One Pink Line (32 page)

My mom had information that belonged to me. She knew my real father, his personality, his intellect, his facial structure, and as I got older, I felt entitled to that knowledge. Over the years, I’d formulated my own opinion of him, based solely on what I thought someone who produced half of me would be like. Handsome, smart, strong. He probably ran a company or worked somewhere that required him to wear a suit and tie every day. Or maybe he was more of a casual executive, in khaki pants and rolled up sleeves.

It always bothered me that my mom never sat me down and discussed him. Didn’t she think I would want to know more about him? I mean, even if she hated him, which I would also love to know, wouldn’t it occur to her that I should be allowed to formulate my own opinion? Maybe I would hate him too, and we could sit around and bad mouth him together. But instead, she left it up to me to paint a picture of him in my head, so I painted a favorable one, of course. This only made her look crazy, because how could she dislike this strong, handsome businessman?

“What’s my father like?” I ambushed her in the laundry room one day as we were packing my bags for school. lt’d been a while since I’d broached the subject, but she knew who I meant.

“Grace, why are you asking me that?”

“Because I want to know, obviously.” I jumped up and sat on the dryer.

She was folding Patch’s favorite Bears jersey. “He’s tall,” she smiled and glanced at the top of my head.

Her answer was intended to shut me up, but it only pissed me off. “Why can’t I know more about him?”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“Either he’s a serial killer and lives in a straight jacket, or he’s so entirely fabulous and broke your heart so badly that you can’t bear to say his name without a box of Kleenex around.” It was a little harsh, but she deserved it.

She looked up at me, with a hint of moisture in her eyes that caught me off guard. “You have an amazing dad who loves you, and you should be ashamed of how your acting,” she said quietly.

I felt only a shred of remorse. “Mom, if you would just put yourself in my shoes, and tell me the things I want to know, I wouldn’t be acting this way.”

“It’s always my fault,” she whined.

I hopped off and pushed past her into the garage, then stormed outside. I walked over to Chloe’s house and we sat around and spent the afternoon trying to decide whether my father was George Clooney or Ben Affleck.

“Ben Affleck is taller,” Chloe remarked.

“George is cuter though. However I think he’s much older than my mom.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Your father is definitely Ben Affleck,” she concluded. “Won’t he be thrilled to meet you one day?”

We laughed. “Who are we kidding,” I said. “My mom could never get Ben Affleck.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

T
he day I met my father, I was twenty-two years old, the same age my mom was when she gave birth to me. I’d just graduated college, and a month prior to meeting him; she’d given me his phone number, and said I should be the one to call him. I didn’t know at the time that she’d already emailed him that I would be doing so. She still never trusted him to do the right thing by me, and was always going out of her way to make sure I never felt slighted.

I was anxious to make the call, but kept my expectations low, as my mother reminded me to do a thousand times. Kevin was at his office when I reached him for the very first time, and I heard him excuse himself in the background.

“Hi, Grace,” his voice was deep.

“Hi, Kevin.”

“How are you?” he asked me like a grandfather would ask a distant grandchild.

“I’m good,” I said, then paused. “I was wondering if you would consider meeting me one day next month?”

“I’d be happy to.”

“I’m sure you know, your mom is flying me out there as a college graduation gift, and I told her that I would like to try and see you while I’m there.”

After my high-school spring break trip to L.A. was cancelled due to Nana Lynne’s hip surgery, she promised to re-gift the vacation when I’d finished college. I never thought much of it, but she must’ve had this master plan in her head for many years. She never once suggested that I contact her son, but she knew at that age I’d be mature enough to make the decision on my own, and I did.

“Yes, she did mention that to me,” he said, and I could tell by the tone of his voice, that my phone call was no surprise.

“Well, I guess it’d be best to catch up in person. Will Kate be joining us?” Kate was Kevin’s wife, and the mother of my two makeshift sisters, Lauren and Julia, both adopted. Lauren was eighteen, and headed off to the University of Texas, and Julia was seventeen and finishing her senior year of high school.

“She won’t be able to join us; it’ll be just me and you. Would you like to have dinner?” he asked.

“Sure, I love dinner.”

“Alright, then. I’ll make us a reservation somewhere nice.”

“No need to go all out on my account,” I said, and he didn’t respond. “Just kidding, anywhere is fine with me.”

“I will see you in a few weeks then, you can call me on this number when you get in, it’s my cell phone.”

“Sounds good, see you soon,” I clicked my phone off and ended a brief conversation with the one person I’d wanted to talk to my entire life.

A month later, I was on American Airlines flight number 465 to Los Angeles. We landed at LAX and I was instructed by Nana Lynne to take a taxi to her house in Santa Monica. I passed two In-N-Out burger locations, and recalled my dad telling me not to leave the state without trying their Double-Double. Patch had been dying to visit the West coast, but had never had the chance. Nor was he invited on this trip. I rubbed it in pretty good, too, because I’d never outgrown my desire to make Patch wish he were the illegitimate child.

I arrived at my Nana Lynne’s house around noon that day, and was surprised to see my three aunts standing behind her at the front door.

“Surprise, my beautiful Grace!”

