Serves Me Wright

“Yeah. Same,” I muttered.

“I’m sending someone to look into it, but I don’t know. It doesn’t even look like this guy exists.”

That was what I’d found, too. It was strange that all we had was this email.

Ten minutes later, our father drove into the spot on the other side of Jordan. He laughed when he saw us standing there. “Am I late again?”

I ground my teeth together. Things had been going so well with Dad. Too well maybe. We’d gone golfing after our dinner. He’d even been texting us both. Nothing serious, but enough to keep us in his life. I’d been feeling good about it. And now…this.

“Why the long faces?” he asked as he popped the trunk to get his clubs.

“We’ve been waiting for ten minutes,” Jordan said briskly. “Where were you?”

“Lost track of time. What’s the big deal?” The same Wright family smile was on his face. The one that so matched our own.

“Early is on time. On time is late,” he quoted a phrase our father had used since we were kids.

He smiled. “You’re right. Look at you. Old enough now to teach the teacher. I’m sorry for my tardiness. I’ll work on it if it upsets you that much.”

I looked at Jordan. We’d agreed that we would golf first. Talk to him afterward, but how the fuck were we supposed to do that? Jordan was already jumping down his throat, and I couldn’t stay silent forever.

Our dad finally dropped the smile. He snapped the trunk closed and stepped toward us. “What’s all this about? I haven’t seen these looks from both of you in a long time. I thought we were making headway. Going to have a good afternoon. Maybe fireworks later.”

“Maybe,” Jordan agreed.

“We could have,” I snapped.

Jordan narrowed his eyes in my direction. A silent reminder to keep it together. But fuck it. He might have mastered his temper, but this was beyond anything I’d ever dealt with, and we didn’t need to master anything in this situation.

“What?” my dad asked. His voice shifted from nurturing father figure to business professional in a matter of seconds. He could see the writing on the wall. He’d always been canny, even when we didn’t like it. “Tell me.”

Jordan looked to me, and I shrugged.

“This was your idea.”

He sighed. “We got an email about you.”

“About me? From whom?”

I watched him closely as I said, “Weston Wright.”

He blinked. He’d heard that name before. I could see it on his face.

“You know who that is?”

“I’ve heard the name,” he said carefully. “What did he say?”

“He said that he was our brother,” Jordan said. “And that you were his father. That he lived in Seattle and was twenty-two. He claimed to not know that we existed, but that we were family.”

I waited for him to deny it, to be outraged. To do all the things I expected from him. That I’d waited for with his normal bullshit. But instead, he sighed and seemed to shrink in on himself.

“I was afraid this was going to happen.”

“It’s true?” I gasped.

“No,” he said earnestly. “It’s not true. But I do know of Weston Wright.”

“You do?” Jordan asked.

“Let’s back up the story. Three years ago, right after you two moved here, I got a similar email from the young man. He claimed that I was his father. That I’d known his mother twenty-two years ago, and unbeknownst to me, I’d fathered a child.” He ran a hand back through his hair, his face distraught. “I took the email seriously. How could I not?”

“Of course,” Jordan said.

“Why would he think you were his dad?”

“I knew his mother,” he said with a shrug. “He’d found old pictures of us together and assumed that I must be his dad.”

I narrowed my eyes. “But you aren’t?”

“Let me explain,” he said, holding his hand out. “I took it as a credible reality that I might have another son. After all, around that time, I’d been separated from your mother. I’d had a few relationships. Though…nothing had ever come of it. Certainly not children.”

I shuddered at that thought.

“Anyway, I reached out to his mother. She was incredibly embarrassed that Weston had contacted me. We’d known each other, and when we compared dates, it hadn’t been anywhere close to the time that he was conceived.”

“How close?” Jordan asked.

“A year difference,” our father said. He leaned back against Jordan’s truck and wiped a hand down his face. “From his mother, I found out that Wright wasn’t even his last name. He had the same last name as his mother. She didn’t know who the father was, and this wasn’t the first time that Weston had spoken to a man she’d dated at the time.”

“And what was her last name?” Jordan asked.

“Smith.”

I sighed. Great. What a common name. No wonder they hadn’t found a musician Weston Wright if his real name was Weston Smith. How many more of those were there?