The Mistress's Daughter by A. M. Homes

him. “She sends letters with fantasies about going to the Central Park Zoo, for walks by the ocean, out to dinner. She has no idea of how strange this is for me. And she’s unrelenting—she could take over my life, she could swallow me whole.”
    He smiles. “She’s a stubborn lady.”
    â€œShe wants to know when the three of us can have dinner together.”
    He says nothing.
    â€œMaybe you two should have dinner sometime?”
    Norman blushes. “I don’t think so.” He shakes his head as if to say, You know what would happen. If he so much as saw her again, they would be back at it. He is still afraid of the power she has over him. I have the sense that he has promised himself or, more, that he has promised his wife that he won’t see her. A lot more has happened than I’ll ever know.
    He shifts in his chair. He is always uncomfortable.
    â€œOld injuries,” he says, “from the war, from football. I can’t sit still for very long.”
    There is a pause.
    â€œMy wife is jealous of you,” he says.
    On the rare occasions when I call Norman and his wife answers the phone, she never acknowledges who I am, never asks how I am, never says anything beyond, “Hold the line,” and then goes off in search of him.
    There are times when I’m tempted to say something, something simple, like, “And how are you?” or, “I’m sorry for all the trouble,” but then I remember that it is not my responsibility. I can’t do all the work.
    â€œHold the line.”
    Ellen thinks I’m her mother, Norman thinks I am Ellen, and I feel like Norman’s wife thinks I am the mistress reincarnate.
    Â 
    In September of 1993, I am in a suburban Maryland emergency room with my grandmother, who has fallen and broken her hip. I’m checking messages while waiting for the radiologist to read her X-rays. Norman has left a message.
    By the time I get back to my parents’ house, it’s late. I return the call. Norman answers the phone.
    â€œHow are you?” he asks.
    I tell him about my grandmother.
    â€œI have some information for you,” he says.
    I say nothing. I am not in the mood for games.
    â€œThe test results,” he says.
    â€œDo you want to tell me something?” I ask.
    â€œShould we meet at the hotel?”
    â€œWhich hotel?”
    â€œThe one in Rockville.”
    â€œSure,” I say. “But why don’t you just tell me what the results are?”
    â€œEverything is fine,” he says.
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œEverything is fine. We’ll talk when I see you. Tomorrow at four?”
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    Everything is not fine. My patience is running thin. All of this is a game, a game that Ellen and Norman are playing, and I’m the object in the middle, the thing tossed back and forth. He’s making it worse, throwing in a night of suspense, leaving me to stay up late, wondering. More than wondering if he is or isn’t my father, I wonder why I keep going back for more. I will never know the whole story. There is an enormous amount that no one is telling me.
    I meet him at the hotel. We are in the fern bar, the glassy atrium—the scene is like something from a science-fiction movie, a futuristic bioenvironment, the lunchroom in a space lab.
    â€œI have the results of the DNA test,” he says.
    â€œYes.”
    The waitress arrives and takes our order. I want nothing.
    â€œI’m fine,” I tell her.
    â€œNot even some tea?” Norman asks.
    â€œNot even tea,” I say.
    â€œWater?” the waitress asks.
    â€œNo.”
    Norman waits until his ginger ale arrives before he says anything.
    â€œThe test says it’s ninety-nine-point-nine percent likely that I’m your father.” There is a pause. “So what are my responsibilities?”
    I am not a slice of pie.
    â€œSo what are my responsibilities?”
    I say nothing.
    Norman