three

“They’re still married?”

Ms. Washburn sat at her desk, which is to my left in the Questions Answered office. The room is large and mostly empty. In the center are the two desks, both wooden but acquired from separate manufacturers because I was not anticipating having an associate in the business before Ms. Washburn arrived with a question and stayed to work with me. Behind us and to the right when one enters are the two pizza ovens left over from when the space housed the San Remo’s Pizzeria. They have not been used in some time but are still functional because I find them interesting.

“Yes,” I answered her. “Apparently my mother never filed for divorce and my father has not been in touch.” I shook my head in wonderment. “There are times I don’t understand even what my mother does. The circumstances were clear. My father had left and never returned. If she had gotten a divorce, there might have been monthly alimony and child support payments instead of the occasional envelope of cash. Is there something I’m missing, Ms. Washburn?”

She did not hesitate in her response, and nodded her head affirmatively. “She still loves your father, Samuel. She doesn’t want to declare their marriage is over.”

“That is not supported by the facts,” I argued. “They have not seen each other in twenty-seven years. The legal definition of marriage is upheld only because neither of them ever acted to end it. Financially that could have been a very large mistake on my mother’s part.”

Ms. Washburn shrugged. “Maybe, but love isn’t always about what makes the most sense, Samuel.” She looked down at her keyboard for a moment and did not speak again. That was a signal I did not comprehend. I chose not to act.

I looked at my computer screen. I had in fact not done any research intended to locate my father the night before. I had been distracted by my mother’s revelations and the lingering feeling that I had somehow caused her some emotional distress, although she denied it. Instead I played With the Beatles, a British pressing on vinyl, because it helps me to think. I had taken more time than usual to fall asleep.

Mother had seemed herself this morning, being sure to cook a breakfast she knew I would appreciate and speaking of ordinary things. She did not mention Reuben Hoenig, the letter, or her question at all. She must have felt her message had been delivered.

I did not consider that odd, but I did wonder if she was trying to avoid a painful subject. The traits of my Asperger’s Syndrome make it difficult for me to know. But since the morning had been normal and not unpleasant I felt it was best not to question Mother and treated the day as I would any other. Routine is important to me. I was at my desk, after Mother had driven me to the office on Stelton Road, at the usual time.

I began the search for my father’s location as I always do. The simplest devices are often the best to launch one’s research.

A Google search for the name “Reuben Hoenig” returned only eight results, which is highly unusual. Apparently my father’s name is among the rarer ones in the world.

There were only six such listings that referred to a specific individual and identified his location. One was in Austria, one in Finland, one in the Netherlands. There were American Reuben Hoenigs in Houston, Texas; Painesville, Ohio; and Billings, Montana. None was listed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Seattle, Washington, the only two cities in which my mother could be certain my father had resided after he left our home in Piscataway, New Jersey.

I would at some point have to ask my mother if she knew of any aliases my father might have used during his life. For some reason, the thought of broaching the subject with Mother again made my stomach feel tight, a sensation I have had during times of anxiety.

I will confess that I had walked into her bedroom that morning when I knew she would not be there and had taken the letter in its envelope from her nightstand. It was a breach of trust that I would normally never commit, but I thought Mother would prefer not to discuss the subject and would want me to have the letter to analyze it for data that might prove helpful in discerning my father’s location. I would return it when I went home for lunch at twelve thirty this afternoon.

The Google search had yielded very little, but perhaps that made the task easier. If my father was not living under an assumed name, it would be simple to contact all three of the Reuben Hoenigs in the United States and determine if one of them was the man in question. If none proved to be my father, we could move on to the Europeans in the group and possibly eliminate all six in a short period of time.

Ms. Washburn broke the silence that I had settled into rather comfortably. “Do you think your father loved your mother, Samuel?”

I did not see the relevance of the question. My father’s emotional state, particularly in reference to his feelings for my mother more than two decades before, would not help discover his location today. “I could not say,” I answered. “I have very few independent memories of my father, and even those might simply be the product of repeated stories my mother has told me.”

