Every family is full of ghosts, though someālike mineāare more haunted than others.
One ordinary day last year, I was taking a nap when my partner, David, poked me awake and tried to hand me my laptop computer. āYouāre not going to believe this,ā he said.
āLater.ā I closed my eyes.
āNow,ā he told me. David tapped the screen, and an email appeared from someone I didnāt know, a Jim who lived in Phoenix. It explained that his mother had found a book of mine online (a memoir about hiring a detective to track down my long-lost father), realized I was looking for her ex-husband, and passed the book along to her son. Jim had read the book, done the math, and deduced that we had the same missing father. āHe married my mom the year after you last saw him,ā wrote Jim. āThen he disappeared when I was five, a year older than you were when he took off.ā Jim added that heād always wanted a brother and that finding me was a ādream come true.ā He was an only child with no paternal relatives. The polite note ended with an apology for having contacted me out of the blue, and an invitation to connect if I ever wanted to.
I closed the computer and caught my breath. David was waiting for a reaction; I had no earthly idea what to say. A thousand emotions attacked me at once. Iād been sure that my father story was overāthat this unfinished book was finally closed. The last time Iād seen my father was the night heād come back to kidnap me, when I was four. I was watching Ed Sullivan with my sisters, two weeks after my parents had split up, when my fatherās headlights shone into the driveway. My oldest sister locked the door; my father yelled at her to open up, and when she didnāt, he kicked the door in, grabbed me in his arms, and started running down the driveway. My mother was screaming behind us, āPut him down, you son of a bitch!ā but we were almost inside the truck by then.
I felt her hands around my ankles as he held onto my wrists, and the two of them stood there pulling me apart from both ends, like dogs fighting over a piece of meat, snarling and growling above my head. Then my mother kicked him hard and yanked me away before hurrying back into the house. She locked the door and stood there, trembling. Finally, I went to the window and saw my father standing in silhouette between the headlights. He got inside, honked the horn once, and backed slowly out of the driveway. I never saw or heard from him again.
After that, my fatherās name became taboo in our house. As children do, I grew up believing the authorized version of what had happened: my motherās bitter side of their breakup, in which he was a damaged, terrible man, and I was lucky that he was gone. In time, this narrative hardened into the truth, and so did my comeback when people asked about him. āYou donāt miss what you never had,ā Iād say when they looked at me with pity in their eyes.
I managed to get away with this story till a troublemaking friend called my bluff, a few days before my 40th birthday. āI think youāre scared to find him,ā he said after asking why Iād never looked for my father. This angered me because my friend was right, and when he dared me to hire a detective, I surprised myself by saying Iād do it. For the first time, this prospect appealed to me, though I had no idea why. Later, in researching fathers and sons, I learned that men approaching middle age often seek out āthe absent father,ā whether or not he was there in body. According to poet Robert Bly, this quest can be part of a deepening into manhood. In other words, I was right on schedule without even knowing it.
I hired a famous gumshoe to get the job done. For the next year, the detective followed the paper trail, sniffed out leads, sent me lists of James Matouseks to cold-call, but nothing ever materialized. Once, we thought weād found him, but it turned out to be the wrong man: I stood on a porch in Pasadena, commiserating with a disheveled old guy in an undershirt, whoād never had kids himself and wished he could say he was my father. Then I said goodbye, sat in my rental car, and sobbed for an hour, feeling that this was finally over, and the wound of desertion could finally close.
Iād never find my father and that was okay; whatās more, I knew now that he wasnāt a monster. Having opposed this search from the start, my mother finally admitted, after two vodka screwdrivers, that the real reason my father had left was that she herself had been unfaithful. She figured it was time to come clean, now that I was investigating. My motherās confession turned my father story around: he went from being a deadbeat dad to a cuckolded husband, a role that I could have sympathy for. That was a healing in itself.
Now, with the appearance of Phoenix Jim, the plot had thickened. I had no idea what I wanted to do, and called my sister in Los Angeles. Belle had no memories of our father; she was only a year old when he left. Nevertheless, she was ecstatic. āOh, my God! Weāve got a brother!ā she shrieked.
