34
LUKE
It’s like looking in a mirror.
I can’t explain it.
I took after Dad—a spitting image people have said.
And this woman . . . Claire . . .
Diane’s daughter.
She doesn’t look at all like her. She looks like my father.
My heart throbs. I agreed to come out here with Eleanor for this express purpose. Well, not exactly . I brought the sealed note from my parents’ attic, thinking that maybe, just maybe I would have an opportunity to get a little more information. I didn’t think I’d be brave enough to ask.
Seeing Claire doesn’t make me braver. Her presence, her existence has a gravity, a pull.
I can’t ignore the truth here.
Claire doesn’t seem to notice. She sticks her hand out in my direction. “Hi, I’m Claire. Nice to meet you.”
I shake her hand, at a loss for words. “Luke,” I manage.
Eleanor and Claire exchange friendly words, but that all fades into the background as I rush through my thoughts.
If Diane and my dad had an affair, then it’s wholly possible that . . .
No, that’d be crazy. A lovechild? My father? Friendly family man Frank Wyatt? An affair and a love child? It’s too much to fathom.
“I’m glad I was able to stop by today,” Eleanor says. “I have the picture for you, and I also brought a thumb drive with your mother’s music.”
Claire smiles placidly. “That’s so kind of you.” Her eyes flick to me for a brief moment. Unsure and wary. Sizing me up.
Maybe she notices it too. Although that would be crazy, wouldn’t it? To meet a total stranger who has no context for who you might be in their life, and then guess that you might be related?
“Um, I actually did some digging into my records too, for information about Frank.”
My stomach flips. I shove my hands into my pockets, lifting my head up and looking for an exit path.
Eleanor touches my arm and squeezes. Her eyes are pleading with me. For what, at first, I’m not sure. And then it occurs to me that she wants me to be truthful. Give the truth I haven’t been able to give all these months. But Claire is a stranger and even though Stellan is busy with Shortbread a few strides away, the thought of bringing up the truth makes my mouth dry.
But I’ve come this far. I either learn and know, or I never know at all. I just keep asking questions.
Can I live a life full of questions? Can I live a life na?ve to my own history?
It might be easier not to know, but I also can’t imagine living with the itching question in the back of my mind.
What the hell happened between my dad and Diane?
“I knew your mom,” I say.
Eleanor’s grip tightens on my arm.
Claire's expression is unreadable at first. Her eyes start to widen, and she lifts her chin. “Really?”
“Yep.”
“How?”
We all know where this is going. Even if it’s a long shot, I think we’re all feeling it. “She was friends with . . .” I lick my lips. “She was friends with my parents. With my dad.”
Claire freezes. “What was your dad’s name?”
It would be foolish to think I can rewind time and back my way out of this moment. I’m already here. Nowhere to fall but forward.
“Frank,” I say in a ragged whisper. “Frank Wyatt.”
Eleanor goes rigid beside me. Another truth I didn’t tell her the entirety of. That one wasn’t to hurt her, wasn’t to keep her safe. It was to keep me safe. I needed answers before I could hear her questions.
She’d understand that, right?
Claire takes me in, letting her eyes peruse me. It’s not the kind of perusal you get in a bar or when you pass someone attractive on the street. She is adding me up, taking in the image of each of my parts, and creating a sum that is more similar to hers than either of us would like to admit. “I have some things to show you.”
* * *
Claire’s office is silent as she goes to her desk and opens one of the drawers.
Eleanor and I remain in the doorway. I’m afraid to step inside, but Eleanor gives me a small nod. Go on . It’s not like hanging back is going to change my reality. I step into the office, the wooden floor squeaking underneath me. The wolfhound in the corner raises his head, and when he realizes nothing has changed other than my arrival, he plops back down.
“Well, I guess I’ll just rip off the band-aid.” Claire reaches into her desk and produces two official-looking documents. She places them in front of me and points to the one on the right. “This is the birth certificate I’ve always used for government stuff.”
She places it in front of me. In the slot where the mother’s name is written is Diane Bloom. The place for a father’s name is blank.
