Chapter_35_The_Geolog

“My boyfriend and I are driving cross-country to California for the birth of our child and... along the way I found your letters, so I looked up your address and, well, here I am,” I manage to say to my father.

There’s a pause. He blinks with a slight flash of recognition.

“Come in,” he says, looking conflicted. “I’ll get us some drinks.”

His house is beautifully decorated with tasteful, modern touches and an outpouring of sunshine. Hockney-esque paintings of men lazily lounging around swimming pools colorfully line one wall. I sit on a long minimalist sofa. The house’s air-conditioning dries the sweat that’s caked on my forehead and now showing through the underarms of my shirt.

Stacked in front of me on the coffee table are expensive-looking books about art and a beautifully large book called The Geology of Nevada, which showcases the natural wonders of the state. I flip through its thick pages, my nerves rattling me so much that I’m unable to process what I’m even looking at. Mountains? Rocks? The moon?

I feel like a character in a play waiting for the curtain to go up and the lights to come on so I can finally deliver my opening line. My palms sweat.

A few torturous minutes pass as I flip back and forth through the same three pages, when my father enters the living room carrying two glasses of iced tea.

He’s the kind of person I’d cast in a commercial if the casting specs called for “Retired man in his sixties with a friendly demeanor, full head of silver hair, brown eyes and fit physique. Fully understands the protagonist’s need to become a dad and meet his estranged father. Minor role but a key character to the story. Note: no facial hair. Must be a local hire.”

I’m a thousand percent sure I could cast him in a pharmaceutical commercial and his career as an actor/model/possible-guest-role-on-a-CSI-spinoff would take off overnight.

But something about him isn’t right. This man looks nothing like me.

I’m parched from the heat, the weed, everything, but I’m too nervous to sip my drink.

My father takes a seat across from me on an artsy chair. The kind only an architect or someone with an eye for design might have.

“So I’m guessing it’s safe to assume you’re one of Richard’s sons?” he asks.

I blank for a second. Richard’s sons? “Are you... not Richard?”

The man who I thought was my father, who I now realize is not at all my father, shakes his head. “I’m not your dad, no. My name’s Gordon. Your dad told me about you through the years. And I’m sorry you two never had a chance to reconnect. He feels awful about everything that happened.”

“Everything that happened?” I repeat without rancor. I genuinely want to know my father’s side of the story. The objective truth. I try to tune out the abandoned kid in me and hear this guy out as a mature adult.

Before he can answer, something catches my eye; it’s centered on the mantelpiece. A stocky, emerald green box outlined with a gold overlay. Its prominence in the room suggests it could be an urn. My heart sinks.

“If you’re not my father...” I look at the urny-looking thing. “Is that him?”