“I don’t know about that. I think it made me a far worse person. I’ve lived with that shame for thirty-one years.”
“Good. You should be ashamed.”
His father nodded.
So there it was. His father had been a shallow, selfish idiot. Josh sipped his coffee, which was tepid now, and thought he should design something for that problem. A heating cube that would warm your coffee or tea without making it taste old and bitter, the way the microwave did. Honestly, if there wasn’t something like that already on the market, he’d whip one up and sell it in a heartbeat.
It was comforting to think of himself back home, at his desk, rather than here, with the man who didn’t even know Josh had been born.
“If I could do it over, I would have made very different choices,” Christopher M. Zane said quietly. “When my wife and I had our first child, I went into a very . . .” He sighed. “A very bad place. I kept thinking about how much I loved him, and how I’d thrown you away, and I was afraid to love my boy.”
Josh felt his first flicker of sympathy. The kid didn’t do anything, after all.
“I couldn’t tell my wife, and I . . . I started drinking again. She threatened to kick me out, I got sober, got counseling. Then our daughter was born, and then our second girl, and it helped. By then, I felt it was too late to try to find you and Stephanie. Too much time had passed.”
“You could’ve tried.”
“Yes. Believe me, I know that. I try to be a good father to them, but I can never stop feeling doomed in some way because of what I did to you. If the universe ever took one of them, I’d probably deserve it.” His voice broke.
Drama queen. Still. Either he was a fantastic Method actor, or he was genuinely affected by Joshua’s surprise appearance, because the tears continued to rain down.
“I don’t think the universe works that way,” Josh said.
“I’m so sorry,” his father said. “I’m so very, very sorry.”
Josh inclined his head a little bit, acknowledging the words.
His father wiped his eyes on the cocktail napkin, blew his nose, then folded his hands on the table, and Josh realized with a start that those were his hands, twenty-five years from now. Same shape, same knuckles, same shape to the fingernails.
“Do you love your kids?” Josh asked.
His father’s eyes filled again. “I do.”
“Good.” He figured he should add something. “They have unusual names.”
“My wife picked them out. I didn’t feel like I—oh, God, I’m making this all about me. But I didn’t feel like I deserved to name anyone. If my kids’ names sound like something you’d name a dog on a horse ranch, well. They’re fine. They’re good kids.”
Josh almost smiled.
“Can I ask you some questions, Joshua?”
“Sure.” Why not?
“Was your childhood . . . okay?”
Josh nodded. “It was. It was very happy. I’m sure my mother could’ve used some help, but she figured it all out.”
“She was brilliant.”
“She is brilliant. No love lost for you, though.”
“I don’t blame her in the least.” He hesitated. “Did she ever marry?”
Josh considered not answering. Then again, why not? “No.”
Christopher nodded, looking at the table. “I had hoped . . . I pictured her marrying. I hoped you might have a nice stepfather.”
“Nope.” He had Ben, though. The memory of Ben, teaching him to ride a bike, making paper airplanes, made his chest ache. He had had a father. A great father. He still did.
“Does she need money? Do you?” Christopher asked.
“We would both burn your money at this point,” Josh said.
“If you needed it, that’s the least I could—”
A red flame danced in Joshua’s left eye. “Dr. Zane. We don’t need your money. If we were starving, we wouldn’t take it.”
His father nodded. “I get it. And I respect that.” The red flame died down.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. A few people had come into the pub, but they were at the bar. Snatches of conversation and laughter floated past like smoke.
“Um . . . what do you do for a living, Joshua?”
Google would tell him whatever he wanted to know, so Josh figured he might as well. “I’m a medical device engineer.”
“Really! That’s terrific! So . . . uh, what do you focus on?”
“Pediatrics, mostly. Some surgical devices. Adaptations for minimal invasiveness and pain.”
“That’s wonderful. That’s great, son.” He winced. “I’m sorry. Force of habit. I call a lot of my students that. Midwestern thing.”
“It’s okay. I am your son, I suppose. Genetically, if nothing else.”
“I can see a little bit of my father in you.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“Right. Sorry. It’s hard to know the right thing to say.”
“I understand. This is an unusual situation.”
“Are you always this . . . self-contained?” his father asked with a faint smile.
“Most of the time, yes.”
His father’s smile grew. “Good for you.” Another pause. “Where did you go to school?”
“RISD, Brown, MIT.”
“Wow. So you got your mother’s brains.” Neither of them acknowledged the coincidence of them both going to the same school. Stephanie had never breathed a word when he’d been offered a spot at MIT.
“And where do you live now, Josh?”
“In Providence.”
“You and your mother are close?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that.” He hesitated. “Are you married?” he asked, nodding at Josh’s left hand.
Josh looked at his wedding ring. “My wife died ten months ago. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.”
His father’s face fell. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
What would Lauren do at this moment? What would she have him say? If she were here, how would she make this situation easier? She’d wanted him to have some kind of closure, some kind of peace.