October 7, Tuesday
cooperage a workshop or factory where barrels are made
WHEN I pushed open the glass door of the Two Guys Detective Agency, the scents of coffee and old shoes assailed me.
An attractive woman I guessed to be in her fifties sat at the receptionist desk.
Octavia and Linda were nowhere in sight, but I could hear their raised voices coming from a closed office door.
"Hello," the woman said, as if nothing was amiss. "How can I help you?"
"I'm Bernadette Waters," I said. "I don't have an appointment, but I was hoping to talk to Octavia for a few minutes about a, um, case, she's been working on." The voices increased in decibels. "But I can see, um, hear she's busy."
"Hold on," the woman said with a pleasant smile. She opened a drawer and withdrew a silver whistle, then blew it shrilly.
I winced, but the voices ceased abruptly.
The office door opened, and Octavia poked her head out. She glared at the receptionist. "What?"
The woman jerked her thumb toward me. "You have a client."
Octavia's gaze flitted to me, then she smiled. "Oh, hi, Bernadette."
"I should've called," I offered.
She gave a dismissive wave. "I need a break from my controlling sister," she said loud enough for her sister to hear. She stepped out and banged the door closed, then smiled. "Let's go to my office."
I followed her into her posh office where she situated herself behind her imposing desk. She gestured to a guest chair. "Have a seat. How's the search progressing?"
I settled into the chair. The mid-morning sunlight streaming through the blinds cast prison-bar shadows across the desk—an oddly appropriate metaphor for how trapped I felt in my current situation.
"That's actually why I'm here. I have another candidate—a man named Tom Feldon. But his reaction to my news was... mixed."
Octavia leaned back in her chair, her expression shifting into what I'd come to recognize as her analytical mode. "Define mixed."
I recounted the meeting at the Winged Pegasus—Tom's shock, his admission about memory gaps from heavy drinking, his admission that he wasn't close to his two kids, his request for time to process everything. Octavia listened without interruption, occasionally making notes on a legal pad.
"So he didn't deny the possibility," she said when I finished. "But he's not exactly embracing it either."
"Exactly. And now I'm sitting here wondering if I should push harder, give him more space, or just accept that this might be another dead end."
Octavia set down her pen and studied me with an intensity that made me slightly uncomfortable. "Can I ask you something? Let's say Tom comes back tomorrow and confirms he's your biological father. Then what?"
The question caught me off guard. "I... what do you mean?"
"I mean, what happens next? What do you expect from him? What do you want this relationship to look like?"
I opened my mouth to respond, then closed it again. The truth was, I hadn't thought much beyond the moment of confirmation. The search had consumed so much of my energy that I'd never seriously considered the aftermath.
"I guess I want to know him," I said slowly. "Learn about his other kids, his life. Maybe have some kind of ongoing relationship."
"And if he doesn't want that?" Octavia's voice was gentle but unflinching. "If he acknowledges paternity but makes it clear he's not interested in playing father to a grown woman he's never known?"
I sighed. "I suppose I'd have to respect that."
Octavia nodded, then leaned forward slightly. "Sometimes the family we choose matters more than the family we're born into. Sometimes the people who show up for us consistently are worth more than the ones who share our DNA."
An image of Jett flashed through my mind—his steady presence, his willingness to help with my search, the way he'd sat beside me last night offering silent support.
"You think I'm chasing something that doesn't exist," I said.
"I think you're chasing something that might not exist in the way you imagine it," Octavia corrected. "Tom Feldon might be your biological father. But that doesn't automatically make him your dad."
I left the detective agency with more questions than answers, Octavia's words echoing in my head as I walked back to my van. The distinction she'd drawn between father and dad felt significant, though I wasn't sure I was ready to fully process what that meant for my search.
But as I drove back toward Happy Trails, one thing had become clear: I needed to seriously consider what I was hoping to gain from finding my biological father—and whether those hopes were realistic or just another form of wishful thinking.