Joni insisting I’m already doing an okay job at being a dad. I mean, the last few weeks have been better. Hope doesn’t seem to hate me lately. Could it have been my anger and guilt she was sensing and reacting to this whole time? Maybe I’ve been doing better, so she has too?
And that thing Alan said. How I was obsessing so much over finding the journals, finding Michael, finding the mystical secret to fatherhood, that I was completely missing the point. That my quest to become a good dad was actually making me a bad one.
And my mom, the way she looked at me like I’d lost my mind when I told her I thought Michael, someone who knew he had a kid on the way and left anyway, could help me figure out how to be a parent while my own mother couldn’t.
I pull over onto the side of the highway, flip on my hazards, bring my head to the steering wheel, and squeeze my eyes tight, trying to think.
“Hey, Joni?”
“Yo.”
“Can you Google something for me?”
“Sure. What?”
“Michael Taylor, Edison, New Jersey. Do an image search.”
I can feel Joni’s questioning stare burning a hole into the side of my face, but I don’t open my eyes.
A few minutes later, she says, “Got it.”
I lift my head and take the phone from her. There he is: a good-looking, late-thirtyish guy with olive skin, brown eyes, slicked-back black hair, and glasses. He looks familiar in the most unfamiliar way possible. I’ve never seen him before in my life, but I’ve seen pieces of him every day in the mirror. My nose is his nose, my smile is his smile.
The photo is of a youth soccer team. The kids look like they’re about ten or so. Michael is wearing a pullover jacket that says Coach. He’s the coach of a fucking kids’ soccer team. Which means I probably got my athletic ability from him. And which means one of those kids is probably my half-brother.
I stare at the photo, clicking the pieces together. Michael is a dad. He’s wearing a ring in the picture, so he’s probably a husband too. He’s a stand-up guy who coaches his kids’ sports teams. He’s clean-cut, well put together.
He is, according to the look of this picture, a good person. He doesn’t quite resemble the long-haired, piano-playing, marathon-running guy from my imagination, but he’s not a drug addict or in prison or in some sort of creepy religious cult either. And he’s not dead.
Which means he could have looked me up, could have put in the effort to get to know me. He just didn’t want to.
I click off the screen and turn around. Hope’s snug in her car seat, a little baby who has no idea what’s going on. She looks at me.
Suddenly the chorus reaches the climax of the damn operatic masterpiece, and they sing as loud as they can, right in my face.
Hope’s eyes are no longer blue. I don’t know when they changed, but they’re a bright, stunning green. They’re not dark like Meg’s, like I thought they’d be. They’re like mine.
Even though life has been really fucking hard lately and it’s going to be really fucking hard for the foreseeable future, and even though I’d go back and do it all differently if it meant Meg would still be alive and I’d get the chance to play soccer at UCLA…I love this baby. She’s more than just Meg’s legacy. She’s my daughter too.
I’m her dad. I don’t need a face-to-face with my non-father to tell me how to begin. I’m already in it, even if the game started before I was warmed up and in position.
One of these days, the “Da-da-da” is going to turn into her first word. So I should work on being ready for it.
Because I’m all she has. It’s not her fault she was born into all this bullshit. I’m starting to get that it’s the ways I’m different from Michael that are important. (Why the hell did it take me driving halfway to New Jersey to see it?) All I need to know is how not to be the guy he was when Mom was pregnant. And I’ve already done that.
I shift back in my seat. Joni waits patiently, looking out the passenger-side window, trying to give me as much privacy as possible in this cramped car.
An idea strikes me. An idea so awesome it might actually be the best idea I’ve ever had.
Wordlessly, I hand her the phone and pull onto the road again. She flips the radio back on.
When we approach the George Washington Bridge, Joni says, “Okay, you’re going to merge onto the lower level of the bridge, and after you cross over to New Jersey, you’re going to take I-95 South.”
“What happens if I don’t get on the bridge?” I ask.
“Uh…you’ll head into Manhattan.”
I nod. “Got it.”
The bridge exit approaches, and I drive right past it.
“That was it, Ryden. That was our exit,” Joni says, pointing behind her. “What are you doing?”
I shoot her a smile, the first since this long car trip started. “I’m taking you to Washington Square Park.”
Her face jolts in confusion. “But what about your father?”