Chapter 2 - THE MAN I CALLED LUCAS
We did not decide that night that he was my father.
That would have been easier.
Instead, we did what reality requires.
We verified.
Julian called our physician first.
Then an ambulance after the old man became dizzy and disoriented.
At Northwestern Memorial, doctors found evidence of an old traumatic brain injury.
Not recent.
Years old.
Possibly decades.
There were healed skull fractures.
A badly repaired shoulder.
Scars on his ribs.
Signs of prolonged malnutrition.
And cognitive impairment consistent with significant head trauma.
The neurologist warned me immediately.
“Recognition fragments do not establish identity.”
“I know.”
“Memory is suggestible.”
“I know.”
“And severe retrograde amnesia can be complicated.”
“I know.”
I kept saying it.
My heart refused to care.
DNA was ordered.
We also submitted fingerprints, though nobody promised they would identify him.
My father had never been arrested.
He had worked as a structural engineer.
He disappeared in 2006.
There was no reason his fingerprints would necessarily be sitting in a searchable criminal database.
I sat beside the hospital bed.
Julian sat across the room.
Neither of us spoke much.
Eventually, the old man opened his eyes.
He looked at me.
“Mari?”
I started crying again.
“Maybe.”
He looked frightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
That broke me.
He had spent twenty years apologizing for a crime he could not even remember committing.
Maybe leaving us.
Maybe surviving.
Maybe simply existing without a name.
I took his hand.
No gloves.
His fingers were rough.
Cold.
He looked at them like he did not understand why I was holding them.
I whispered:
“My father’s name was Gabriel Reyes.”
His eyelids fluttered.
“Gabriel.”
“Does it mean anything?”
“Church.”
I waited.
“Music.”
“What music?”
He hummed four notes.
I covered my mouth.
My father used to hum the same melody while repairing things around our apartment.
An old Spanish lullaby my grandmother sang to him.
Julian stood and quietly left the room.
Later, I found him in the hallway.
He looked sick.
“What?”
“I made you bathe him.”
I said nothing.
“I was trying to teach you a lesson.”
“You were.”
“I brought a vulnerable man into our house without arranging professional care and turned his dignity into part of an argument with my wife.”
That surprised me.
Julian rubbed his face.
“I thought I was being righteous.”
“You were being self-righteous.”
“Yes.”
I looked through the glass.
The man inside might be my father.
Or he might not.
Either way, Julian finally understood the problem.
Charity did not give us ownership over another person.
Not even benevolent ownership.
“I was horrible too.”
“You were scared and disgusted.”
“I told him not to ruin the marble.”
Julian looked at me.
“Then apologize when he’s ready to hear it.”
Not:
You’re not bad.
Not:
Forget it.
Good.
I nodded.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
The caller identified himself as Detective Samuel Ortiz, retired Chicago Police.
He had investigated my father’s disappearance twenty years earlier.
My pulse jumped.
“How did you get my number?”
“The hospital identity inquiry triggered an old missing-person cross-reference.”
His voice became quiet.
“Mrs. Mercer…”
“I need to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
“Does this unidentified man have a crescent-shaped birthmark on his right shoulder?”
I stopped breathing.
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then Ortiz whispered:
“Your mother told us Gabriel had one.”
My knees weakened.
“Do you think it’s him?”
“I think you should wait for DNA.”
May you like
Then:
“But I also think there are things about your father’s disappearance you were never told.”
