Chapter 6: The Porch in Portland
Neither Eric nor Thomas Calloway moved for a long moment.
The morning air was cool.
Somewhere down the street, a dog was barking at something it couldn't reach.
I watched Eric's face.
He'd prepared himself for a hundred different reactions — confusion, denial, a door closing in his face.
He had not prepared himself for this.
For a man who looked at him and already knew.
"You knew about me," Eric said.
Not a question.
Thomas nodded slowly.
"Your mother called me.
The summer before you were born." He stepped back from the doorway.
"Come inside.
Please."
We followed him into a living room that was neat and simply furnished — bookshelves, a worn couch, a coffee table with a mug and a folded newspaper on it.
The house felt lived-in the way houses do when one person has occupied them for a long time.
Thomas sat in the armchair across from the couch.
Eric and I sat together.
Nobody reached for the newspaper.
"She told you she was pregnant," Eric said.
"Yes."
"And that it was yours."
"She wasn't certain.
At first." Thomas turned the mug slowly in his hands.
"She said there was a chance it was Robert's.
She said she was going to stay with him.
She said she thought it was the right thing." He paused.
"I told her I understood."
"Did you?"
Thomas looked at Eric directly.
"No.
But I said it because she needed to hear it.
And because I didn't have the right to make her choice harder than it already was."
Eric was quiet for a moment.
"Did you ever try to find out?
Whether I was yours?"
"I waited to see if she'd tell me.
She never did." Thomas set the mug down.
"I told myself that meant she'd decided.
That Robert was your father in every way that mattered.
I tried to respect that."
"But?"
"But I thought about you." The words came out simply, without performance.
"I won't pretend otherwise.
I thought about you a great deal over the years."
Eric leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"My dad — Robert — he left you money."
Thomas's expression shifted slightly.
"I heard from the bank last week.
I haven't decided what to do about that."
"Did you know he was doing it?"
"No." Thomas shook his head.
"I had no contact with Robert.
Not once, in thirty-two years." He paused.
"He was a better man than I gave him credit for, I think."
"He was," Eric said.
The certainty in his voice was immediate and absolute, and it seemed to settle something in the room.
I had been sitting quietly, not wanting to interrupt.
But there was something I needed to ask.
"Mr.
Calloway," I said.
"Your daughter — Diane.
Does she know about any of this?"
Thomas looked at me.
He seemed to register me properly for the first time.
"You're Sarah," he said.
"Robert's daughter."
"Yes."
He nodded slowly.
"Diane knows I had a relationship before her mother.
She doesn't know the details." He paused.
"She's coming for lunch.
She'll be here in about two hours."
Eric and I looked at each other.
"We can leave before then," I said.
"If you'd prefer."
"No." Thomas said it firmly.
Then, more quietly: "No.
I think — I think it's time she knew.
If Eric is willing."
Eric looked at Thomas for a long moment.
"You have a DNA test kit?" Eric asked.
Thomas almost smiled.
"I bought one three days ago.
When the bank called." He stood up.
"I'll get it."
He left the room.
Eric turned to me.
His face was doing something complicated — not breaking, exactly, but shifting.
Like a structure that had been under pressure for a long time and was finally being allowed to settle.
"He bought a kit three days ago," Eric said quietly.
"I heard."
"He was waiting."
"Yes."
Eric looked at his hands.
"Dad knew this would happen.
He planned the whole thing so that I'd find out and come here and — " He stopped.
"He couldn't tell me himself.
But he set up every domino so that I'd end up on this porch."
"That sounds like him," I said.
Eric let out a breath that had been held for a very long time.
Thomas came back with the kit.
They did the swab quickly, without ceremony.
Thomas sealed it and set it on the bookshelf.
"Results in three to five days," Thomas said.
"I know how I'll come out," Eric said.
"So do I." Thomas sat back down.
"But it's good to have it in writing."
The three of us sat together in the quiet living room while the morning moved around us.
Thomas made coffee.
We drank it.
He asked Eric about his work — Eric was a structural engineer, which made Thomas laugh softly in a way that seemed to surprise even him.
"Civil and structural," Thomas said.
"Thirty years apart."
"Apparently," Eric said.
It wasn't comfortable, exactly.
It was too new for comfort.
But it was honest.
And honest was enough for a first morning.
At eleven-forty, a car pulled into the driveway.
Thomas stood up.
May you like
He looked at Eric with an expression that was careful and a little afraid.
"That's Diane," he said.
