to my ear it has lost most of its meaning. How would a clerk in a coffee shop know if I am welcome to a corn muffin?

  Mother took a deep breath and placed the book, written by an author named Fiorella, on the bed stand next to her. “Samuel,” she said, “there is a lot about your father that I haven’t told you all these years.”

  “I assumed that, but I have not asked you anything about him, so you would have had no occasion to inform me. There is very little I have needed to know.” I thought briefly of getting a pad and pen to write down anything Mother might want to tell me, but decided it was unlikely there would be much I’d forget.

  Mother shook her head. “I didn’t tell you a lot because it was easier for me not to say anything,” she said. “There were things that were difficult for me and you didn’t ask, but it was my responsibility to let you know about the man who brought you into this world.”

  For a brief moment I thought Mother meant the obstetrician who had delivered me but I quickly realized based on context that she meant my father. People considered neurotypical tend to embellish their conversation with imprecise language they think is emotionally evocative when it is usually just confusing.

  In any event, Mother did not provide me with enough time to express that thought. She continued, “Your father is a good man and I don’t want you to forget that, Samuel. But he doesn’t always see the need to play by the rules and that leads to trouble.”

  “Mother, you are being imprecise,” I said. “Please just tell me what you need to say. You may trust that you are not causing me any serious emotional trauma. I don’t really know my father at all, so I have no preconceptions of him. I have no ties to him. Whatever you tell me will be used as useful information if it helps me find him and filed away if it does not. I am not unusually invested in the circumstances of the question.”

  Mother half smiled. “I know you believe that, but a man has a connection to his father even if they’ve never met. Nonetheless, your father is not a bad person. He wanted to do the best for us and did what he thought was going to provide that. Do you understand?”

  “Has my father been in jail?” The thought had not occurred to me before, but it fit the facts I had been given.

  But Mother looked astonished at the suggestion. “No!” she said with great force but without anger. “Your father is not a dishonest man, Samuel. But he was not capable of dealing with a family while trying to make his way in the world. He wanted to provide for us but his work was not enough.”

  “I have always suspected that he left because having a small child with the characteristics I exhibited was too difficult a task,” I said. “I remember how much you had to do to advocate for me even before I was given the classification.” I meant the “diagnosis” of Asperger’s Syndrome, but Mother understood.

  “Your father didn’t leave because of you,” she said, although I did not find her tone especially convincing. “He left to find a better way to support his family.”

  “But he never came back,” I pointed out. “Surely after twenty-seven years he has discovered a means of income, particularly since our needs are not what they were before I could provide for myself.”

  Mother, who owns the house in which we live and pays for the groceries and
upkeep on our home, certainly knew that my income at Questions Answered could eventually be enough to allow me my own apartment and pay my expenses. In fact, my bank account now could probably fulfill that function. But she knew what I meant about the years of my childhood and adolescence. She nodded.

  “I haven’t heard from him much after the first year,” she said. “He went off to a possible opportunity he’d heard about in Tulsa, Oklahoma, something about working for a company that provided tourists with a real ranching experience. He sent home some money but he wasn’t happy with it almost immediately. Said he was going to Seattle, this time to work for a printing company because he had a background in making colors precise on paper, or something. Then I didn’t hear from him for five years. I thought he was dead. I called for him, wrote to him in care of General Delivery, but he didn’t have a post office box and that was before cell phones. I would have gone out there to look for him, but …” Her voice trailed off.

  I finished the sentence for her. “But you had a young son with issues you didn’t yet understand and you had no idea of where to look. If I had been old enough and had a computer then, I might have been able to track him down.”

  Mother nodded. Her eyes did not tear up, but she did not look happy. “It’s hardly your fault we didn’t have the Internet yet, Samuel, and you were five years old. I don’t think it was your responsibility to find your father.”

  “I do remember the occasional envelope that had money in it,” I said. “Was that from him?”

  “Yes. It was very infrequent and there was almost never a note, but after he started getting in touch again he would sometimes send money. No explanation, and never a huge amount, but it helped get us through some tough times. I still don’t know what he was doing or where the money came from.”

  The background was illuminating but not particularly helpful in answering Mother’s question. “The letter you received tonight, Mother,” I said. “What was written in it?”

  She did not answer but reached toward her nightstand. She opened the drawer and retrieved the envelope I had seen earlier. Without a word she handed it to me.