For a moment, Anna had the weirdest thought flash through her mind. What if Chad sees us? This happened a lot, the urge to text him something before remembering he’s gone. Or the urge to check her messages to see if he had called. Just then she wondered what Chad would think of her meeting his daughter behind his back.
Maybe it was the memories. She and Chad used to like to duck into Christos around happy hour to indulge a glass of wine and maybe a Greek salad or stuffed grape leaves, pita and hummus with olives. If they’d been out for some reason, Christos was a favorite stop before going home and they’d take some baklava to go.
“Thank you for meeting me,” Amy said when she arrived. Once again Anna was struck by the resemblance to her own daughters, yet another reminder that Chad’s genes were relentless. And to think she took one look at her at the celebration of life and suspected her of being a mistress! She thought, Chad’s type! How crazy that seemed now.
“Of course,” Anna said. “It sounds like you have something on your mind.”
“Yes. Or something I want to get off my chest. I was completely honest with you about my relationship with my father, but I left out some details about how I found out about him.”
“Well, there’s time, Amy. Let’s order you something to drink. A coffee or other drink?”
“I’d love an iced latte,” she said.
Anna ordered for them and also asked the waitress to bring some baklava.
“This is so perfect,” Amy said. “I wish I had known about you a long time ago.”
“I do, too, although I can’t imagine how many things that might have changed!”
“I know,” she said. “Please understand, I didn’t know this until my mother was sick. Remember I told you I met my father when I was a teenager? I was sixteen. I don’t know why I wasn’t more specific. I told you he was introduced as a friend of the family. Well, apparently he did tell my mother to get in touch if she ever needed help, and that’s what she did. I witnessed a school shooting, the Saint Mary’s High School shooting twelve years ago. Six of my classmates were murdered by a senior with his father’s automatic weapons. I was a very lucky survivor.”
“Oh, Amy! I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I think I’m all right, thanks in large part to my father, who I didn’t know was my father at the time. My mother called him, told him what had happened, said I wasn’t sleeping, explained my anxiety and asked him to help. He asked her to bring me to his office immediately. That’s when I met him and learned he was a therapist. We spent some time talking about the event and my PTSD and he arranged for me to see another therapist. He never explained the real reason. He just said there was another therapist who was more of an expert in problems like mine. But he checked on me.”
Anna was thankful to be reminded—Chad was a professional. And he was a good man, down deep. She thought she remembered: an Oakland high school, six dead plus the shooter’s suicide making it seven. Many were injured. It traumatized the town, the Bay Area. It was 2009, following a terrible recession and unemployment. Tensions were high, gun laws were lax; a young man all screwed up and very angry helped himself to the automatic weapons in his father’s unlocked gun cabinet.
“That’s when I became aware of him,” Amy said. “But it wasn’t until my mother was near death that I knew he was my biological father. I didn’t know he went to my graduation. High school and college actually. I didn’t even know he was there. After high school, he began to help with my tuition.”
“I thought you said he helped all along...”
“My mother told me that he sent money occasionally, just a random check now and then. She said she always meant to send it back. She didn’t want him to ever claim me or assert his legal rights, but it turns out that was not his plan. Maybe he was feeling guilty.”
“I’m so sorry for all you’ve been through,” Anna said.
“Please don’t say that. I’ve had such a good life. My mother had a great job she loved. Even though my mother and stepfather divorced, they had a good relationship and we stay in touch. I have two younger siblings. And I have Nikit and now Gina. I love my work. I’m sorry for all you went through. I must come as quite a shock.”
“Oddly, once I thought it through, not much of a shock at all,” she said. “I only knew there had been a relationship, but it had ended.”
“That’s what I was told, as well.”
“I’ve been dealing with marriages gone bad for many years, as a prosecutor, as a defense attorney and as a judge. I have a lot of friends, some of them have relationships I actually envy. For the most part, many of our friends envied us. But I’m sure they didn’t see into the viscera of our lives.”
“Everyone knows, people have intensely dramatic and secret private lives,” Amy said. “I didn’t really get to know my father but I thought he was charming and kind.”
“He was exactly that!” Anna said. “He must have been so happy to know you, finally.”
“I think so, in a way, though he did say he wasn’t quite ready to be a grandfather. I think maybe he struggled with that idea. He didn’t say so but I think he wondered how that worked with a child you’d never communicated with. Does he get invited to the baptism? To Christmas dinner?”
“Do you tell the family?” Anna added.
“That’s why I wanted to see you,” Amy said. “I’ll tell you whatever I can about my relationship with him. There isn’t much to tell, but I’m willing. But the real reason I wanted to talk to you is, it seems there has been some money left to me.”
“Ah,” Anna said. “You’re the anonymous recipient. I thought so.”
“You did?”
“Since meeting you,” Anna said. “It all began to make sense.”
“How is that so?”
“My late husband bequeathed ten percent each to our three children and another ten percent to an unknown recipient. I didn’t know about you until we met. You, however, knew about me and my late husband. It fell into place very quickly.”
“Do your children know?”
“Not yet.”
“Do you plan to tell them?”
“I know I should,” Anna said. “What do you think?”
“I think if they know about me and want to meet me, it’s their right. But they have to want that. I won’t make the decision for them. I have a personal ethic—the truth is always better. In fact, in the end, easier.”
“In my case, it’s an occupational hazard. I’m dedicated to the truth.”
“Of course you are,” Amy said, smiling. “Your honor.”
“Your last meeting with Chad? What was that like?”
“It was a courtesy call. I invited him to lunch. I introduced him to Nikit. I told him I was expecting. His first grandchild, he said. He got a bit gloomy about it actually. He asked me if I felt he had failed me.” She looked down into her coffee and was quiet for a moment. When she looked up again, her eyes glistened with tears. “I told him that I wished a relationship between us could have been handled differently, though I didn’t know how that might have worked. I told him yes, there were times I needed a father. And he asked me to forgive him.”
That was truly the first time Anna felt sorry for Chad. A child, as beautiful and smart as Amy, must have been hard to keep secret. Anna didn’t ask Amy if she forgave him.
“I also told him I was glad to know him now,” Amy said.
“I will tell my children about you and your baby,” Anna said. “I may take a little time to think it through, trying to come up with a logical and meaningful way of doing so.”
“You can tell them also that I haven’t spent any of the money he left me. I understand they might feel cheated somehow.”
Anna was actually surprised by feeling absolutely no envy of that money. In fact, oddly, she was relieved to know that in the end Chad had done something decent. Admittedly, her life would have been quite different had she known about Amy sooner. “It must have been what Chad wanted or he wouldn’t have done it. And though it won’t be soon, you will have more college tuitions to finance—best to tuck it away. Thank you for being honest.”
Amy nodded and looked around Christos. “This place is fantastic. Maybe we’ll meet here again sometime.”
“Whenever we can,” Anna said. “We’re going to stay in touch.”
Anna’s court roster was heavy with cases and Phoebe, her best friend and clerk of court, complained bitterly. And that’s how her Monday began.
“I’m not trying to rush you or crowd you, I don’t want you to take on more than you can handle emotionally, but let’s make getting these cases on the calendar a priority. I’ll get you the help you need. But we have to mop up!”