“And this one . . .”
My eyes travel to the parentage lines again.
And this time the father’s slot is not blank.
Francis Wyatt.
There it is. In government ink.
“I found it buried in her stuff. I guess she had his name struck from the record when I was little. My last name has always been Bloom.”
I clear my throat in discomfort.
Claire sighs. “I’m sorry, I know this must be hard.”
Something surges inside me. “Did you know him? Did you ever—”
“No. Never,” Claire answers quickly.
I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.
“I have something,” I say. “Of my dad’s.” I reach into my coat.
Claire looks back at Eleanor who is lingering in the corner behind me. Eleanor shakes her head. “I had no idea, I just invited him to come along.”
I internally wince at how small her voice sounds.
Later, Wyatt.
I hold the letter out to Claire. “I found this in a locked box that had a bunch of letters and things from their time together. I couldn’t take the whole thing from my mom’s house. I didn’t want to upset her if she doesn’t . . . or even if she did . . .”
My poor mom. She’s never deserved anything like this.
Claire takes the note and flips it over. “This was recent.”
“Yep.”
Her thumbs slide over the paper like it’s an artifact that she needs to be delicate with. “Should we open it?”
“Sure,” I say. “You can do the honors if you want.”
Claire takes a letter opener and slices the top of the envelope open in a clean motion. She pulls out a greeting card. On the front is a print of a dog looking up. Claire snickers. “She always had a lot of cards to send to people.”
I bite my lip. Claire and I don’t just share our father. We share the grief of losing a parent. She technically has lost both, but she never had my father.
We both know how terrible the loss is. How it hollows out your heart. I want to hug her, but I’m afraid that it might open something in me. It might make me weep for all the time I believed my father was a good man, an upstanding man who would never do something like this. Or maybe I would weep to know a part of myself I never knew existed in the world.
When she opens the card, a picture falls out onto the desk.
I look down at it. It’s Claire recently wearing a cap and gown standing amidst some trees, arms crossed over her chest, smiling.
“That’s my grad school portrait,” Claire says. Her eyes travel across the inside of the card. I watch the tears well up. She folds her hand over her face. “Sorry.”
“Want me to . . .” I hold my hand out.
She nods and hands the card to me.
The handwriting is the same as the writing on the cocktail napkin I found amongst Dad’s memories. I get a tug in my throat. I have to be strong for Claire, though. For me.
I read the note aloud:
Dear Frank,
I hope Katie and the kids are well. And I hope you’re well too. We’re old now, isn’t it funny?
Anyway, I know it’s been a while. I just wanted to say thank you. Our girl did good. Better than good. Master’s degree in Animal Welfare and Behavior. She’s smarter than either of us and definitely prettier.
All my love,
Diane
I suck in my cheeks and look up at the light to keep the tears from falling. It’s such a simple note, and yet it has stabbed me in the gut and twisted the knife.
Our girl did good .
The birth certificate definitely proved enough, but seeing the words written out like that is somehow so much more real.
Claire rounds the desk and wraps her arms around me. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I press my hand against her back. “Don’t be sorry.”
“It’s not fair.”
“To either of us.”
Having her close slots something into me I didn’t know was missing. Maybe my body always knew there was another piece of me out there in the world. That our family was a little bit incomplete.
We hold each other tight for a while. The only sound in the room is the tinkling of her dog’s tags as he gets up and pushes at her hip with his snout.
Claire pulls back, red-eyed. “You should be mad at me. I think.”
“For being born?” I ask.
“I mean, I don’t know,” she says.
“I’m not mad at you.” I’m not even mad at Diane.
All my anger is saved for my father.
He had it all. The house, the kids, the wife.
Perfect. At least that’s what I would think if I had all those things. I’ve dreamt of having that. With Eleanor.
And he had to go and fuck it all up. And why?
Because he could. Because he didn’t think. Because he didn’t care.
And if I’m my father’s son, what the hell am I capable of?
Would I fuck it all up too?