by A M Homes
Over the next few months, we meet several more times. We meet in hotels. We meet at Holiday Inns, Marriotts, Comfort Inns, Renaissance Quarters, in the odd spaces that are between spaces, the there that is never there.
We meet in the lobby, awkwardly kiss hello, and then move to the glass atrium, or the inner courtyard, or the café, looking up at a surround of numbered doors, housekeeping carts making their rounds. We come from the outside and are plunged into a temperature-controlled environment where the potted plants are watered automatically, where they are rotated seasonally like crops, where everything is suspended in time—hermetically sealed.
Ever since Norman’s comment about my clothing, I worry about what I am wearing, how I look. I continually feel that I am being evaluated. I want his approval. There is something about him that I like—the bigness of him; he is grandiose, larger than life. Sometimes it scares me; sometimes it lures me into another world, a world of men.
There is something sleazy about it, meeting in the middle of the afternoon in these middle-of-the-road hotels. Does he think that these are safe places where no one will see us? Does he have something in mind? It is never clear to me why we are meeting in them.
“You don’t know what it does to me to look at you,” he says.
He doesn’t mean, The resemblance is amazing, or, I’m so proud of what you’ve done with your life.
“You don’t know what it does to me to look at you.” He says it in a strange way. He is looking at me and seeing someone else.
He never does anything to push it further but I am always thinking that he will. I imagine him saying, I’ve got a room, I want to see you naked. I imagine undressing as part of the procedure of proving who I am, part of the degradation.
I imagine him fucking me.
I imagine being Ellen and him fucking her thirty-one years ago.
I imagine something profoundly sad.
It is the strangest set of imaginings and I can tell he has them too.
I have read about this; it is not unusual for the primal experiences of parent and child to morph—the intensity, the intimacy of the sensations is often expressed in adults as sexual attraction. But while the attraction may be common, almost expected, obviously it cannot be explored.
He makes no mention of the blood test—the results can take eight to twelve weeks. He makes no mention of telling his other children about me. Instead he tells me about how fond he is of his grandchildren. He tells me how close he was to his grandmother. And again he tells me how Coach always used to tell him to stay in the game—never get out of the game.
He asks me if I’ve spoken with her.
“Yes,” I say. “Have you?”
He nods, yes.
“She wants to visit me,” I tell him. “She sends letters with fantasies about going to the Central Park Zoo, for walks by the ocean, out to dinner. She has no idea of how strange this is for me. And she’s unrelenting—she could take over my life, she could swallow me whole.”
He smiles. “She’s a stubborn lady.”
“She wants to know when the three of us can have dinner together.”
He says nothing.
“Maybe you two should have dinner sometime?”
Norman blushes. “I don’t think so.” He shakes his head as if to say, You know what would happen. If he so much as saw her again, they would be back at it. He is still afraid of the power she has over him. I have the sense that he has promised himself or, more, that he has promised his wife that he won’t see her. A lot more has happened than I’ll ever know.
He shifts in his chair. He is always uncomfortable.
“Old injuries,” he says, “from the war, from football. I can’t sit still for very long.”
There is a pause.
“My wife is jealous of you,” he says.
On the rare occasions when I call Norman and his wife answers the phone, she never acknowledges who I am, never asks how I am, never says anything beyond, “Hold the line,” and then goes off in search of him.
There are times when I’m tempted to say something, something simple, like, “And how are you?” or, “I’m sorry for all the trouble,” but then I remember that it is not my responsibility. I can’t do all the work.
“Hold the line.”
Ellen thinks I’m her mother, Norman thinks I am Ellen, and I feel like Norman’s wife thinks I am the mistress reincarnate.
In September of 1993, I am in a suburban Maryland emergency room with my grandmother, who has fallen and broken her hip. I’m checking messages while waiting for the radiologist to read her X-rays. Norman has left a message.
By the time I get back to my parents’ house, it’s late. I return the call. Norman answers the phone.
“How are you?” he asks.
I tell him about my grandmother.
“I have some information for you,” he says.
I say nothing. I am not in the mood for games.
“The test results,” he says.
“Do you want to tell me something?” I ask.
“Should we meet at the hotel?”
“Which hotel?”
“The one in Rockville.”
“Sure,” I say. “But why don’t you just tell me what the results are?”
“Everything is fine,” he says.
“What does that mean?”
“Everything is fine. We’ll talk when I see you. Tomorrow at four?”
Everything is not fine. My patience is running thin. All of this is a game, a game that Ellen and Norman are playing, and I’m the object in the middle, the thing tossed back and forth. He’s making it worse, throwing in a night of suspense, leaving me to stay up late, wondering. More than wondering if he is or isn’t my father, I wonder why I keep going back for more. I will never know the whole story. There is an enormous amount that no one is telling me.
I meet him at the hotel. We are in the fern bar, the glassy atrium—the scene is like something from a science-fiction movie, a futuristic bioenvironment, the lunchroom in a space lab.
