Twenty-Nine
TWENTY-NINE
Holland
I fussed with my shirt, yanked it off, and tried another. Two pairs of jeans and one pair of leggings later, I turned in front of the mirror, and decided to keep on the cargo jeans, tank top, and cropped jacket to guard against the unpredictable coolness of a late September afternoon. Good thing it was Sunday. I’d had most of the afternoon to be indecisive—something I’d become very skilled at, because there were too many decisions to manage at once. Overthinking was my new pastime.
Did I want Noble? Of course I did, but did I want him bad enough to allow him to walk away from a board position he loved? He found his work at Chosen Alliance as meaningful as I did. It was evident in the way he showed up extra early for meetings, talking and greeting everyone as if he were the executive director. People marveled at the way he remembered their names, which none of the other board members bothered to do. When it came to the youth we served, he always made time to get to know them. I couldn’t live with making him walk away from that.
Did I want to stay friends or cut things off with Noble completely? How could I be friends with a man whose bed I wanted to crawl into every night? And how could I cut off the man I enjoyed spending time with the most?
Would dating Noble distract me from my journey of rediscovering and redefining who I was while I was still learning so much? Was our connection a result of shared trauma? Should I forgive my mother? Was I truly ready to meet my father? This tornado of decisions was already all-consuming. How could I focus on being Noble’s girlfriend when I had so much to focus on in my own life?
Questions stalked me day and night, flooding my thoughts and stealing my focus. Would I even make a decent girlfriend? It had been so long. Besides, I wanted to be the priority in my next relationship. How could I demand that of Noble, when he would be one of many things I had to split my focus on in life? I had never been so indecisive. Then again, my life had been so much simpler in Florence. Even though I could never see myself going back there.
I pulled a pair of flats from the closet. What did one wear when meeting their father for the first time? I slipped my feet into the crisscross sandals and grabbed my purse. Having no idea what he looked like, I’d created an entire persona based on him being an English professor and HBCU grad. I imagined him as a well-read, proud intellectual who spent time in coffee houses and traveled extensively during school breaks. Polished and published. How would he be dressed? Maybe in a tweed blazer, smart trousers, and loafers.
I picked up my phone and looked up his LinkedIn profile. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? His headshot revealed a bald man with a salt-and-pepper beard, caramel-colored skin, and prominent cheekbones like mine. Staring at the picture, I tried to distinguish other similarities between us. Bearing such a strong resemblance to my mother, I couldn’t see anything else that confirmed that this man was my father. I scrolled through his feed. Like me, he didn’t post much. I checked Facebook and found a few posts and pics of him with a pretty, espresso-skinned woman with striking gray hair that was short on one side and fell over her eye on the other. They had twin college-age girls. My sisters. Potentially.
If I stayed in my room another moment, I would probably change my clothes and my mind again. I stopped myself from pacing aimlessly and took a deep breath, let it out, and took another.
Then I pep talked myself down the stairs. “You’ve wondered about your parents all your life. This is your chance to meet your father. You can do this.”
I let the map app on my phone guide me to the coffee house, walking past the stores and shops I now frequented. From inside, familiar faces of owners and customers waved at me. They knew my name.
Several blocks later, I entered the coffee house looking for the man from LinkedIn and Facebook. Settling in one of the comfy chairs by the window, I people-watched until I saw him get out of a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. He was fit and walked with rhythm, like he was stepping in time to music only he could hear. While he adjusted his dark aviators, I took note of his tennis shoes, black jeans, and a black T-shirt with the words Black Designer T-shirt scrawled across the front . I stifled a chuckle and stood as he came through the door.
“Ken—” I realized I didn’t know what to call him. Addressing him by his first name felt wrong. I waved until his head swiveled in my direction.
He smiled, walked over, and opened his arms as I reached out to shake his hand. Dropping his arms, he reached out to shake as I opened my arms to hug him. We laughed, shook, and then hugged.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” he said, exuding warmth with his smile.
