Conundrum (36 page)

“Well, that’s the other thing I needed to tell you. Lisa,” she said, forcing the words through a closed-up throat
.
“
M
y dad is dying. A hospice nurse is caring for him now. He may as well hear the truth before it’s too late. He’ll be dead in a week or so anyway.
So it’s now or never.”

Julie grew quiet. The smell of burnt onions brought my attention to the stove, where my pan of vegetables looked a bit charred. I turned off the flame and knew what Julie wanted to ask me before she even said it.

“I’m meeting Neal at my father’s house
tomorrow
morning. Nine a.m.
Neal
would like
you to be there.”

Chapter 23

As I stood watching Neal get out of my mother’s Mercedes, I couldn’t think of an appropriate word to describe how I felt. Saying I was uncomfortable was a gross understatement, and
terrified
would
have
nail
ed
it closer on the head. But once I caught Neal’s expression, my jangled nerves calmed instantly.

Neal looked more than distraught. Broken, battered. Like his whole world had disintegrated before his eyes.
E
merging from
under all those years of thickly applied veneer was a sensitive, hurt little boy. That boy now
peeked
through the cracks in the veneer; what stood before me was the brother I remembered from my childhood—the boy that would hold my hand tightly against the fearful
mysteries of life, confident I would
p
rotect him. I knew without a doubt he had fought with our mother—and lost. But I also knew something Neal probably didn’t. That whatever battle he felt he’d lost against my mother only proved him the victor and my mother the loser. Again.
Part of me wanted to know every gory detail of their fight, but another part
would opt
to cover my ears and tune it all out.

Before I could delve into thoughts about Neal’s living situation—
W
ould he
be forced
to move out? Would he want to? Where would he go?—Julie drove up and parked behind my car. Neal awkwardly stop
ped
midstride down the walkway, halfway to where I stood on the front stoop.
He spun around and watched Julie get out of her car and approach us, looking a lot like a deer caught in someone’s headlights.

I decided to be gracious and made the first move. I walked over to him and gave him a hug. He wrapped his arms
around me,
hesitantly at first, then released into a nearly crushing embrace
that
s
crunched my lungs and made it
hard
to breath.
Even so, the intimacy felt so good, so long in coming
, and a sob erupted from my crushed chest
. I needed this—this connection with someone in my family, needed to fe
e
l that not all the cords had been severed. I didn’t have a clue what this portended for the dynamics of our relationship—Neal’s and mine, or that of our entire family.

I was so tired of lines drawn and sides taken. Tired of forced loyalties and unspoken expectations. I wanted to be free, released from this cage of obligations. Why couldn’t we be honest, speak the truth, tell what was in our hearts without fatal judgment? Why were relationships so complicated?
Why so many lies, hidden agendas?

Neal released me and wiped his eyes. He had a hard time looking directly at me. He mumbled something about being sorry
,
but I waved him off and turned to Julie, who stood a few feet away.

Neal turned to her. “Julie. I’m sorry for the other day. I didn’t know
.
 
.
 
.
” He fumbled with words, trying to
string
them in
to
sentences, but Julie rested her hand on his arm and tipped her head in sympathy.

“Don’t sweat it. Listen. This is plain uncomfortable for all of us. But, you need to prepare yourself for worse. First of all, like I said
.
 
.
 
.
” She
turned to
Neal and
studied
him. He was nicely dressed, clean-shaven, hair played down. Rather businesslike.
“I have no clue how he’ll react. Probably with anger. Probably deny it. But he’s very weak
,
and I doubt he’ll put up much of a fuss. Maybe he’ll even laugh it off as a joke. Who knows? Just
.
 
.
 
.
don’t expect much, okay?”

I could only imagine how nervous
Neal
felt, a storm of emotion. Here, about to meet his real father for the first
and possibly the last
time, no doubt Julie having told him what kind of man Ed Hutchinson was, so who knew how that made Neal feel
?
Was it worse to have an unknown father or to have one who prove
d
to be a bastard? Where did that leave you?

The question made me think
about
my dad and how he’d searched for his real father, no doubt with high expectations and hope. Yet,
reuniting with
his father
and seeing what
a disgusting individual
he was
had sent my dad reeling into despair and
exacerbated
his
sense of unworthiness. I no longer believed that discovery
had
caused him to develop leukemia, but no doubt it had broken his heart. At least Neal hadn’t spent a lifetime wondering and searching and waiting for his heroic father to magically appear one day on his doorstep
with a Hershey bar in his hand
. So, in some way, maybe it was good that Neal only now had learned the truth.

Would Ed Hutchinson have wanted anything to do with Neal, had my mother told him she was pregnant with his child? Would it have changed anything?
Would Neal have been spurned and ignored, making him feel as unworthy as our father
felt
? Or would that truth at least have centered him, explain
ed
why he was different from his siblings, setting him apart in some way
?
I was back to the essential question the conundrum posed: Was learning the truth what set you free
—regardless of its import
?
Nevertheless
, being a bastard son in a family could hardly have made
Neal
feel special.