“Hi, Nana,” I hugged her and inhaled her comforting scent. I’d only ever seen her in person three times prior to that day. But despite her distance, she’d gone out of her way to make me feel like family over the years, and kept a presence in my life. Not to mention sending fifty bucks every birthday, Easter and Christmas. Valentine’s Day only warranted twenty-five. My aunts, on the other hand, I had no recollection of meeting but my mom said they came to visit me when I was one or two. Apparently they showered me with gifts in hopes of creating a smoke screen around their brother’s shame.

We spent the day going through old photo albums and catching up, and I showed them pictures of Patch and some friends on my phone.

“I’m going to call my father now,” I announced around six o’clock, to which many glances were exchanged.

“I’ll get you my phone,” Nana said and hurried into the kitchen.

“I meant, Kevin,” I said to his sisters.

“We know,” his sister Katherine smiled.

Kevin’s sisters were adults, and all had families of their own. In fact, Nana Lynne was a nana to eleven grandchildren, including me. Make that ten and a half, I guess.

She called for me to join her in the kitchen.

“I thought you might want some privacy, dear,” she said, and handed me her cordless phone.

“Thank you,” I said and sat down on one of the eight leather-bound chairs that surrounded her enormous breakfast table. It was a rich mahogany, mission style table with a wrought iron chandelier hanging over the center.

No one ever gave people like me much credit. I could see it in their faces, the pity. They felt sorry for me because I had to leave the room and call my father, who’d abandoned me and left me to be raised by wolves. And nothing irked me more than enduring people’s pity. I was constantly being reminded that my life was different, and worthy of additional compassion. Why was it so hard for people to see what a great life I’d been given, and how lucky I was to have my parents? Sure I had my moments over the years where I felt sorry for myself, but the one person who made the biggest impression on me, was the person everyone assumed I’d feel the least connected to, and that was my dad. Not Kevin Hansen, but my dad who raised me. He never let me forget how lucky I was to have his love. Not in a boastful way, but in a way that made me appreciate my life regardless of how many hurdles I had to jump to get what I wanted. And everyone’s assumption that I hoped for some sort of future relationship with Kevin couldn’t have been farther from the truth. There was nothing I wanted from him but the opportunity to meet him face-to-face, and remove that hurdle from my adult life.

My second conversation with Kevin was almost as brief as the first, and he agreed to meet me at an In-n-Out Burger close to his mother’s house. He’d made a reservation somewhere nicer, near the beach, but I told him that my dad said these were the best burgers in town, and that’s where I wanted to go.

I arrived about twenty minutes late because the traffic everyone had warned me about turned out to be a reality. I recognized him immediately from the recent photos of him that were scattered around my nana’s house, and he stood up as soon as I walked in. I smiled immediately when I realized that he was about six-feet-five inches tall.

He extended his hand, and I hugged him instead. Nothing dramatic, just a quick, friendly gesture. He sat, and I threw my purse into the booth and scooted onto the bench opposite him.

“You look like your mom,” he said, staring at me with a tiny smirk of his own.

“I get that a lot.”

He nodded, and couldn’t take his eyes off of me.

“You’re not going to cry are you?” I asked.

He laughed. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good, because I’ve never seen a grown man cry before.”

I was starving, and the glorious smell of fried food and fresh grease was giving me hunger pains, but I didn’t know how to properly break the ice and take the awkward focus off of me and onto the menu.

“I’m glad we have this opportunity, Grace, to meet and get together like this.”

“Are you?” I asked, surprised by my own question. I didn’t mean for it to come out as confrontational; I was truly interested.

“Yes, I am,” he said, unoffended.

“I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just that I’ve always wondered why you never wanted to meet me before this,” I said. “You made me initiate contact with you. Why?”

He sighed. “I wish I had the perfect answer for you, I really do. And there are many things I wish I’d done differently. I assumed you, and your mom, would’ve rather had me leave you both alone after the way I’d behaved so many years ago.”

“I understand,” I nodded at the stranger across from me. I felt no connection with him, even as the conversation got personal.

He continued. “I apologize to you for not making an effort, and I owe your mom more apologies than I can count.”

“I can pass that on if you’d like?” I offered.

He folded his oversized hands on the table and continued. “I’m not proud of how I acted towards her all those years ago, but I’ll be honest with you, I was not ready for a child and I was angry at her for trying to decide my future without my consent.”

I sat and listened.

“We both made the same mistake, no offense, yet I had no say in the outcome. She’d made up her mind, and I wasn’t about to stay and let her tell me how I was supposed to live the rest of my life.”

“It’s okay, really, I’m not looking for an explanation…”

“Please, let me finish,” he stopped me. “But now, looking back, and raising two daughters, I have an entirely different perspective on the man I was back then, and I am ashamed of how I treated your mother. I really am.”

“I will add that to the apologies.” I made a check mark in the air.

“Well, I’m glad you can make light of it, but it was important for me to let you know that I am sorry for how I handled things.” He pursed his lips. “Your mom has obviously done a fantastic job of raising you, and it’s my honor to be here with you today, thank you.”

I smiled at him. “Your welcome. I really didn’t mean for this to get so heavy,” I said. “It’s kind of weird, sitting here with you, and meeting the source of my size eleven shoes. I mean, everyone thinks that I have all these expectations of you, and I really don’t. It’s really been more of a burning curiosity than anything. You’ve been such a vague, inaccessible figure my whole life, and all I ever really wanted was to simply make the connection.” I held my grin. “And now I have,” I said. And I really had no intention of making him squirm or apologize, all I ever wanted my whole life was to meet him, and see him, and unite with him on any level.