She looked away, her mouth trembling a little, her equivalent of a sobbing wreck.
“But I’d like to meet my father. It won’t change anything. I just want to . . . know.”
She wiped her eyes on her napkin. Took another bite of cake, a sip of coffee milk. “You know his name.”
“Yes. Christopher Zane.”
“He was from Indiana. His parents had a farm. He was getting his degree in . . . gosh, what was it? Environmental engineering. Or agricultural engineering. Something like that. He was at MIT, I was at Harvard. He went to Notre Dame for his bachelor’s, and on our first date, he got mad at me because I didn’t know who the Fighting Irish were.” She rolled her eyes.
Josh’s head was buzzing, even as his brain memorized the facts. That was more than his mother had told him about his father in his entire life.
“We dated for six weeks. I was a strict Lutheran, remember, and I thought premarital sex was for slutty girls, got carried away and had unprotected sex. I was stupid, I was in denial, so I told myself I had just skipped a period or two.” She sighed. “I knew, though. I kept hoping I wasn’t.” Her head jerked up. “Don’t get me wrong, Joshua. You’re the best thing in my life. I don’t regret you for one second.”
“I know that.”
“Good.” She patted his hand, then resumed stabbing her cake. “So when I couldn’t pretend anymore, I took a test and voilà! Pregnant. I told him. We fought. Abortion wasn’t on the table, not for me. We talked for about two seconds about getting married, but it was already clear we weren’t going to work. He said he’d ‘pay his share.’” She made air quotes around the words. “Then he went off on a project of some kind, some summer program, said he would call me when he got settled, and I never saw him again. I sent him a letter at his MIT address, which was the only one I had. It came back. His email address was defunct. I called him at his last known phone number. It was disconnected. That September, I called MIT, and they said he was no longer enrolled there.”
Silence settled over the kitchen. Outside, sleet started pattering against the window.
“And that was it, sweetheart,” she said, her voice gentler than when she’d started.
There was an unpleasant pressure in Josh’s chest. What kind of person turns his back on his unborn child and just disappears? For decades?
“Is he still alive?” Josh asked.
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “I put his name on the birth certificate because I wanted evidence, I think.”
“Why didn’t you try to track him down and ask for child support?”
“I didn’t want it. Honestly, I would’ve lived in a box on the street before doing that.” She shrugged. “But my father was still alive back then, so he made sure we didn’t have to. I transferred to Brown, and they gave me a stipend, and between that and what Papa gave us, we were fine.”
“Did you ever Google him? Just out of curiosity?”
She pulled a face. “Yes. Once, when you were about ten. He was teaching at Northwestern and lived in Chicago. Or he did twenty years ago. So there it is. Everything I know. He completely abandoned us. Never looked back. So there you have it for when you plan your joyful reunion.”
“It’s just curiosity, Mom. And something to do.”
“You could dig ditches. You could clean toilets. Volunteer at a shelter for battered women.”
“Okay, okay. I get it. And I do volunteer at the Hope Center. Also, I just got my red belt in karate. Everyone else’s mom was there for the belt ceremony. I was sorry you couldn’t make it.”
There. She smiled. She’d laughed so hard when he told her about his kiddie karate classes.
Her smile faded. “Josh . . . I kept my old post office box in Cambridge for ten years. You know. In case he wanted to contact me and hear about you.” Her eyes filled. “He never did.”
He inhaled slowly, held it for a second, then exhaled. “He sounds like quite a dick.”
“Can’t argue that point.”
“Do you know anything else, Mom?”
“No.” She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “His loss, Joshua. You are the best son in the world.”
He got up and hugged her, his fierce Viking mom. “I love you, Mom.” She hugged him back hard, then kissed his cheek soundly.
“I love you, too. Do what you have to do.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Finish your cake.”
* * *
JOSHUA FOUND CHRISTOPHER M. Zane with four clicks on Google after entering his father’s name, educational history and the word engineer.
And there he was. A photo and everything.
Christopher M. Zane had graying dark hair, olive skin and brown eyes, a square solid face, aquiline nose and a crooked left incisor that showed clearly when he smiled. Josh’s left incisor was also crooked. Identically crooked.
Objectively speaking, Josh could admit his father was handsome. A bit like George Clooney, but not as pretty, as Lauren would say.
He stared at the picture.
He looked a lot more like his father than his mother. A lot more.
Josh was always surprised to be noticed for his looks, given that he spent so much time in his own head. His sloppy, pre-Lauren, pre-Radley attire was chosen for comfort, and when he did put in the effort—like buying the suit he’d worn to propose to Lauren—he was pleased. He cleaned up nice, as Sumi told him.
But now, looking at his future self on the screen there . . . maybe he didn’t like the way he looked so much anymore. Not that this man had done anything significant in Joshua’s life other than ejaculate. Well, that and walk away.
Christopher M. Zane, now a PhD, taught civil and environmental engineering at the University of Chicago. A graduate from Notre Dame, he had “studied at MIT,” got his master’s from the University of Chicago, a doctorate from Northwestern, was now tenured at the University of Chicago and a frequent guest lecturer. He’d taken a sabbatical in South Africa three years prior. He was married and had three children.
So Joshua had siblings. Noted.
Josh didn’t let emotion get in the way. As when he worked, his tunnel vision served him. He signed up for a record-finding service, and several minutes later, got his father’s address, phone number, previous addresses. Christopher M. Zane had gotten a speeding ticket in 2018. He’d been a part owner of a now-closed café in Wicker Park. Here was a picture of him at the opening, his arm around his wife, three kids. “Christopher Zane, his wife, Melissa, and their three children, Sawyer, Ransom and Briar”—apparently, they wanted their kids to join the rodeo—“at the opening of Deep, Dark and Delicious, the latest café to open in Chicago’s funkiest neighborhood.”