“Nice to meet you too…um.” I rubbed my hands together, not knowing what else to do with them.
“You can call me Kenny.” He stared and shook his head. “You are the spitting image of your mom. But those cheekbones, I guarantee, came from my mom.”
I laughed nervously. “You think so?”
“I know so. Can I get you something?” He angled his body toward the barista.
I realized I was wringing my hands. “Sure.” I followed him over to the counter.
When I ordered a medium chai latte with oat milk, cinnamon, and a shot of espresso, he laughed and said, “We’ll have two of those.” We both picked something from their eclectic sandwich menu and headed back to the comfy chairs by the window.
“What would you like to know about me?” he asked, unwrapping his sandwich.
“Everything.”
“Ha!” His laugh was deep—the kind that made women blush and giggle. I could imagine the younger version of him wooing my mother. He must have been a mess in his heyday.
“I grew up in Queens, with my parents and sister. Went to Hampton. That’s where I met your mother. She didn’t play hard to get. She was hard to get. That woman gave me a run for my money.” He laughed nostalgically.
My heart swelled, hearing about my mom.
“I finally snagged her by the end of my sophomore year. We dated until I left in the spring of my junior year to study abroad in Spain. At first, we kept in touch, writing letters back and forth. Long-distance calling was expensive, so we never talked on the phone. Then she just stopped writing. When I returned, I looked for her, and everyone said she’d left school. I never heard from her again.”
“What year was that?”
Kenny leaned back, lifting his head as he thought. “The year before I graduated, so it was 1993.”
The year I was born.
“I thought about her for a long time—wondered what happened to her. Then I ran into one of our classmates a few years ago and learned that she’d passed.” He fingered his cup mindlessly for several moments. “I liked her a lot. Even then, I felt like she could have been, ‘the one.’” He sat back. “She was tough—mysterious. That’s what drew me to her. She wasn’t like the other girls. She told you what she wanted you to know, and that was it.”
“Then what?”
“I went to grad school at Hunter College, and then Columbia for my PhD. I got a gig teaching at Hunter and have been there ever since. Met my beautiful wife, Heather, at a party, got married, and had two beautiful daughters.” He smiled at the mention of his wife and daughters. I smiled too. “Not too much else to tell. New York born and bred.” He stopped talking and looked at me like he was proud of me. His smile was warm.
“Thanks for sharing,” I said, taking a sip of my chai latte.
“Your turn,” he said, making it sound more like a question.
I took a deep breath. “All of it?”
“Every last detail. Or whatever you’re willing to share.”
“The woman who found you is my adoptive mother.” I started with that and shared the journey leading me to sit with him, sipping twin cups of chai lattes.
“How old are you?”
“I was born September 1993,” I said, answering his real question, minus the math. “The day you called was my birthday.”
Kenny raised his brows and nodded. “Wow. Happy birthday. That seems to add up.”
I wrapped my hands around my empty cup, holding back tears, not sure what else to say.
Kenny covered my hands with his. “It’s okay.”
My lips trembled and plump tears rolled down my face. I lowered my head and let the emotions roll through me. I cried for the memories I’d missed being a part of, for not getting to know my mom, and for several exhausting weeks of discovering more than I had ever imagined about myself.
“It’s okay,” he repeated over and over. “We can move at whatever pace works for you. I’ll tell you one thing. You’re my daughter. I know it. And once we confirm it, I want you to meet my family, but only when you’re ready.”
I grabbed the napkin and wiped my eyes. “I’d like that.”
“Good. Let me know when you’re ready.”
“Oh, I’m ready,” I said, sniffling. What sense did waiting make?
“I’ll take care of everything.”
Once I gathered myself, Kenny and I eased into lighter conversation. We both loved music; he admitted to singing in his church choir as a kid. He told me stories about my mother and how she had him wrapped around her finger.
“Why do you think she kept her pregnancy from you?”
“I wish I knew.”
“What would you have done if she’d told you back then?”
“I would have been your father sooner.”
I pressed my lips together and blinked back fresh tears.