Offside

“Probably.”

The hostess came over and sat us down in a corner near the windows. She moved a couple of chairs out of the way, and I ended up looking right at the window with Thomas Gardner across from me. It gave him a surreal glow around his head and shoulders, and I tried not to read anything into it.

We spent about a minute and a half talking about the weather, ordering two waters, and then finally gave up on the small talk.

“So, uh…how did you know my mom?” I finally asked. However, the server returned, took our lunch orders, and walked off. I sighed and tried again. “You met her in college?”

“Yeah,” he replied. His brow furrowed and he twisted his fingers together around the water glass.

“Well…?”

“I guess I should start at the beginning,” he said. He took a sip of his water and looked down at his hands. “I met Fran at school. It was my last year, her first. I was into all the art stuff then—drawing, painting, theatre—and I even played guitar in a band. We weren’t that great, but we had a decent local following. We performed mostly covers of whatever was popular at the time. We played at local bars for the most part, and almost every weekend, we had a gig.”

He took another quick drink.

“There were four guys in the band,” he said. “We ended up with…um…a bit of a…um…well, there was this group of girls…shit.”

He coughed into his hand and sat up a little straighter.

“We called them our groupies. They were basically there every time we played. Fran was one of them.”

He glanced up at me for a second, probably wondering what I was thinking. My mom was a band groupie? For some shit college cover band? It didn’t fit my image of my mother at all. I shook my head, trying to clear it of the very idea.

“I was…kind of shy,” he said. “I would never talk to them, really, but sometimes after we played a set, they’d buy us drinks. We were actually about to break up the band. The semester was almost over, and two of us were graduating. It was about over, you know? That last night, I had a couple extra…It was my birthday—and uh…Fuck! I don’t know how to say this!”

“You and my mom hooked up,” I said. My voice was way too calm, even for my own liking.

“Yeah,” he replied softly. “It was just that one night, and school was almost over. I left a couple weeks later. I went to Chicago Art Institute to start my master’s program. I was going early to get settled in. About a week after I got there, she showed up.”

“And she was pregnant?

“No,” he said. “At least, I don’t think so. She said she just had to see me again. I couldn’t…fuck…I couldn’t even remember her name right away! But there she was, claiming I was the only man for her and…and…shit!”

He slammed his hand down on the table, making me jump. He leaned forward and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“I was…flattered. She told me how much she loved my art…and how she had come to every performance of Hamlet when I played the title role. She thought the band’s music was awful, but she just wanted to see me. I didn’

t know what to do. She had come all the way from the west coast and didn’t even have a way back. I let her stay with me…it was only a couple of weeks. I knew it wasn’t going to work out. I was going to be in school constantly. I wasn’t looking to have a relationship…”

He paused, dropped his hands to his lap, and leaned back against the booth.

“I told her she needed to get on a bus home, and she started crying. I think….I mean, looking back…I think she wanted to tell me…but she didn’t. We fought, and she left. I didn’t see or hear from her again.”

“How did you…? You ended up at her memorial service. How?”

A sharp pain ripped through my temple all of a sudden, and I rubbed at the spot. How did I know he was there? My mind raced…the letter…I read it over and over again, but it didn’t say anything about the memorial service. In my mind—in the far reaches of my memories, I saw a flash of light brown hair and my father…Lou…blocking my view…leading him away.

“I was in Portland,” he said. “I was an adjunct professor for a semester. My mentor was out on maternity leave, and she asked me to take over her classes. It was a class in how to teach art, and one of the students was from here in town. Class was over, but we were still talking about…I don’t even remember what. Charcoal versus ink…something like that. Somehow she got on the topic of having to return home for a memorial service. She told me the name, and I knew it was her.”

He stopped and looked into my eyes, his gaze running all over my face.

“I just went to pay my respects,” he whispered. “But when I saw you…when I saw you—I knew. I knew you were mine.”

“It is a wise father that knows his own child,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” he agreed with a chuckle. “Exactly.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and held on to my biceps with my hands. I was cold even though it was really pretty warm out that day. Maybe the restaurant already had the AC on or something. I shivered.