HOW COULD MAYA REMAIN so calm? This would be the first time she would meet the man who had abandoned her as a child. Yet there she stood, more concerned about Veronica’s and my well-being than her own. On my first meeting with our father, I’d had my head in the clouds, with thoughts of catching up and healing old wounds, an imagined scenario ungrounded in reality. But Maya knew about alcoholics, so she’d came prepared. Deliberate and thoughtful, she’d arrived intending to reach out to a man she had not imagined. Would it have made a difference if I had come with similar intentions and non-expectations?
Veronica rang the doorbell, then stepped back and lifted her chin. I did the same as I edged to the side of the entry out of direct eyeshot of the man who would soon answer the door. Maya stood behind me, not hiding so much as staying out of the way.
The cottage our father had rented for his stay in Pacific Grove looked like a life-sized dollhouse, with its orange door and green trim. No one would guess that a depressed soul resided within. A bang came from the inside, followed by a curse.
Veronica tensed.
I tried to think with my mind instead of my heart as Maya had suggested, but my heart was bouncing off the walls of my chest, making it hard to ignore. Our previous visit had turned into a disaster. So much anger, so much pain.
Maya put her hand on my shoulder. Warmth coursed through me as if she had just dispensed a much-needed shot of serotonin. “Thank you,” I whispered.
Bob yanked open the door, eyes narrowed, brows squeezed together, looking frightening, as people in pain often do. “Kicked the damn coffee table,” he said.
At the sight of Veronica, his face cleared. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Hi Dad,” she said. “May we come in?”
“We?” He peered past Veronica and grinned. “Oh hi, Marjorie. Long time no see.”
Veronica edged past him and I followed, leaving him standing at the entry facing Maya. I turned in time to see him slouch against the door frame. “Oh God,” he said, before taking a deep, ragged breath.
Maya smiled. “Hi, Papa.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“It’s okay, Papa. Let me help you inside.”
“You call me Papa after...”
“You are my father, aren’t you?”
Bob wiped his eyes and allowed Maya to lead him to an armchair catty-corner to the sag-springed couch where I sat with a decorative pillow clasped on my lap. “You don’t hate me?”
“You gave me life, Papa, and because of you, I have two beautiful sisters. Why would I hate you?”
“But your face...”
She smiled. “You mean, my gift?”
“Gift?”
Maya took Bob’s hand and placed it over her birthmark. “It’s hard to explain, but it’s truly a gift.”
Bob closed his eyes and his face cleared, as though he had received a full dose of happy hormones—endorphin to block pain, dopamine to induce pleasure, serotonin to boost mood, oxytocin to enhance love. His breathing deepened, and he made no move to break contact with the source of such bliss and contentment.
“God. Maya,” he said. “I feel… Oh my God, I feel…” He pulled his hand from Maya’s cheek and looked at it as if it had become an instrument of healing, then pressed his palm against the stubble of his own cheek and held it there. “Could you… Could you make me feel like this all the time?”
“No, Papa, I can’t.”
“If I always felt this way, I’d...” He looked at the wide-bottomed decanter of liquor standing on the table with straight-up shiny impressiveness, apparently a replacement for the empty bottle of Fat Bastard chardonnay lying by its side. “My life would change, that’s for sure.”
Was it possible for our father to take that first step toward sobriety? Dared I hope?
Maya sat next to me on the couch positioned below a framed print of a ship navigating a stormy sea. Veronica had taken the wingback chair to our left. The television was off, thank God, and the drapes drawn, giving the room a look of normalcy, unlike the people inside. “Are you going to run off like your two sisters did?” Bob, asked, motioning toward Veronica and me.
“If you want, you can reach me at any time.”
“I don’t know my way around Pacific Grove,” he said. “Haven’t been here that long. How about you come stay here with me?”
Maya’s brow crinkled. “Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Then why should I stay with you?”
“I’m lonely. I need you.”
“When you need me, I’m not that hard to find. Pacific Grove is a small town.”
Until then, Bob had concentrated all of his attention on Maya, so following her advice about saying little had been easy though I had plenty of questions. Why, for instance, was he in Pacific Grove instead of in Maryland where he belonged? If he had traced Maya here, he would’ve known by now where she lived and worked, even met up with her and laid bare what was on his mind.
“I have three grown daughters,” he said, “and none of them cares about me. Daughters should care about their fathers.”
Veronica’s shoulders tensed, but she said nothing.
I, too, said nothing, due to a loss for words. This man had no clue.
Maya crossed her legs, folded her hands, and rested her elbow on her knee. “Papa, please tell me the story of our birth and separation. I’ve waited so long.”
Now, that caught his attention, at least to the point of ending his outburst of self-pity. It must’ve been the kind look on Maya’s face and the way she’d said Papa. He stood and paced the room. “I could sure use a drink.”