“I have the results of the DNA test,” he says.
“Yes.”
The waitress arrives and takes our order. I want nothing.
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“Not even some tea?” Norman asks.
“Not even tea,” I say.
“Water?” the waitress asks.
“No.”
Norman waits until his ginger ale arrives before he says anything.
“The test says it’s ninety-nine-point-nine percent likely that I’m your father.” There is a pause. “So what are my responsibilities?”
I am not a slice of pie.
“So what are my responsibilities?”
I say nothing.
Norman doesn’t mention his children, or how he is going to take me into his family, or give me the large gift behind Door Number Three. He sips his drink and stares at me.
“Now that I’m your father, I think I have the right to ask—are you dating anyone?”
“No.” I am unsure whether I am answering the question or refusing to answer.
“Have you told your children?” I ask.
“No, not yet,” he says.
I’m wondering if he meets his other children for tea in cheap hotels.
We leave without saying good-bye, without a plan for what happens next.
In October I am in Washington to give a reading. Norman finds out and leaves a message. “Fine thing,” he says. “You’re in town? Would you like to meet?”
I call him back. “Hold the line,” his wife says.
“Imagine that,” Norman says, picking up. “You and my daughter in the same newspaper on the same day.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“In the Gazette there are pictures of you and my daughter. Isn’t that something?” He sounds oddly proud, two of his children in the pages of the local paper.
“You and my daughter…”
I am the ghost, the one
who does not exist. When I look in the mirror, do I see my reflection?
“Have you figured out how to tell them?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “I’m still having a little bit of trouble with that.” He makes it sound like something he’s trying to fix himself, a car part that requires tinkering. I have the feeling that his wife is stopping him.
He changes the subject, dividing his families. He asks if I’ve spoken with Ellen.
“She’s threatening to move to New York.”
“Yep. She said something to me about it—she’s been up there a lot lately. I think she was going back for an interview just the other day.”
Hair rises on the back of my neck—I am suddenly cold. Ellen has not mentioned that she’s actually been in the city. The fact that she’s been coming into town and not telling me is more frightening than if I knew. Has she been hanging around outside my building watching me? Has she been tracking me from a distance?
If Ellen moves to New York I will leave. I cannot be in the same place as her.
“Would you like to meet at the hotel?”
“No. I’m going back first thing in the morning.”
Norman chuckles. “I just can’t get over it,” he says. “You and your sister in the same paper, what do you make of that?”
I am thinking of Ellen moving to New York. I am thinking of his other daughter, in the same newspaper. Washington is not safe anymore. New York is not safe. No place is home. I get in my mother’s car and drive. It is pouring rain. I drive, hurling myself through space, as though I am driving toward something, as though it is an emergency. I want to see the sister, I want to know what he is so proud of. It is rush hour, the streets are filled with water. On the radio the newscaster is saying, “We’re in the middle of a torrential downpour. There are power outages, flash flood warnings.”
The paper is local, deeply local. You can only get it in a small radius around where Norman lives—which is near where I will be reading. It is like a scene from a movie. I am obsessed, there is no stopping me. I drive past broken-down cars—police are directing traffic with flares. Oblivious. I am going to meet my sister—well, not meet her, but at least see her.
When I get to the shopping center near Norman’s house, I park the car and hurry into a little card store. I pick up a stack of copies of the paper and run back to the car.
The papers are wet, the newsprint sticks together, it shreds as I pull at it, the rain stains the pages, the sides bleed and blur. I find the picture of myself—it is the publicity photo from the book, strangely formal and out of place with what is happening now. I am there looking out, oblivious to what is happening now. I scan the page. “Dress Like a Doll.” The article is about a Barbie children’s fashion show at McDonald’s. There is a photograph of Norman’s granddaughter dressed like a Barbie. Norman’s daughter, my sister, is almost invisible. She is sitting on a chair, bending over, wearing a large hat that blocks most of her face. She is wearing white pants with some sort of polka-dotted thing around her waist, a scarf belt. Is she dressed right for a nice lunch? Does she own jewelry?
I look at the picture carefully—I see her fat thigh, her belly, her feet, her outstretched hand, and it is my thigh, my belly, my feet, my hand.
There is something deeply ironic and pathetic about the whole thing. I am staring at a piece of wet newsprint trying to see what my sister, who doesn’t even know she has a sister, looks like. There is an incredible sense of disappointment. She is in a McDonald’s with her kid dressed up like a Barbie doll, and all I can think of is the short story I wrote, A Real Doll, about a boy dating a Barbie doll. I was being ironic; she is being serious. And to top it off—Norman thinks this picture of his daughter taking her kids to a fashion show at McDonald’s is equal to an article on me giving a reading from my third book. His daughter went to finishing school, had a debutante coming-out ball, and now does “interiors.” She has fat thighs, a belly, and paws for hands, but I’m sure she dresses right for lunch. It’s depressing as hell.
