Finally, he speaks. “I haven’t seen her in…twenty years?”
“Twenty-five.”
He scans me head to toe. “Twenty-five, I guess.” He doesn’t try to deny it. Deny me.
In fact, he doesn’t seem to have anything to say. Either I completely shocked him, and took him off guard, or he simply doesn’t care.
I’m holding out that it’s the first, but by the way he avoids my eye, I’d say it’s the latter.
Normally, I’m fine with silence. Enjoy it. But now, the need to fill it spills over. “I live out in Los Angeles now. I moved out there after graduation with my friends. We’re in a band. I’m—I’m a musician. You probably heard something of mine on the radio.” I don’t mean for it to sound arrogant, and for once, it doesn’t. At least to my ears.
But it’s almost worse, because it sounds reaching. Like I’m yearning for approval.
And I don’t think I’m going to get it as he doesn’t say anything except, “I don’t really listen to the radio.” No follow-up questions, no congratulations.
Nothing.
Alright then.
Clearly he doesn’t care for small talk. Maybe I got that from him. So I cut to the chase. “Did you know about me?”
He rubs his deeply lined forehead. “No. I mean, yes but…Debbie and I were never together. I just…saw her sometimes when I went into the city.”
“So you did or didn’t know about me?”
“She told me when she got pregnant, but, uh, I told her I couldn’t have any part of it.” He looks down at his shoes. “I was married to my first wife at the time. So I told Debbie I’d either help her take care of it, or she was on her own to raise it.You,” he corrects.
My stomach churns. I don’t have any love for my mother, but for her to be put in that situation is shitty. Even I can see that and feel compassion for her.
It pisses me off that this man is making me feel that toward her.
“First wife?” I ask. “Do I have any—do you have any other children?”
Before I can even get my hopes up about potential siblings, he shakes his head. Probably for the best.
“No, I had a couple of step-kids with my second marriage, but once we divorced, I lost contact with them as well.”
“Christ, how many times have you been married?”
His face shows no embarrassment, just exhaustion, as he answers flatly, “Four.”
I glance toward his left hand, which is still tucked in his pockets. He notes my attention and pulls it out. No ring.
Four times. Four marriages, four divorces. Did the others end because of affairs, too? Were there otherDebbie’sin his life?
Disgust roils through me, burning the back of my throat.I cross my arms. “So you never cared enough to follow up to see if shetook care of itor not?”
Silas shifts, his shoes crinkling on the plastic wrap. “Honestly, no. I’m sorry if that’s not the answer you want?—”
“I just want the truth.”
“Then that’s it,” he says. “I was so preoccupied with work and my marriage that I didn’t want the complication.”
Complication.
That about sums up my entire existence, doesn’t it?
This is it. This is what’s left of my blood family. This sad, hollow excuse of a man whose slumped shoulders are being swallowed by his cheap jacket.