Veronica glanced at the decanter of liquor and upturned cocktail glass on the coffee table. I shook my head in sympathy—for my sister, for my father, for us all.
Maya said nothing, just continued to look at Bob with a serenity beyond my comprehension. He ran his hand over his stubbled chin and through his uncombed hair before sitting back down. “I suppose you want me to start from the beginning.”
Maya nodded, her moral beauty so clearly etched on her face it was possible to forget that her birthmark was considered a deformity in this world of outward beauty.
Bob leaned forward, eyes closed, as if taking a mental trip into the past. How would his story compare to the one he’d told Veronica and later told me? “Thirty years ago,” he said, “nine months before your birth, I came to Monterey on business… I’m a financial consultant, you know, a darn good one. You can ask—”
“Quit stalling,” Veronica said. “We don’t have all day.”
He shot Veronica a pained look before continuing. “Having heard stories about the beauty of the 17-Mile Drive near Pebble Beach and the landmark of the Lone Cypress, I rented a car to check it out. That’s where” —His voice caught, and he took a moment to compose himself— “That’s where I met your mother. She stood facing the ocean, with the wind blowing through her long, black hair… Please understand. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.”
Maya’s eyes crinkled in deep listening. “Go on.”
“I don’t know how long I watched her before she turned to leave—it could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been hours. But when our eyes met, my God.” He smiled at Veronica for the first time since we’d entered the room. “Actually, she looked a lot like Vonnie.”
Veronica frowned, her lips tight, as if she were withholding a silent scream. What was it costing her to hear the condensed, and possibly edited, version of our conception and birth, presented as a mistake that led to his addiction, with such remorse it warranted an unconscious plea, if not outright request, for our forgiveness?
Perhaps Bob sensed her discomfort because he shook his head and refocused on Maya. “Except your mother’s eyes were soft and caring like yours.”
The implication was unkind, but likely true. Veronica’s eyes often appeared cold and unfeeling. Like now. While Maya’s could melt a glacier.
Our father said no more, just stared at the framed print hanging on the wall behind us as if pondering the ship’s navigating secrets.
Veronica made a choking sound, but Bob didn’t seem to hear, too deep into the lost treasures of the past.
“Were you married at the time?” Maya asked.
“Yes,” he said, without averting his gaze from the print.
“To my step-mother, Elizabeth,” Veronica said. “The selfless woman who raised me.”
So far, our father had stuck to the same story I’d heard before, and it still made me want to curl up and cry. After Veronica and I met for the first time in Carmel Valley and discovered we were twins, she’d demanded an explanation from her father. Our father. And he’d shared all, except for one important detail. He hadn’t mentioned Maya.
“Want me to go on?” he asked, giving Veronica a hard stare.
“Please do,” Veronica said, her voice artificially sweet. She looked up at the ceiling, as though it were the only safe harbor in this room of turbulence.
Bob refocused on Maya, more specifically, the birthmark on her face. “I extended my stay for another week, telling Elizabeth it was for business, and your mother and I ended up spending the entire seven days together.”
He got up again, walked to the window, and looked outside. “Her name was Antonia Maria Flores.”
“That’s a beautiful name,” Maya said. “How old was she?”
Bob leaned against the window frame. “Nineteen.”
“Nineteen,” Maya said. “And you didn’t tell her you were married?”
“Not until later.”
“Go on,” she said, her smile wobbly.
“It nearly broke my heart to say goodbye. I know it broke hers.”
Oh Mama. History just keeps repeating itself. I almost gave up everything for Cliff, and now I fear Maya will do the same for Dr. Shane Donovan.
Bob straightened, lifted his chin, and turned to Maya, his stance that of a man awaiting the verdict of an unsympathetic jury of three. “Nine months later, I received a telegram saying, ‘I gave birth to triplets. Love Antonia.’ I took the next flight to California.”
“Triplets, is it?” Veronica said. “In your previous versions of the story, you distinctly said ‘twins.’ Why did you lie?”
Bob ignored Veronica and continued. “Elizabeth and I hadn’t been able to have children. We never checked into the cause, you know, if it was a problem with her or me. Turns out it wasn’t me because—”
“You’re veering off course, again,” Veronica reminded him.
“That’s the reason I couldn’t leave you behind. I told Antonia I wanted all three of you.”
“Including me?” Maya asked, sounding hopeful.
“At first, yes. Until...”
Something faded from Maya’s eyes. Darn. What was he about to reveal? What further pain would it hold?
“How about Antonia? What was her response?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. The story was forever imprinted in my mind.
Bob hardly glanced my way. “She loved me and wanted me to be happy, but said she wouldn’t give you up.”
“And?” Veronica prompted.
“I told her I’d sue for custody. She had no income, lived with an elderly aunt, and her parents were both dead, which left her with little recourse.”
