Congratulations on Discovering Your Dad's Second Family!

It was tough for you growing up. Your dad was a prominent Harvard professor and wasn’t around much. He was always jet-setting off to attend a conference on “xenolinguistics” or “sociological transparency and its’ quantum mechanics.”

Bullshitty, vague things like that that no one really understands are his bread and butter. Sometimes he’d go do “field work” and you’d end up with a Hard Rock t-shirt from somewhere in Arizona, because his flight always seemed to have a layover in the delightful town of Tolani Lake. The subtext on the shirt was “Hotter than the Devil’s Vagina.” Your dad would insist on reading it out loud each time he arrived home, and would laugh and laugh about it.

He disappeared about three years ago, during your freshman year of college. You only knew because the CIA dropped a check off at your house, made out to “Cash” with the memo “Our Bad” on it. You’ve assumed he was gone.

But, being a dutiful son raised with a strong impression of how important higher education was you held off on uncovering the truth behind your father’s life long enough to get your BA in psychology and political science at UCSC, then spend a year unemployed trying to “find yourself.”

After that didn’t work out at all you cashed the check, which your bereaved mother had been too grief-stricken to even look at, and started your search in Tolani Lake with nothing but a photo of your dad and the clothes on your back. And twenty thousand dollars in cash, courtesy of the U.S. government, natch.

When you arrive you’ll begin where most people in Tolani Lake do: with the stores filled with worthless, pointless knick knacks. They’ll direct you to the seedy underbelly, where emaciated, heroin addicted Native American men will point you in the direction of the food service industry.

Your search through the food service industry will lead you through a maze of Denny’s, Friday’s and Chili’s, each one more horrifying than the last, until you finally find a young woman named Carrie who claimed to know your father.

Carrie will be pretty, if a little bit haggard. She’ll tell you that she’s twenty three, same as you, but she’ll look five years older. Part of that might be your point of reference. You’ve only ever known middle class college kids, and they age at a snail’s pace compared to people who have had to spend their whole lives scraping just to get by.

You’ll wait in her section until her shift ends, and when it does it’ll seem as if a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She’ll have a bounce in her step as she walks you home and chats you up the whole way, referring to your dad by his first name.

You’ll hold back as much as you can, just let her know that you had a close personal connection to him and that you’d like to find him as soon as possible, and she won’t press you on the subject. You’ll wonder if she was romantically involved with him and if, as a result, she finds you attractive. You sort of look like him, with a good amount more paunch and an easier smile.

But she won’t send out any signals, and the moment she hauls you into her living room you’ll become completely disillusioned with the notion of sleeping with her.

Pictures of your father with his arm around her and people you assume to be her family members will be everywhere in the room, and they won’t be pictures of a man draped around his trophy lover. They’ll be pictures of a group of yowling kids at Disney Land, the Grand Canyon, Space Camp. All the places your dad never took you because they were “too god damn expensive,” he’d visited with these strangers.

You’ll stare in wonderment at one of him holding a two year-old girl in his arms with a beautiful Native American girl at his side, beaming at the camera. She’ll smile as you gawk.

“That was back when I was first born. Dad wasn’t around as much then, but he was always sending us care packages, so we knew he cared,” she’ll say, looking over your shoulder wistfully.

You won’t feel shocked – the whole day has been building to this point, after all. Every look will click now, every sideways glance. You’ll know now that this is your half-sister, and that she deserves to know the truth.

Your mind will reel, thinking of how to tell her and, more importantly, how to convince her to come with you after the men who killed your father. It could be tough for you, you’re not very good at convincing people. You might just want to print a copy of this story out and hand it to her.

Just a thought. Either way, Congratulations on Discovering Your Dad’s Second Family!