āA half-brother.ā
āWhatās the difference? Itās all the same!ā
But was it, really? I hung up the phone in a deep quandary. Family is such an abstract phenomenon; itās hard to know what it signifies sometimes. Does sharing blood with a total stranger actually make him family, I wondered, beyond the coincidence of our joint DNA? My cynical self reduced this connection to sex: our mothers had gotten pregnant by the same man. Was that any reason to believe we had anything in common? Of course it is, countered my wisdom voice. A big thing. I saw that I had a clear choice with Jim, withdraw or advance, so I decided not to be a coward. Before I lost my nerve, I picked up the phone and dialed this strangerās number in Phoenix. The call went to voicemail, where I left him a message, thanking him for getting in touch with me, and asking him to call me back.
Jim rang me up the next morning. āI canāt believe Iām talking to you!ā he exclaimed. Then Jim told me a little about his life as a retired police chief and father of two. āI hunt and fish. Coach their soccer team. My wife and I are religious. Not over the top, but . . .ā
āYou mean, church on Sundays?ā
āExactly. Plus, my menās group, which encouraged me to write you that letter.ā Jim repeated the story about his mother coming across my book on the internet. āShe warned me this might not turn out very well. She doesnāt have a good word to say about our father,ā he told me. Our father. The words sounded strange. āYou know that he was crazy, right?ā
āIāve heard stories.ā
āSociopathic.ā
āIs that right?ā
āWhen he met my mother he told her that you were dead,ā Jim said. āThat he had a family in California, but all of you were killed in a car accident.ā
āWhat?ā
āIām really sorry to tell you that.ā
As rapidly as it was redeemed, my fatherās rehabilitated image came crashing down in my mind. So he was the pathological liar my mother always claimed. I resisted the urge to slam down the phone. Instead, I said, āWe have to meet.ā
Jim was overjoyed. We agreed to meet me at Belleās house in three weeks; as it happened, he and I were both headed to LA on the same day, which made this whole thing feel like fate. I wasnāt eager to meet him, exactly, but there seemed to be a mysterious force pulling us together. Was this the power of blood, I wondered? Could it be possible that Iād been wrong all those years in believing that blood isnāt thicker than water? Apparently, I was about to find out.
When the day arrived, Belle and I sat in her living room waiting for Jim to arrive. I was mildly nervous; she was like Jell-O. Her sons, my nephews, had been summoned to the house to meet their new relative. Finally, this strangerās car appeared in the driveway and I saw him get outādressed like a cowboy in jeans and black T-shirtāand open the passenger door for his wife. It wasnāt until we were standing face to face on the porch that I realized how much alike we looked. He was younger, shorter, and bearded, but our features were nearly identical. āThis is unbelievable!ā he said, opening his arms.
āIt really is,ā I said, hugging him back. Then Belle put her arms around both of us and we stood there, rocking together like long-lost friends. His lovely blonde wife stood at a distance, beaming. Then David and the boys were introduced, drinks were served, and we got on our way in two cars to the local Mexican restaurant.
In the car, Belle said, āYou have the same eyes!ā
āIt was strange. I know. He seems okay.ā
āHeās our brother,ā she repeated, as if this were all a fait accompli.
At the restaurant, Jim and I huddled at one end of a long table while Belle, David, and Jimās wife chatted at the other, with the nephews between us. Jim folded his hands on the table and leaned forward, waiting for our heart-to-heart. He was just as friendly in person, at first, as heād been on the telephone. But after pleasantries had been exchanged, the conversation soon became labored. Jim allowed me to do all the work. Having been an interviewer by trade, I can make a stone talk, but thatās not the same as having a conversation, which requires a common point of interestāwhich Jim and I couldnāt manage to find. Prompted by my questions, Jim informed me about his life on the police force, his daughtersā soccer, the Cardinalsā losing season, golf, growing up in the desert, and the deep importance of faith. āGod,ā said Jim. āOr whatever you want to call it.ā
āI think of God as a supernova,ā I said.
Jim chuckled without knowing what I meant. He played with his napkin and scarfed down more chips, both absent and eager in the same moment, unable to articulate what he was feeling. If Jim and I had been alone, I might have pursued more substantial questions, hoping to lay a groundwork between us. Instead, I ran out of surfaces, and Jim didnāt ask me a single question. He appeared to have hit his relational ceiling. For starters, my personal life was off-limits; he knew I was gay, but that was outside his comfort zone, clearly (heād barely shaken Davidās hand). Also, he had no context for my professional life as a writer in New York City. So what was there to talk about? This left me with the choice of silence or risk. I chose risk. I wish I hadnāt.