“Dear God,” I whispered. Though I’d heard this before almost word for word, a never-ending story, my gut twisted as if I were hearing it for the first time. So much for thinking with my mind instead of my heart.
“Antonia didn’t scream or fuss, just cried,” Bob said. “I couldn’t bear it.” The room became quiet. Dark clouds gathered in places concealed from our eyes, but no less recognizable.
“Then the nurse held up one baby for me to see.”
Please stop. Say no more.
“Shocked the hell out of me.”
Veronica and I gasped. He was discussing Maya as if she were an object from the distant past, instead of a flesh and blood person in the here and now—his own flesh and blood.
Maya stared at him dry-eyed.
“Antonia told me she had named the child Maya, Fallen Light, and wouldn’t give her up for the world. I was so relieved I agreed on taking only one of our daughters, the oldest and strongest, Veronica, First Dawn, and leave Sunwalker and Fallen Light behind.”
Okay, so now he was discussing Maya as if she were a car delivered with a defect, a lemon, that could be returned to the showroom floor in exchange for a flawless model—Veronica.
“I promised to send child support for the other two, but Antonia said no. She wanted to cut off all ties, to never meet up again.”
The other two? As a reminder that he was talking about Maya and me, I asked. “So, Maya and I stayed behind with Antonia.”
Bob glanced at Veronica with a tenderness I hadn’t noticed before. “You were preemies. Did I mention that? No? Your mother carried you to thirty-three weeks. About average for triplets. But you needed to stay in the hospital until you could do all the things full-term babies could do. Especially Veronica, since I’d be taking her home. You had to put on weight and be able to drink from a bottle and breathe on your own. That meant six weeks in NICU. Instead of flying home and returning for Veronica later, I stayed in a nearby hotel. Six weeks. Got that? Six weeks. With daily trips to the hospital. Keeping vigil, day after day, seeing your tiny bodies hooked up to IVs, listening to the beep of machines that kept you alive, unable to hold you. Because I wasn’t listed as your father.”
Bob turned his attention back to Maya. “Antonia made me promise never to mention your name again.”
“Why?” I asked, since Maya wasn’t asking. She reminded me of a mannequin the way she was staring straight ahead without a sign of what was going on inside. I fought the urge to wave my hands in front of her face saying, Come back, come back, wherever you are.
“Because” —Bob blinked as if waking from a dream— “with the help of an elderly aunt, Antonia planned on raising Fallen Light in the ways of her people, so she’d never feel ashamed of her disfigurement. Antonia said it was a gift, but that most people wouldn’t see it that way. And would reject her.”
“Like you?” I asked.
He wasn’t listening. “Antonia’s blood pressure was high, and she wasn’t feeling well, which extended her hospital stay. The doctors said pre-eclampsia or high blood pressure was common in mothers after C-sections and multiple births. It wasn’t until weeks after I’d returned to Maryland with Veronica, the hospital informed me of Antonia’s death, due to a blood clot in her lung. It happened so unexpectedly she didn’t have time to contact me. She would’ve let me know. She would’ve wanted Veronica and Marjorie together at least.”
Bob paused and looked at me. Parts of the story he now related were new to me. Besides never telling us about Maya, he’d never shared the part about our premature birth and prolonged stay in the hospital. Or his frequent visits there. I realized that he, too, had suffered, and I fought back a wave of pity.
“But it was too late, Marjorie. You’d been handed over to an adoption agency and adopted within weeks.”
I didn’t have to ask if he’d forgotten about the daughters he’d left behind, or about Antonia. His battle with alcohol told the rest of the story. He was stuck in the past due to regrettable choices.
“Can you ever forgive me?” he asked.
“Antonia already has,” I said, knowing this to be true. “And she wants us to do the same, but” —I looked at my sisters and knew I couldn’t speak for them. They would deal with this in their own separate ways— “I’ll need time.”
He nodded. “I’m so sorry.”
Following Maya’s earlier example, I got up and hugged our father with no other thought than to forgive. If I could. Then came an inspiration, be it sent by our mother or due to my own sense of the right thing to do. I dug into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out one of my most valued possessions: my mouse totem. Veronica had found it soon after arriving in Carmel Valley and had given it to an orphaned child named Joshua. Joshua later gave it to me.
“I have something for you, Father.”
When I held the totem to the light, Bob’s eyes widened. “Your mother’s totem. She took it wherever she went. Where’d you get it?”
I looked at Veronica. She shook her head.
“It’s a long story,” I said, putting it into his hand.
He brought it to his lips. “My God, you don’t know how much this means to me.”
“I think I do,” I said, realizing that the stone had come to him when he most needed it, after helping many others along the way. I turned to Maya. “You okay?”
“Pain is a great teacher,” she said.