“What do you remember?” she asked.

It was twenty minutes after the hour and that meant I should begin my exercise program for the day. I stood up and began to walk briskly around the perimeter of the Questions Answered office, raising my arms above my head to increase my heart rate. Ms. Washburn knows I do this routine three times every hour between nine a.m. and five p.m., so she did not react at all. In fact she did not even look up from her computer screen to chart my progress.

“Not very much,” I reiterated. “I remember being at a petting zoo and sitting on my father’s shoulders. It seemed like I was very high in the air, but from what I know of him my father is not an especially tall man.”

I did not see Ms. Washburn but I could hear the smile in her voice. “To a little boy any grownup is a tall person,” Ms. Washburn said.

I completed one circuit of the offices. Twelve more to go and then I could purchase a bottle of spring water from the vending machine we keep in a corner next to the pizza ovens.

“It is an issue of perspective,” I agreed. “I remember my father urging me to pet a goat and my resistance because it looked very dirty.”

Ms. Washburn did not comment on that. “Do you recall anything else? What was he like?”

I had not thought about my father this much since before I started kindergarten so the answers were not definitive or quick to my mind. “He smelled of aftershave lotion,” I said. “I do not know which brand.”

“That’s probably not really important,” Ms. Washburn suggested.

“I have seen a few photographs,” I continued. “Mother keeps one in her room and I made a point of examining it last night. My father is, or at least was a quarter-century ago, a man with curly brown hair, clean-shaven and well attired. He had no distinguishing marks on his face or neck and none on his hands that I could see. His eyes were dark and I believe brown, but the angle of the photograph and the distance from the camera made it difficult for me to reach a conclusion on that issue.” I had completed seven rounds of the office space and my breathing was becoming a bit more labored, although certainly nothing I did not expect. This was the point of aerobic exercise, after all, to increase heart levels and strengthen the system.

“It would help to have a more current photograph,” Ms. Washburn mused.

“If we had one, we probably would have found my father’s location and the question would be answered,” I pointed out.

Ms. Washburn hesitated as I finished the eighth circuit.

“Say what you are thinking, Ms. Washburn,” I advised her. “There is no need to worry about my feelings. I am dealing quite rationally with this question.”

I stole a glance at her and saw her bite her lips lightly and nod.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” she asked. “Once we find out where he’s living, wouldn’t you want to go see him? Ask him about his life? Tell him about yours?”

“You know of my aversion to travel.” I much prefer predictable routine to a break in the usual schedule. I do not understand the appeal of surprises. “Besides, I see no point to such a trip. My father has made it clear that his life is not to be shared with my mother and me. I have lived this long without knowing him. I don’t understand why it would be relevant now.” Nine circuits and now my arms were feeling predictably heavy.

“Because he’s your father,” Ms. Washburn said softly.

“He has been my father for the past twenty-seven years plus the four when he lived with us,” I countered. “Nothing has changed.”

My last four trips around the office perimeter were not supplemented with conversation. By that time I am breathing more heavily and concentrating on finishing the task. Ms. Washburn understands that and allows for the adjustment. I completed my exercise, walked directly to the vending machine, and purchased a bottle of spring water. On Tuesday a man named Les would come by, refill the machine, and pay me back a percentage of the money I’d spent on beverages during the week. It is an odd system but it works for both parties, apparently.

When I sat down at my desk again it occurred to me that Ms. Washburn might want a bottle of the diet soda she prefers so I asked her. She complimented me on remembering to ask but said it was too early in the morning for such a beverage and that she wasn’t thirsty anyway. Ms. Washburn, I know, attends a gymnasium three nights each week and does not follow my in-office regimen.

“So what’s our plan?” she asked. “Do we call all the Reuben Hoenigs and hope we get lucky?”