Drenched, I return to my parents’ house. I have ten minutes to get ready for the reading.
I go alone. Ever since the night Ellen appeared without warning at the bookstore, I am afraid of what might happen. My parents want to come, but I excuse them. I am protecting them as well as myself. The library where I’m reading is en route to Norman’s house and just down the road from Uncle George. I have no idea if Ellen has told her brother about me or if they are even speaking. I never know who knows what.
Libraries are sacred, preserved spaces where people are supposed to behave well; they are trusted places for people who love books.
I am oddly ill at ease. From the moment I arrive, I have the sense they are there—exactly who, I’m not sure—but I can tell I am being watched, sized up. There is the strange sensation that something else is going on—there are people here who have come for a reason other than to hear me read. No one approaches me, no one identifies themselves or makes themselves known in any way. It is incredibly eerie.
The librarian introduces me and I stand to read. The lights onstage are bright; I cannot see far enough into the audience to memorize every face. I wish I had guards on either side of the stage, looking out on my behalf, reading the crowd, identifying faces, reporting into their lapel pins.
I read from a work in progress. The crowd follows closely. There are book club ladies, friends from high school, fans with first editions, people who are habitués of that library, but there is something else, some unnameable force field. I am on display, I feel myself being watched, scanned, and yet I am obligated to keep reading, to pretend I don’t know this is happening. Do they think I don’t know they’re out there, that I’m oblivious to them, that they are invisible, anonymous, in the dark?
I wish I could turn the lights around, shine them into the audience, I have some questions of my own. I am tempted to pull a Lenny Bruce, stop the show, and address the mystery guests, imploring them to reveal themselves—hey, you spies from the other planet, it’s October, the least you could do is put on a Halloween costume, maybe show up looking like a skeleton or something. But it would look as if I’d lost my mind.
At the end of the reading, the librarian asks if I am willing to answer questions from the audience. “I’d be happy to.” Hands go up.
I used to believe that every question deserved an answer, I used to feel obligated to answer everything as fully and honestly as possible. I don’t anymore.
“Where do your ideas come from?” someone asks.
“From you,” I say. The crowd laughs. I look at the woman asking the question; she seems innocent enough. I continue. “I get them from looking at the world we live in, from reading the paper, watching the news. It seems as though what I write is often extreme, but in truth it happens every day.”
There are questions posed as challenges, tests. I have the sense that depending on my answer, they might say, You’re lying, I know this and that fact about you.
I point to a raised hand.
“Do you write autobiographically?”
I feel the watchers zooming in.
“No.” I say. “I have yet to write anything that is truly autobiographical.”
They are taunting me.
“Are you adopted?”
“Yes, and I’m coming up for adoption again soon, so if anyone is interested, please let the librarian at the back of the room know.” More laughter.
“Do you know who your parents are? Have you searched?”
“I am always searching,” I say, “but no, I have not searched in that way.”
December 18, 1993. My birthday, the lightning rod, the axis around which I spin. I hold myself braced against it—an anticelebration.
How can a person with no history have a birthday? Are you sure it’s my birthday? Are you sure of how old I am? How do you know? What proof do you have?
I was born in 1961. My birth certificate was issued in 1963. Is that normal? Was there a delay because I belonged
to no one, hovered in limbo land, waiting to become someone?
For those two missing years did I have another name?
To add to the confusion, my birthday is in the middle of the holiday season; it features not only all the standard natal elements, but also the ongoing and age-old battle of the Christians versus the Jews, which oddly turns out to be among the battles of my biological origins.
December, the season of joy, is the season of my secret sorrows.
Every year I cannot help but think of the woman who gave me away. I find myself missing someone I never knew, wondering, Does she miss me? Does she shop for the things I buy myself? Does my father know I exist? Do I have siblings? Does anybody know who I am? I spend weeks grieving.
At this point it would take nothing short of a national monthlong festival, a public parade celebrating my existence, to reassure me that my presence on this planet is welcome. And even then I’m not sure I would believe it, I’m not sure I wouldn’t doubt that it was an attempt to humor me, to temporarily cajole me out of a black hole.
And this year is something entirely new, more awful, like going back to scratch and starting all over again, a new birthday with an old child, the first with four parents instead of two, a schizoid dividing of the zygote further than the gods intended it to go.
Everyone is at me, wanting something.
My parents, who usually do nothing, are trying to plan a trip to New York. I quickly put them off.
And Ellen is calling me every night begging that she be allowed to see me, feeling that in some way this is her birthday too.
“It’s your birthday,” she says. “Please, pretty please.” And she starts to cry, and then there is the click of the lighter and “Can you hold on for a minute while I get a drink of water?”
She writes a letter saying that Decembers have plagued her for the last thirty-one years, she finds them excruciating, depressing, and so forth. And while it’s nice to know I was never forgotten, it’s stranger still that I am never known.
