Last month I received a phone call which I almost didn’t answer since it was from an 800 number and the last thing in the world I wanted was to be reminded for the umteenth time that it’s healthcare open enrollment season again. No kidding — some days I get a dozen or more calls.
But I digress.
For some reason I answered and the young woman on the other end of the line asked if she was reaching Château Hough, and when I responded in the affirmative, she then asked to speak to Mr. Frazier, and I again responded in the affirmative, which seem to somewhat startle her. She asked if she could call me back on another, private, line, which she did.
When she called back, she cut right to the chase. “My name is Ashley Smith. Do you know a woman named Deanna?” she asked as my ears perked up.
As William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. Actually, it’s not even past.”
“Yeah, I know her,” I replied, “but I haven’t seen her but maybe once in the last 30 years,” getting an inkling of where this conversation might be headed.
“Well, she’s my mother, and she says that you’re my father,” Ashley Smith said in a very pleasant, non-accusatory voice. So pleasant, in fact, that I had no urge to terminate the conversation right then and there.
“I’m not calling because I want something from you, I’m married with two children, my husband and I own our home and we both have decent jobs. All I want is closure.”
That last word, “closure,” plucked at my heartstrings.
I explained that we were living life in the super-fast lane at the time of her birth. “When you were a newborn,” I told Ashley, “I came to your grandmother’s house to see you — and you looked nothing like me since I’m dark brown and you were a beautiful tan. And besides, I really didn’t think the timeframe of intimacy fit for me to be your father. Neither your mother nor your grandmother pressed the issue, so that was it. I walked away and never gave it another thought.”
But by this time in our conversation, it was important for this young woman to understand that had I believed back then that I was indeed her father, I would have been a man about it. I might not have been there to walk her to school, but I would have taken financial responsibility. In no way would I have knowingly been a deadbeat dad.
Deanna had told Ashley at one point that another man was her father, and she believed it for a number of years before they took a paternity test that proved otherwise. She was back to square one for the last 10 years, that is, until Deanna told her my name.
“You took the Ancestry DNA genetics test a few years ago, am I right?” she asked. When I said that I had, Ashley then said that she had taken a similar test, 23 and Me, and that our DNA was a match. But she wanted to use one more scientific site to check and make sure the results were indeed accurate.
I was, in a word, flabbergasted.
However, as I was preparing for bed that night, I told my wife that I was hoping that it was a match. When she asked me why, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was what I felt.
The next day Ashley called me and confirmed the match. I was indeed her father. I was elated, and then I knew why: If someone else turned out to be her father he could have said, “Yeah, so what? I’m your father. Don’t call me again.”
Sight unseen, I felt Ashley deserved better than that. We made plans to meet later that afternoon at her graduation ceremony — she had taken a course at a media school. She wants a career in TV journalism.
“There’ll be a lot of people there, how will I know you?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, I’ll know you,” she replied.
So as I walked into the conference center the thought did cross my mind, “What if she has pink or orange hair, or piercings through her nose, lips, ears, and cheeks?” I figured I still would love her anyway.
There were well over a hundred people milling about. I moved all the way through the crowd and then just stood there. When this woman came up to me she was so startlingly attractive my mind went blank for a moment. Was she sent to take me to meet my daughter?
“Hello, dad,” Ashley said, touching my arm. I’ve been melting ever since; my world forever changed.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: A Life-Changing Occurrence”
Steve Frumkin
Hi Mansfield. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think that 23 and Me is in the business of establishing paternity. It merely establishes your heritage.
You and your “new daughter” would have to go to a medical clinic and each have your DNA taken specifically for a paternity test.