I pushed all these thoughts from my mind as Julie opened the door. A middle-aged Oriental woman
in pale loose clothing
came around the corner into the hallway and greeted us. She narrowed her eyes a little and spoke in a hushed tone.

“He’s in his den. But, best if you didn’t stay long.
He’s having trouble breathing.” She gestured and stepped out of the way so we could pass. I’m not sure what Julie had told this woman, but I doubt it was much. Neal followed behind me, all of us silent, our footsteps on the wood floor sounding loud and ominous.
The
aroma of coffee wafted on the stuffy air. I fought the urge to open some windows.

Ed Hutchinson sat in his leather padded chair
in the dim light emanating from the ceiling fixture
with a crocheted shawl around his shoulders
.
He wore a mask over his face, breathing oxygen, no doubt, from the tank at his side.
A pallor extended from his face down his neck
,
and his forehead beaded with sweat even though the room was cool. In his ratty cotton bathrobe and slippers, with a day’s growth of hair on his face, he looked a mess. Much worse than the last time I
’d seen
him—only a few weeks ago?

As we entered the room, he caught a glance of me behind Julie. He pulled down his mask and immediately broke out in a deep, raspy cough that made me cringe.

“Hey, good to see you, gorgeous. Nice of you to come back. Lisa, right?”

I nodded, not sure of what to say. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling better. I know you’re not up to company
.
 
.
 
.
”

He calmed his coughing and stuck the mask on his face, eager to suck in the oxygen it offered. He waved us over
,
and his eyes lit on Neal. A quick study of his face brought him to the conclusion that h
e
was my brother.

“So
. . .
which one is this? Your younger brother, right?” He spoke through the mask
,
and the words sounded as if they came from underwater.
I noticed he hadn’t acknowledged Julie at all
.
She retreated with her back against the wall paneling, quiet, waiting. I thought she’d do all the talking, but it looked
as if
she was bowing out of that job. I wondered what emotions were running through her, knowing she’d never felt much affection for her father. Knowing Neal would probably be disappointed. Maybe feeling sorry that she couldn’t have had a more loving father herself. Maybe, in that way, we were all orphans in that room.

What followed was surreal. I
t
was
as though I were watching a movie on
a
level
with
Gone with the Wind
, the camera close up on my brother’s face as he drank in Ed’s features, as he introduced himself and the words tumbled out. My eyes riveted on Neal’s shaky hand as he extended it to Ed, and
hours seemed to pass before Ed reluctantly reach
ed
out in kind, and grasped Neal’s hand with the desperation of a man sinking beneath waves and flailing for
rescue.

I backed away, feeling excluded from the moment, and joined Julie at the wall. Tears obstructed my vision
,
and I couldn’t hear much. To my surprise, Ed listened, wide-eyed, with almost rapt attention as Neal spoke. Absent were the anger and disbelief I had expected. Was Ed all that surprised, or had he somehow known or suspected Neal was his
?
I couldn’t tell.
His previously cocky, teasing manner fell from his features like a mask to the floor
,
and what remained was a visage vulnerable and pained.

I could almost see Ed flip through the years, as if thumbing through pages in a book, trying to find a particular passage, one suddenly important and desperately needed. His puffy eyes glowed with infused memory as he no doubt drew up moments trapped in past years somewhere lodged deep in his mind, cobwebbed and
buried under piles of inconsequential
life experiences
. Images of my mother in his arms
, in his bed
. Images of my angry father perhaps?

Had Nathan Sitteroff confronted Ed Hutchinson—at work, on a dark street corner?
How had my father gone to work at all—facing his boss with this toxic knowledge?
Had my father almost spit out the words, the accusing truth of Neal’s parentage, only to suck them back in and keep them hidden? Why—to use as a weapon, as leverage
for
some later time? I tried to put myself in my father’s shoes: hurt, angry, betrayed, guilty, ashamed. All those emotions roiling as he looked at Ed’s face. Those nine long months, as my mother’s belly grew with life, my father looked on—albeit at a distance, from what
Julie had told me—and knew Ed was the father. The question that plagued me was, why hadn’t my father thrown this fact in Ed Hutchinson’s face
?

And then it made perfect sense in some odd way. My father
hadn’t wanted to give Ed any more power over his life and our family
than he’d already wielded
. And opening that door
would
only
have
led to a path of shame and embarrassment for all of us. Had my father, rather than burdening us with disgrace, decided to carry it all upon himself
?
Was this some ultimate sacrifice—his carrying this secret to his deathbed, until he could no longer keep it inside
,
blurt
ing
it out to Shirley Hutchinson
in
his
eleventh hour
, his only
friend
and confidant left in the world?

Ed’s violent coughing shook me. Neal rested a tentative hand on Ed’s shoulder, but the hospice nurse came rushing into the room and gently pushed my brother aside.
She helped reposition the oxygen mask over Ed’s tear-streaked face, although that did little to ease his distress. I feared that our visit and Neal’s startling revelation had worked Ed into a hazardous state. Julie’s look said we should leave. Neal’s face had written all over it a sense of lost time and a desperation to gather up those lost moments, the way someone might break a strand of pearls and rush about trying to find each one before they rolled into the floor vents.