I'm Glad My Mom Died(76)

“He told me, and I told him he had to tell you,” Karen whisper-speaks into my hair. “I told him he just had to tell you. You deserve to know.”

I finally break away from the thrug and look out the window so I don’t have to look at Dad or Karen. There’s something about inherently dramatic moments that makes eye contact during those moments feel even more weighty and dramatic. It’s a hat on a hat. There’s enough drama here as it is. We’re good.

I’m looking out the window when I start to think about asking Dad who my biological father is. I want desperately to ask. I’m dying to know. Who is he? Do I have anything in common with him? Would he and I get along easier than Mark and I? Would there be a naturalness to our dynamic? I’m close to asking, but I stop myself. I don’t want to offend Dad. Or “Dad,” rather. For tonight, we’ll just leave it at this. I’ve got time to ask all my questions later.

“So, should we go see a movie, or…?” “Dad” asks.

Potato.





76.


I’M SO NERVOUS TO TELL Steven the news that I’ve held off until as late as I possibly could—this exact moment. I’m supposed to leave for a press junket in Australia in an hour. Netflix is launching there, so they’re sending a few cast members from various shows overseas to promote the launch. It’ll be me, Daryl Hannah, Ellie Kemper, Aziz Ansari, and I’ve even heard rumblings of the goddess herself, Robin Wright. Fingers crossed.

“I have something big to tell you,” I say to Steven while we sit across from each other at my dinner table.

It’s been a week since Mark told me he’s not my dad, and I’ve far from processed the information. Every day since has felt like a blur. I’ve been relying heavily on purging and alcohol to get me through the week.

I’ve had time to ask Mark some of my many questions. Did he know about Mom’s affair as it was happening? (He says yes.) Do my brothers know about this whole fiasco? (He says no.) Is he absolutely 1,000 percent sure that this is the truth? (He says yes.) Does he know who my father is? (Yes.) But other than these basic, concrete answers that I’ve gotten, every other question I ask is brushed off with “I don’t know” or some variation of it.

How did he stay with Mom for all those years when he knew she was having an affair that produced three children? (“I don’t know…”) Does my biological father know I exist? (“I’m not sure…”) How did the affair finally end? (“Ummmm… dunno.”)

The question that I most desperately want the answer to, by far, is why didn’t Mom tell us? Why did Mom not tell us when she had the chance? How could Mom not tell us?

I’ve tried to justify her decision, to make sense of it. But the more I mull it over, the more I try to excuse her decision or even try to understand it, the angrier I become.

Regardless of why she didn’t tell us, she didn’t. That hurts me in and of itself.

This is the person who meant more to me than anyone or anything in the world. This is the person who was the center of my existence. Her dreams were my dreams, her happiness was my happiness. How could the person who I lived and breathed for have kept such a fundamental piece of my identity hidden from me?

I could pretend that she never had the chance to tell us, that she desperately wanted to tell us but that it was never the right time… but that’s just not true. She had chances, times where she thought she was dying, where she was aware of her own mortality. I think of somebody’s dying days as the perfect opportunity to tie up loose ends, get their affairs in order, tell their children who their real fathers are. So why did Mom not do that with hers? Why did she continue to avoid the truth?

The lack of answers, of any semblance of closure, is infuriating. The more questions I don’t get answers to, the more questions I have. The more questions I have, the more questions I don’t get answers to, and I’m driving myself crazy in the process of trying to find them. I need someone I can vent to, a sounding board, a voice of reason.

I intentionally haven’t told Steven about the whole bio-dad situation for the past week because I was waiting for the whole religion situation to subside. I figured you can either have a bio-dad situation or a religion situation, not both at the same time. But now that I’ve gotta leave for my flight, I have no choice. It’d be weird to wait until I get back to tell the most significant person in my life.

“Okay…” Steven says as he takes in the introduction to my announcement. “And actually, I have something big to tell you too….”

“Okay…” I say, kind of puzzled. “Well, you go first, ’cuz mine’s pretty big.”

“No, you go first, mine’s really big,” Steven says confidently.

“Look, just go. Please.”

“All right,” Steven says with a weighted exhale. “I… am Jesus Christ reincarnated.”

…

…

…

Huh?

My first instinct is to burst out laughing, the kind of uncomfortable laugh that’s an automatic result of shock, sadness, anger, and disbelief combined. Steven thinks he’s Jesus-Our-Lord-and-Savior-Christ? Come on. He’s gotta be kidding me. The second I realize he’s not, my second instinct hits me. I want to cry. I want to just crumple into myself and let it all out.