There is a colloquial, less polite definition to the term “get lucky,” but I was fairly confident that was not what Ms. Washburn meant. “If you would agree to take three of the phone calls, I will do the others,” I said. Ms. Washburn, knowing that I am uncomfortable on the phone, has been urging me to practice more, so I have made an effort. I intended to give her all the numbers in the United States and hope that the Hoenigs in the European countries did not speak English, thus making the calls short and less stressful.

She smiled, acknowledging the concession I was making. “But you get at least one in America.” Perhaps when a woman has kissed you, it is sometimes more difficult to disguise your intentions from her. There is no scientific data to support this observation, but I have found it to be true.

I nodded, conceding the point. “First we should examine the letter itself for any indicators it might contain.” I picked up the envelope and turned on the desk lamp to better illuminate the surface. I have a magnifying mirror in my lower desk drawer and took it out with a slight feeling of embarrassment. Magnifiers are an investigative cliché. But in this instance it was necessary.

Ms. Washburn walked to my desk and stood behind my chair, looking over my shoulder. I was aware of her presence but my attention was focused on the envelope. I removed the two pages and again smoothed them out carefully on the surface of my desk, side by side. I felt the best information, if there was any, would come from the envelope, so I held that back and examined the pages of the letter first.

“What are we looking for?” Ms. Washburn said quietly. She was very close behind me and no doubt wanted to avoid startling me. She would tell me later that she thought the moment held a certain solemnity to it, but I was not aware of any particular emotional charge. I was searching for data.

“We won’t know until we find it,” I answered. “I am not a handwriting analyst so there will be little I can discern from the script itself. Perhaps the paper holds some secrets we can discover.”

“It’s not stationery,” Ms. Washburn noted. “It doesn’t have an imprint.”

I looked closely through the magnifier, which stands on its own on the desk. “You are correct, Ms. Washburn. And it holds no watermark that might help identify where it was purchased. This is stock paper, perhaps from an academic notebook, no doubt bought in bulk. There is nothing especially distinctive about it.”

“What about the ink?”

I examined it. “Nothing special. Not from a fountain pen, certainly. A ballpoint, again probably one of many. Perhaps my father works in an office supply store or selling for a paper company. He did once sell musical instruments, and I suppose a salesman can work with any product. There has been a very long gap in our knowledge of him, which makes even an educated guess very difficult to make.”

“What was the postmark on the envelope?” Ms. Washburn asked. “Wouldn’t that at least tell us the city he mailed it in?”

“Because my mother insists Reuben is not a dishonest man, we can probably eliminate the notion that he would have used one of the websites designed to postmark a piece of mail in a location other than the one in which the mailer is living,” I said. “I examined the postmark on the envelope. Please take a look and tell me what you see.”

Ms. Washburn pointed at the envelope and I nodded that it was indeed my intention that she should pick it up. No crime had been committed that we knew about and there was no reason to think fingerprints would be an issue. Besides, the envelope had already been handled by postal sorters, a mail carrier, my mother, and myself. Another set of prints would not add very much to the confusion. Ms. Washburn raised the envelope to a level where she could examine it closely.

“It’s smudged,” she said. “The city is pretty much unreadable to the naked eye, but I think the state is either California or Georgia. Maybe Colorado. Does the magnifier help at all?”

“Let’s see,” I answered. Ms. Washburn handed me the envelope and I placed it under the large lens for better visibility.

After a few moments Ms. Washburn cleared her throat. That is a sign that the person making the sound would like someone’s attention, although to me it always sounds like he or she wants a drink. I looked up at her.

“Can you move over just a little so I can see too?” she asked.

The thought had not occurred to me. Moving to one side might slightly diminish my view of the envelope. I decided if it was important to Ms. Washburn I would allow her an angle and take a better look at the envelope myself after she had returned to her desk. This is one way in which I have learned to consider another person’s feelings, something I have spent many hours discussing with Dr. Mancuso.

With enlargement due to the lens, it was clear the city name included two words, but they were not intelligible. The state was more clear with this magnification.

