It's a saturday evening. I'm sipping a cold redbull and *****, talking with a loved one. When suddenly one sentence, one look, one change in tone, and all the puzzle pieces fall together. But it all lacks one, do I have my father's eyes?
October 21st 2017.
This is the day I found out, I do not know my biological father.
Let's rewind back to June 25th 1993 roughly 7pm, I was born.
This is the story I was told from that day forth.
In September of 1992 my dad met my mother through mutual friends at a party, he said she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He knew he had to pursue her, for weeks she told him no, he wasn't her type, but he gave it one last attempt with two Reba McEntire concert sometime in October. At first she said no, but my grandmother insisted she atleast give the poor boy a shot and go. So days later she reached out to say she would go out with him. Little did she know he had already sold the tickets thinking she wasn't going to go. But, being the persistent ****** he is, he picked her up anyways but took her to a friends house get together instead, they slept together that night and I was concieved. Now this last part was only revealed to me at age 12 when I started to put some pieces together, but in my head I was just busting my mom on Pre-Marital *** which felt great towards a mother who was so over controlling I wasn't allowed to date until 17 years of age, and I mean so much as a Co-Ed birthday party. She knew where I was 24/7/365 and if she didn't all hell broke loose. But to get back on topic. My parents fell in love, mom soon realized what an amazing man he was and then shortly the found out they were pregnant. They decided to get married on December 26th 1992.
That was my story.
Rather, that was the one they delicately fabricated by the people who's sole life lesson to me was, Honesty was the most important thing in the world.
Fast forward to age 14.
I find out my mother is having an affair, physical proof. To be honest, she did not hide it at all. My father worked all over the US, hotel to hotel for up to 3 week at a time. When he was gone, she was gone.
"I'm going to the grocery store and to run an errand and then I'll be home. What do you want for dinner?"
"The boys want sonic and a chocolate milkshake sounds pretty **** good."
"Alright, I'll see y'all in a little bit."
....
3 days later.
Her car is halfway parked on the curb, halfway slanted in the driveway. It's running and the lights are on, I wake up around 7:30, get the boys breakfast, I've already called dad worried but he assures me she is just probably with a girlfriend and will be home after we're in bed. He ordered us pizza to be delivered with his card. I proceeded to call all jails and hospitals just to check. I know she's most likely ****** up, with another man or worse hurt or dead.
I hear something and go outside to check, I see her. In the car passed out. I pull her out, no response. She's breathing fine but obviously not ******* waking up. I'm scared. I try to pull the car out of the street. It's parked like ****, but out of the road. I couldn't drive stick but it would do.
I put the boys in their room with a movie and some yogurt "Breakfast in bed & Veggietales. Our little secret". I drag her up 2 flights of stairs. Into the bedroom, the bathroom and into a tub of ice water. She comes to but just ask for water and where she is.
I lay her to bed with water, a trash can, warm towel and bell.
I tell dad and he says to just let her hang out, she's just hungover. I think wow, hangovers are gnarly.
2 days later, she's fully coherent, begging for forgiveness. She promises to never do it again. Unsurprisingly, she would break that promise consistently forever the remainder of my life.
She was with a man named Eugene, coked out. At a ******* doing ecstasy. The product, a pregnancy of a mixed child. Which I only add as an important role in, my father being Caucasian, it would be well known. But she leaves him, comes clean to dad and he says he will raise the child. Believing her when she says it's a very small chance, a one night stand. A mistake and most likely the child was indeed his.
She lost the child. A few months later.
She broke.
I don't know if any of that is true now.
Fast forward to 16.
She's openly at it again. For months she's seeing an old high school fling. He lives there when dad is gone. I tell my father everything, text messages, pictures, grotesque even.. all of the evidence and it ends the same as always. He's mad, then she's mad, he apologizes, begging for love and forgiveness. She successfully manipulates him and then the wrath is on me.
She's pregnant again.
This time, she denies it all to him. It's his child. It's his child.
My beautiful little brother is born.
And now I know that not only do I not know mine and everyone else truly knew, he too will not know. And I don't know if I could break his heart. This man is trash.
Fast forward to 24.
We're talking about my parents, my mom. How everyone knows Jacoby's father is not dad. But he is in denial.
I laugh.
"Ya know, I wouldn't be surprised if my father isn't my biological father."
....
He did not laugh.
"Britt.. there's always been a conspiracy but no one really knows. But no one thought you could handle it, or they feared your mother's recoil."
........
It doesn't sink in. I get home. And I rack my mind over and over. Where do I start? Who do I ask? Why didn't they tell me? Was he bad? Will I ever know?
...
Could he love me?
Do I have his eyes? I've always wondered why mine were different.
My smile, its huge. Does his radiate the same way?
Is he kind?
Would he want to know?
Do I want to know?..
Yes.
The hunt begins. I give into impulse and call my Mimi, moms' mother. She sighs long and hard and I know. It's true.
All she can tell me is it was a short lived fling, an attractive young man, a few years older than mom. Tousled blonde curls and the most beautiful blue grey eyes. MY eyes.
His name is Michael. He was from Marietta. And lived in Hughes Springs at the time. No last name. No job known. Not where they met. Mutual friends. Just those three things over and over.
Michael.
Blonde curly hair.
Blue eyes.
It has to be.
Facebook, classmates.com, high school records. I drive to Hughes Springs a kind retired teacher keeps the small town library open an hour later for me to review yearbooks. 1987-1994.
Two matches, but it's still not much to go on. I need proof.
I call uncle, grandparents I haven't had a relationship with since childhood. Not one extra bit of information is found.
Except this, the father that raised me. He knew, I was not his.
So what do I do now?
Somehow get DNA from my father and pay hundreds of dollars to test it?
To get proof that he's not?
I can compare blood types..
But who's to say they will tell me the truth?
Will they ever tell me where I get my eyes?
I'll lay in bed all night long, staring into the abyss, trying to find a way to find you.
...to be continued..
