The Prodigal Daughter
Told by Denis Kiel

Peter Allen felt a surprising contentment the moment he sat down in the living room to wait for his guests.  He and Linda had made dinner, set the table, and made the house ready.  As usual he had showered and dressed faster than Linda.  The pine-log fire he had just lit in the fireplace was starting well.  The guests were two couples Peter particularly liked.  His sudden contentment, he realized, came from all that this moment implied – all that he and Linda had worked on over many years that made this evening possible – a strong marriage, a happy life, a house they had built together, and friendships matured through mostly good times.

The fire gained on the logs.  When the phone rang Peter picked it up at once from the table beside him.  Peter imagined the Barretts were calling to say they would be late. 

“Are you the Peter Allen that was on the ski patrol at Mount Bachelor in 1968?” asked the woman.  She sounded friendly.  Maybe she was writing an article on the early days of the ski area.

“Yes,” said Peter, “I am the only one I know of.  Who’s calling?”

“Well, if you’re that Peter Allen, then I’m your daughter.” 

Peter wanted to be careful what he said next.  He could imagine Lyle Barrett, who liked a practical joke, listening in on the other end, ready to remember everything Peter said.  Lyle would tease Peter all evening.  He would be telling the story for years.  But if the woman were serious Peter didn’t want to either crush her or encourage her.

After a short pause he said as calmly as he could, “That doesn’t sound likely to me.”  Lyle could have fun with that, making it sound stuffy and disdainful one minute and like a scared little boy the next.

“Do you remember Vicky Sayres?” said the woman. 

“Yes, I remember Vicky,” said Peter, thinking perhaps he should not have admitted it.  Maybe Lyle had run across Vicky somewhere and saw the opportunity to make the most of it. 

“Vicky is my mother.  My married name is Elizabeth Woods.  I’m not after money or trying to get anything from you.  But I would like to know you a little bit.  I have children of my own now and I want to know what you are like and what your family was like. 

“I see.”

“I will be in Bend for a conference,” continued the woman, “and I’d like to talk with you for an hour or so.  Do you think I could come and meet you?”

“I suppose that’s possible,” said Peter.  “But right this moment we’re expecting guests.  Can I call you back tomorrow?”  Elizabeth said yes and gave him her cell number.

The Barretts arrived on time.  Lyle didn’t make remarks about daughters or strange phone calls.  Peter remembered the woman’s call only a few times during dinner.  It was a wonderful evening.

“Who called while I was getting ready?” asked Linda as they put the leftover food away.

“It was a woman claiming to be my daughter,” said Peter.

“Ha!  That’s a new one.  Is there something you haven’t told me?”

“It’s the first I heard of it.  But she sounded pretty level-headed.  And it is just possible she is.”

“Well, do you know her mother?”

“The woman she claims is her mother.  I knew her forty years ago.  I have no idea what’s become of her since then.”

“Did you get her pregnant?”

“Not that I ever knew of.  I suppose she would have told me.”

“What did she want?  I mean the woman who called.”

“Her name is Elizabeth Woods and she wants to meet me.”

“And you are intrigued by this, of course.”

“Yes.  If it turns out she isn’t my daughter then it will still be interesting.”

“She found your resume online and figured you are a retired rich guy who might be a sucker.  Or your old girlfriend found out where you were and told this other woman.”

“She says she doesn’t want money.  She doesn’t sound desperate.  I am not going to give her anything or accept anything at face value.  ”

“You’re swallowing this hook, line, and sinker.”

“The upside is very exciting and the downside, if we’re careful, is minimal.”

“And if she is your daughter, what are you going to do with her?

“Find out all about her and tell her all about us.  And all about the rest of the family she’s related to.  I’m sure she’ll want to meet them.”

“Does she know you don’t have any children – or at least no children aside from her?”

“We didn’t get that far.”

They finished the plates and the silverware.  They left the glasses and the pots for the morning.  When Linda came to bed Peter wasn’t reading.  He was lying on his back looking at the ceiling.

“You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Not the daughter, the mother.”

“Yes.  Vicky Sayres.”

“Were you in love with her?”

“We were hot and heavy for about three months during the ski season.  But we were young and we weren’t thinking about the long term.  I don’t know why she kept the baby, if there was one.  I don’t know why she didn’t track me down and tell me.  It would have thrown my whole life in another direction.”

“But did you love her?”

“I guess I did at the time.  But I made no effort to find her or even see her when ski season was over.  I think I wrote her a letter but I didn’t hear back.  I didn’t particularly care that I didn’t hear back.  We had no plans.  I was on to other things.  Two years later I met you.”

“Do you wish we’d had children?”

Peter knew he would never get to sleep if his answer were anything but no.  The decision not to have children had been made a long time ago.  The book was closed.

“That was a decision we made together,” he said.  “It was the right decision for both of us.  Sure it would be nice now to have independent adult children that cared about us.  And grandchildren that we saw once in a while.  But think of all the time and effort we would have had to put into raising children.  All the worry.  All the things that could have gone wrong.  I still feel we made the right decision.  Don’t you?”

