Born Without A Father

I was born without a father. Like Jesus? Nope. Where Jesus had the ethereal God father and virgin mother, I had a mother who was too angry, vindictive, and some level of scared to list my father on my birth certificate. There was also a theory from my sister that since my mother had cheated on my father with his roommate, she wasn’t exactly sure whose child I was. I was there, but not in any cognitive capacity to shed light on it. And…. naturally, it’s a bit of a touchy subject. I did drunkenly call my mother once to ask her if she’d slept with Willy, my dad’s old roommate.

“Yes,” she curtly replied. “Now, you’re starting to piss me off.”

True to form, my parents each told me VERY different versions of this story, both with heavy bias. My mother told me how I was bought and paid for, “babygirl.” Because she hadn’t listed any father, she couldn’t qualify for any financial assistance programs. She’d say how my father had hired a rat bastard lawyer who fought dirty to get that asshole into my life.

My father boasted how I’d been the first case in the entire Upper Peninsula where a man sued for custody. How after my mother fled Detroit and left him, he’d followed, and broke down on the highway crying and praying to God that he’d do anything as long as he got his family back. He said they took blood tests to prove I was his child. He was proud he’d fought for me, and I assume that was supposed to imply he loved me.

Then, there was Aunt Meg (my dad’s sister), who had introduced the two. She told the same story every year. My mom gave birth, Aunt Meg called my dad and said,

“Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Daddy!”

“Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you, too.”

“I SAID, happy St. Patrick’s Day, DADDY!”

“YES! Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you, TOO!” he huffed, getting flustered.

“You’re a DAD!” she finally yelled into the phone, exasperated.

No matter who tells the story, some details are relatively simple to put together. My mom left my dad. My dad followed. When I was two years old, they got married, and everyone liked to talk about how I spent the whole wedding with my finger deep in my nose. I’m classy that way. Add my sister (technically half-sister, but I’m glad our parents squashed that idea from our heads while we were little. She’s my sister, even when I don’t like her very much) from my mom’s previous marriage, and a few years later, my little brother… Tada! you’ve got the main characters all introduced in some capacity.