“California,” Ms. Washburn said.

“Yes,” I said. It wasn’t necessary to affirm Ms. Washburn’s statement, I knew, but I have been told that people find it odd when one doesn’t respond to something they say. If there is nothing to add there doesn’t seem to be a point to an answer, but it is easier in some cases to simply comply with convention.

California is the most populous state in America. It takes up a large percentage of the country’s West Coast, from the border with Mexico to the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon and Washington. Its coastline, I had once noted, reaches for 840 miles. Its population is slightly under 39 million. Finding one man in the state would actually be more difficult than locating the proverbial needle in a haystack. Assuming it was one needle of hay and not a steel one used for sewing, which would shine in sunlight and be simpler to find.

Finding Reuben Hoenig without more detailed information would be a considerably difficult task.

“Can you read the zip code?” Ms. Washburn asked.

“This magnifier is meant for stamp collectors looking for imperfections in very small printings, but all it does to a smudged ink mark is to make it larger,” I said. I sat back. There is a certain eyestrain that results from using a magnifying glass under bright light and it does not take a long time to set in. “Unfortunately the only easily legible digits are nine and zero, which are extremely common in California.”

Ms. Washburn moved to my left and leaned over a little more severely. “Mind if I take a look?” she asked.

I saw no reason her eyes would be more adept at deciphering obscured ink than mine, but there was no harm in letting her try. Ms. Washburn has proven very talented in a number of areas and there was no reason to dissuade her. “Feel free,” I said.

She stood and looked at me for a long moment. “You need to let me in, Samuel.”

It took a moment to realize what she meant. My first thought—which was interesting upon reflection later—was that Ms. Washburn wanted to kiss me again. I did not have time to make a decision about that before I realized she was asking for access to the magnifying glass on my desk. I nodded and stood, giving her a clear path to my chair. She did not sit, but leaned over the desk and looked directly into the lens.

Ms. Washburn did not say anything for seven seconds as she stared intently into the glass. Then without taking her gaze away she reached for a small pad of paper I keep on the right side of my desktop. She reached behind her right ear for a pen she had stored there, something I have not told her I find slightly nauseating. I am trying to accommodate Ms. Washburn. I am her employer but I want her to think of Question Answered as her home base as well.

She wrote without looking at the pad. I watched her hand, which wrote, “9-0” and then hesitated. I moved my gaze to her face. She was intent on the lens, squinting in an attempt to see the other digits more clearly. Again without looking down she wrote, “6” and hesitated. After a moment, the pen wrote “86” on the pad and she looked at me.

“I’m pretty sure,” she said.

“You rarely fail to reaffirm my wisdom in hiring you, Ms. Washburn,” I said.

She smiled with an edge of something else I did not recognize. “It’s nice how you can turn a compliment for me into something that shows off your own intelligence, Samuel.” She laughed lightly and added, “Thank you.”

“I did not mean to—” I began.

Ms. Washburn waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. So where is your father?” She pointed at the note on the pad.

“I’m afraid we still don’t know for certain,” I answered. I sat back down in my chair and looked up at Ms. Washburn, who was not yet heading back to her desk as I had expected. “The zip code you wrote down is not in California. In fact it is located in Mexico.”

She folded her arms. “Mexico? Do they have zip codes there?”

“Yes. It is essentially the same system as that in the United States. This one is in an area called San Isidro.”

Ms. Washburn shook her head, but not in a negative fashion. “The day we met you told me you had memorized every phone exchange in North America and some in Western Europe. Do you memorize zip codes, too? We need to get you a hobby, Samuel.”

“How would a hobby differ from what I do?” I asked.

She smiled crookedly. “We’re veering off topic again. So you know zip codes and this one is in Mexico. How about …” She looked again at the note she’d written. “How about nine-one-six-oh-six? I couldn’t decide whether that was a zero or an eight.”

