I woke up in Jeremy’s big bed, my clothes a room away, the sun shining from an exposure not available next door. I thanked him for his hospitality and his other talents, said yes to coffee but no to an oversize bagel, and was back in my apartment by 7:30 a.m. I waited an hour before calling my dad, who’d sent a rather stingy good-night text in reply to mine.
“Are we okay?” I asked him.
“I didn’t sleep great, but that’s not your fault.”
I said I think it was.
“Let’s not go round and round on this. What’s done is done.”
But it wasn’t. My not sleeping great had to do with the ugly breaking news that my entire existence was based on a lie. Shouldn’t I have been warned of inheritable diseases that might be down the road? Or told to work harder in high school because I could apply as a legacy to Dartmouth? Such were the 2 a.m. agitations of a dispossessed daughter.
But by the light of day, I was asking, “Can we have lunch? Or take a walk? Or anything?”
“Not today. I’ve made some plans.”
“A date?”
“I have to go,” he said.
I was hearing announcements now, a list of towns and cities that sounded loudspeakerish. “Are you at Port Authority?”
“Just cutting through.”
“Let me know when you want to get together.”
“I will. Gotta run.”
I asked, “To where?” but he’d already hung up.
I got my answer by late afternoon that day. After taking a bus north to New Hampshire’s capital, he’d walked to the State House and straight to the office of Senator Peter Armstrong.
No, he told the receptionist, he didn’t have an appointment. No, he didn’t want to take a seat. Was the senator in? Was the senator through that door? Without permission, he rushed past her into Armstrong’s office, where he found the senator on the phone, a sandwich unwrapped and sitting prissily on the open square of a cloth napkin.
Senator Armstrong had no reason to recognize this intruder as the cuckolded husband of his old flame. He said into the phone, “I’m putting the receiver down, but stay on the line. I might have trouble here.”
He addressed the gray-haired receptionist swatting at the intruder and hyperventilating. “Marie? What’s this about? No, stay back.”
“I couldn’t stop him!” she cried.
“You called security?”
“Of course!”
He asked my father, who hadn’t done anything but plant himself in front of the massive wooden desk, if he’d passed through the metal detector at the public entrance.
“Of course I did! Everyone has to.”
Backup arrived—one armed security guard and a New Hampshire state trooper whose dull beat was the State House, both wielding metal batons.
“Sir,” everyone seemed to be saying at once. “Sir. Please back away from the senator’s desk.”
My father told them he’d come only to have words with the senator on a personal matter. Still, they asked him to back away.
How did I get every word and detail? From a 603 number not his own. “I can’t talk long. I was allowed one phone call.”
“You’re in jail?” I yelled. “Dad? Where?”
“Concord. Not strictly speaking jail. It’s the booking room.”
“They arrested you?”
“For criminal trespassing. They took my phone, so if you tried to—”
“Criminal trespassing? Did you say criminal?”
“That’s the formal charge.”
“I’m coming right up!”
“No, you are not.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I’ll take a bus and be there by . . .” When? How many fucking stops does a bus between New York City and Concord, New Hampshire, make?
“They need the phone—”
“Do you have a lawyer?”
“Could you call Julian? I don’t have his number.”
“Are you actually being locked up?”
“I don’t know. I think there’s talk of a bail bondsman.”
A male voice was grousing, “Wrap it up, buddy. I gotta get back on the road.”
Now in tears, I demanded, “Wait! Are they putting you in jail?”
No answer because the line had gone dead. How rude! The cop or sheriff or trooper or warden or next criminal in line to use the phone must’ve lost patience and hung it up.
It didn’t take long, only one minute of mental paralysis, to realize there was another avenue to pursue besides catching a plane or renting a car. I dug out Armstrong’s business card and called what I hoped was a direct line. When a woman answered, I said, none too calmly, “This is the daughter of the man you sent to jail today. I need to speak to Senator Armstrong immediately.”
She didn’t answer. Had that snitch hung up on me? I waited until a male voice intoned, “Peter Armstrong.”
“You arrested my dad!”
“Who is this?” he had the nerve to ask.
“Daphne! My father called me from jail!”
“I assure you, it wasn’t my decision.”
“Aren’t you the one who pressed charges?”
“He trespassed. And threatened me.”
“What threat? What did he say that scared you so much?”
“You don’t barge into a government office without permission. He was loud enough to be heard in my waiting area—”
“Oh, boo-hoo. Did you not know he was my father?”
“He made that quite clear. And you’ll have to prepare yourself for what this might bring.”
“Prison?” I yelped.
“I meant for you. There were visitors out in my waiting area—one was a reporter waiting to interview me about a bill . . .”
I was already appalled that a law-abiding man of impeccable everything would be arrested in his own state capitol. But there was more. What my father had yelled at Peter Armstrong, loud enough to be heard beyond the inner sanctum, was a warning to keep the hell away from me. From Daphne. His daughter. His! Do not call, do not write, do not email or send flowers!
The Concord Monitor didn’t have a gossip column, but the reporter on hand had a blog titled Gold-Dome Dirt, which usually carried no juicier scoops than hirings, firings, and snow closings.
But finally, blessedly, this: The state senate’s most eligible bachelor had been warned by a furious father, a disturber of the peace, to keep the hell away from his daughter.