āSo what do you think about this Trump?ā I asked by way of a joke. āA carnival barker, am I right?ā
āBetter than her.ā
āYou think so?ā I tried not to sound defensive. āAt least sheās smart. And what a trooper.ā
Jim scowled. āA crook. She should be in jail.ā
I resisted the impulse to deconstruct Trump and turned to a safer subject instead. āSo youāre a man of faith?ā I asked.
āWe have a great church,ā Jim answered before falling silent again. I waited for him to elaborate, but Jim just chug-a-lugged his beer and waited for me to ask the next question. I found this extremely annoying. On the scale of what matters to me in life, communication tops the list; I value peoplesā willingness to open up, reveal their vulnerabilities, and show genuine interest in the other person. But Jim did none of that. He hung back and waited to be drawn out, like someone from another tribe, unwilling to venture into my sphere, pretending there was meaning between usāassuming it because he wanted a brotherāwhen, in fact, there was only fiction: a make-believe bond, a ghost of connection. Besides irritation, I felt disappointed, which must be why I brought up Freddie Gray. I figured there was nothing to lose.
āSo what do you think?ā I asked Jim in reference to the black man murdered by cops in Baltimore. āItās disgusting, right? The brutality.ā
I saw his friendly face harden, his jaw clenching tight. āThatās bullshit.ā
āHow do you figure?ā
āFreddie Gray was a thug. Those officers were just doing their job.ā
āThey killed him,ā I said.
āGimme a break.ā By this point, Jim was actually smirking. All eyes at the table were now on us.
āOh, donāt get him started!ā his wife called out, seeing in Jimās face that something was wrong. āThis is a celebration, boys!ā
He ignored her. āThereās something you liberals donāt understand. If these people just did what we told them to do, this so-called brutality would never happen.ā
āYou canāt be serious.ā
āDead serious,ā he said.
And just like that, it was over for me; the imaginary cord snapped between us. This person would never be my brother in any meaningful sense of the word. We were accidental relatives, nothing moreāthis experiment came to a crashing halt. Knowing that there was no turning back now, I switched again into professional mode, disappearing behind my journalist mask. Instead of taking Jimās bait, I proceeded to humor him instead, placating his ire with fake self-blame. Of course, I couldnāt possibly know what it felt like to be a policeman, to face those dangers on a daily basis. It must be terrible for them, I said. On cue, Jimās face softened again and soon enough I had him smiling. But I was already long gone. Iād gotten the answer I was looking for, and now it was time to cut our losses. I asked for the check and insisted on paying. Jim tried to backtrack, but it was no use. āIt takes all kinds,ā he said to me with a mix of regret and condescension.
āAbsolutely,ā I agreed.
In the parking lot, he put his arm around Belle and squeezed her tight. āItās really good to meet ya, Sis!ā he said. Then he turned to me. āAnd you, Bro. Itās been an honor.ā We gave each other a three-point handshake. His wife tried to warm things up by kissing me on the cheek. āStay in touch,ā she whispered into my ear. āHe really would really like that.ā
āOh, yes.ā
āAnd you should really call his mother,ā she added. āShe has lots of stories about your father.ā
āNo doubt.ā
āItās good to know things, right?ā she asked.
āThat depends,ā I said.
Then she got into the car, Jim closed the door behind her, and the two of them drove away toward the highway.
āHow weird was that?ā said my eldest nephew on the way home.
āTwisted,ā said his little brother.
āThe internet,ā added the middle boy. āYou can blame that on the internet.ā
In the front seat, Belle reached over and squeezed my hand. āAt least we have each other,ā she said.
That had always been enough.
Mark Matousekās books include Sex Death Enlightenment, The Boy He Left Behind, When Youāre Falling, Dive, and Writing to Awaken: A Journey of Truth, Transformation and Self-Discovery.
Mark Matousek
Mark Matousek, MA, is the author of the memoirs Sex Death Enlightenment: A True Story and The Boy He Left Behind: A Manās Search for His Lost Father, and three other books. His latest is Writing to Awaken: A Journey of Truth, Transformation, and Self-Discovery.