“That would be in North Hollywood, California,” I told her. “And that is far more likely the area in which to look for my father.”

“The area? Not the town itself ?” Now Ms. Washburn did move back toward her desk and sat down. She started typing on her computer keyboard.

“Just because the mail went through the North Hollywood post office does not mean we can be certain the person who mailed it lives there,” I pointed out. “If it was my father who mailed it, he might have been on his way to or from his home when he mailed the letter. It is also possible he asked someone else to mail the envelope for him. We don’t know enough about the process to be definitive. We must avoid reaching a premature conclusion.”

“Yes, but it gives us a direction, an area,” Ms. Washburn argued. “It’s not very likely that your father drove from Denver to mail a letter and then turned around and drove back.”

“Perhaps not, but it is possible. He also could be in the Los Angeles area on a business trip.”

“So what’s our next step?”

I put the magnifying lens back in the desk drawer and returned the letter to the envelope in the hope that I had not damaged it in any way, certainly not noticeably. Then I slipped the envelope into my jacket pocket to return to our house and Mother’s nightstand before she could notice it missing. These manual tasks, although not emergent, were helping me to think more clearly.

“No doubt we should begin with calling the six possible Reuben Hoenigs we have managed to identify,” I said. “If, as I expect, none of them is revealed to be my father, we need to gather more information about him to determine why he might be living under another name and where that possibility might lead us in establishing his location.”

We spent the next twenty-seven minutes (not including my next exercise session) in that pursuit. While I was able to reach both numbers assigned to me in Europe, neither person answered the phone—it was evening where the men were located while morning in New Jersey—the messages I left after voice mail prompts in languages I did not understand were short and probably incomprehensible to the targeted recipients.

The third man on my list, the Reuben Hoenig in Billings, Montana, did answer the phone. That time zone was two hours behind mine so it was earlier in the morning but I had not expected the man to sound like I had awoken him with the call. “Yeah?” he said by way of a greeting.

“Is this Mr. Reuben Hoenig?” I asked after a moment of contemplation. In my experience, “yeah” was a form of “yes,” which would indicate that I had asked a question whose answer could be found in the affirmative. I had said nothing at all to this man yet. I had heard the word used as a form of, “Why are you speaking to me?” and assumed this was one of those instances.

“Who wants to know?” the voice asked. Again, it took me a moment to decipher the inquiry. Would he slip into a different identity depending on the person asking? Wasn’t he the same person all the time? It was confusing. I decided, looking at Ms. Washburn, who was on the phone to another Reuben Hoenig, that I should simply press on. It seemed he was asking for my name, so it made sense to tell him who was calling.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” I said. “I am Samuel Hoenig, the proprietor of Questions Answered in Piscataway, New Jersey.”

“I don’t want to buy anything,” the man said.

“I am not selling anything,” I countered.

“They all say that.”

“Who?”

“People who are selling something.”

That seemed contradictory. “I am not selling anything, I can assure you,” I told the still-unidentified man. “I do not wish for you to give me any money. I am simply looking for Reuben Hoenig.”

I heard a rustling sound through the telephone. Perhaps the man was getting out of bed. “Who did you say you are?”

“I am Samuel Hoenig, proprietor of—”

The man spoke before I could finish the reiteration he had requested. “Is this because we have the same last name?” he asked. “Are we related or something?”

“I am not sure,” I told him. “That is one of the reasons I am calling. Are you Reuben Hoenig?”

“I suppose so.”

That answer wasn’t at all helpful. Did the man in Montana not know who he was? Amnesia is an extremely rare disorder, usually brought on by a severe blow to the head or some other trauma and is most often temporary. “You’re not certain?” I asked.

“Of course I’m certain.” Now the man sounded slightly irritated, which did not seem logical. He had said he supposed he was Reuben Hoenig but apparently I was meant to understand he was stating his name with certainty. I have never been to Montana, but I did not think the English language was spoken differently there.

“So you are Reuben Hoenig.” Perhaps if I stated, rather than asked, the answer would be clearer.

“Yes, for god’s sake. What do you want?”

That was clearer, but I seemed to be annoying this Reuben Hoenig more now. “I am trying to locate a man named Reuben Hoenig who lived in Piscataway, New Jersey, until twenty-seven years ago. Are you that man?”

“No.”

Certainly that was definitive. “My apologies for disturbing you then, sir,” I said. “Do you know anyone else with that name? I am endeavoring to locate my father.” I have been told by Mother and Dr. Mancuso that people tend to respond more favorably when one personalizes the problem at hand. It is meant to arouse a sympathetic impulse.

“I’ve never been to New Jersey,” the man said. He disconnected the call without saying goodbye, which I found mildly surprising. I put the telephone receiver back in its cradle and looked at Ms. Washburn, who was still speaking into her phone but noticed my glance and shook her head negatively. She had not found my father, either.

It was the result I had expected but it was still something of a disappointment. Our efforts would have to move in another direction now.

For reasons I could not have explained I retrieved the envelope from my jacket pocket and spread the letter out on the desk again. I decided that reading it for content rather than subliminal information might be helpful. Ms. Washburn would say I had no better ideas, and she would be right.

The element that seemed most imperative was my father’s suggestion that this might be the last communication Mother would ever receive from him. That was expressed more than once but never explained. There were a number of possible motivations behind such a tactic, but I thought perhaps a consultation with Dr. Mancuso would best help me identify those I might not consider on my own.

Ms. Washburn hung up the phone and her shoulders slumped a bit. “Nobody on the list is panning out,” she said. “I guessed that you didn’t find your father from those, either, did you?”

I shook my head. “I did not expect to, so it is not a serious disappointment. Ms. Washburn, can you imagine why my father, in writing this letter, would twice announce that this might be the last time my mother will ever hear from him?”

Her eyes narrowed, which with Ms. Washburn indicates she has questions about my meaning. “I imagine he thinks he won’t be able to write again,” she said. Her tone indicated there was more to my question that she did not yet comprehend.

“I understand the meaning of the words,” I explained, “but it’s the motivation behind writing them that puzzles me. Why does a man write to his estranged wife, whom he apparently has never divorced, after an interval of years to tell her she won’t hear from him again? Particularly since he never actually explains why future communication will not be possible. That seems a strange message to send. It did seem to have a profound effect on my mother. I am trying to grasp what drives a person to send that message without further details.”

“So you want to know about your father’s possible motive,” Ms. Washburn said. I believed I had said that already, but was aware this was Ms. Washburn’s way to clarify the issue.

“That’s right. If it is going to be the last time he writes to Mother, doesn’t it make sense to say why that is happening? And if he is desperate to communicate with her one last time, why wait in this day of instantaneous communication to send a letter via postal service. From California, that delivery probably took about a week, although the date on the postmark is illegible. Why make that the point of the letter?”

Ms. Washburn frowned. “I didn’t actually read the letter and I don’t want to; that’s private between your parents. But was that really the main message he was sending? You said he talked a lot about the job your mother did raising you and how sorry he was that he hadn’t been there for that.”

“Yes, but he could have written to her with that sentiment anytime in the past decade and had roughly the same effect. Besides, he doesn’t know what kind of man I have become; his only source of information is my mother, and as you well know she is hardly objective on the subject.”

“I think anyone observing would say your mother should be proud of the way you turned out, Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said. I thought that might be intended as a compliment, but it was aimed at Mother, not at me, so I did not accept it for my own.

“Perhaps,” I answered. “But it does not answer the question at hand. Why would he write and say such a thing, then announce this might be the last communication for their lifetimes?”

Ms. Washburn stood up and consulted the digital clock I have hung on the post between our desks. “Well, it’s just about time to see the only person we know who has actually met your father, Samuel. Let’s go talk to you mother.”

Of course. It was lunchtime.