“Yes.  It might be nice to have a family around us.  But I don’t regret what we decided.”  Now Linda was staring at the ceiling.  “So this Elizabeth is kind of a freebie.”

“Sometimes it happens.”

When Elizabeth came for her visit Peter saw that her resemblance to him was tenuous.  She might have his family’s nose and the chin was similar.  She had wavy brown hair like Peter’s mother.  But she looked more like Vicky, as well as Peter remembered her.  The same strong shoulders and lithe body.  The warm brown eyes.

Elizabeth greeted Linda and Peter with a beaming smile.  Peter sensed that she would like to embrace him.  The three of them sat by the window in the living room looking out over the water and the meadow. 

“I don’t see a lot of similarity,” said Linda.  “But then, I don’t look anything like my mother either.”

“I know you want to know all about my family,” said Peter, “and what is biologically your family.  But first, could you tell us a little about yourself and your mother?”

Elizabeth and Vicky lived with Vickie’s parents for the first three years of Elizabeth’s life while Vicky earned a certificate to teach school.  In her first teaching job, in Colorado, Vicky had fallen in love with a history teacher and married him.  He had been a good father to Elizabeth and the couple had two more children.  Elizabeth grew up near Colorado Springs, graduated with honors from the University of Colorado, and earned a masters in biology from the University of Pennsylvania.  She had her own environmental consulting company in New Hampshire.  Her husband was an engineer with a high-tech company outside Boston.  They had two boys, Grant who was nine, and Brandon, who was seven. 

“It sounds like a good life and you seem happy,” said Peter.  “I was worried you had suffered severely not having your original father around.  You realize I never knew your mother was pregnant.”

“I know.  My mother made her decision and she made it work,” said Elizabeth. 

“How has your mother been through all this?” asked Linda.  “Does she know you are here?”

“Mom is fine.  She still skis and she teaches part time.  She and Dad do a lot of work in the community.  My grandparents gave her a lot of support when she was raising me by herself the first few years.  And no, she doesn’t know I’m here.  She told me all she knew about you whenever I asked.  But she never said she wished she could see you again.  And of course, I didn’t know whether Peter would want to see her.  I just hoped he was willing to see me.”

“I’m very glad to see you,” said Peter. 

“How much do you know about Peter and what would you like to know?” Linda asked.

“I read his resume and some news reports on the web.  I know you were a very successful businessman, president of a company that made ski lifts.  I know you like to hunt and fish.  I don’t know if I inherited my love of trout streams from you or from just growing up in Colorado and living in New Hampshire.  I know Linda and you have been married thirty-five years.  I didn’t read anything about religion and Mom says you never went to church when you knew her.  I’m not very religious but my husband is a Catholic and we’re raising our boys to be Catholics.  What else?  I love your house.  I love the logs and all the rock.”

They showed Elizabeth photos of Peter’s family and he gave her the names and addresses of four cousins and his father’s sister who lived in San Diego.

“I hope you can come to New Hampshire to meet my husband and see what your grandchildren look like,” said Elizabeth.

“We’d love to do that,” said Peter.  “It won’t confuse the boys, will it?”

“I think they’ll understand.  They’re pretty smart.”

“We could aim for sometime in January,” said Linda.  They went out to see Elizabeth drive off. 

“Thank you for being nice to her,” said Peter as they went inside.

“Why wouldn’t I be nice to her?”

“I was afraid you might feel a little left out.  I don’t want you to feel that way.”

“Peter, I’m your wife.  This is a wonderful thing that has happened and I’m as happy as you are.  Besides, I know her now as well as you do, maybe better.”

“How could you know her better than I?”

“I know you and I have you to compare her with.  And I expect you are more caught up in what you expect or hope to see in her.  I don’t think either of you has a mean bone in your body.”

“So you trust her?”

“I think she is completely sincere.”

Peter’s mind was on his daughter and his grandsons for the next few days after Elizabeth’s visit.  He forgot what he was supposed to get at the store.  He almost ran out of gas.  He was so late to a golf match he couldn’t warm up and lost decisively.  He imagined holding a family reunion, something he had never thought of before.  He considered promising to pay for his grandchildren’s college education when they were older. 

But four days after the visit Linda drove home from Bend to find Peter in the chair by the front door.  Nobody ever sat there.  He didn’t have a book or a newspaper.  His body was listless and his expression was dark.

“She may not be my daughter,” he said.  “The first DNA test came back negative.”  Peter and Elizabeth had swabbed the insides of their cheeks with cotton swabs from two different testing companies during Elizabeth’s visit.  By that time they had decided they were father and daughter.  The tests were just to remove all doubts going forward.  It hadn’t seemed a big deal at the time.

“Are you sure you did the tests right?”

“Yes, I was very careful.  If we’d done something wrong the company would tell us someone’s sample was no good.  They say the samples were good.  There is just no match.”

“Have you told her?”

“No.  I thought I would wait for the results from the other company.”

“I’m so sorry, Peter.”

“I’ll be OK.  I’ve been counting on having a nice daughter for only a few days.  But poor Elizabeth.  She’s been counting on me to be her father for forty years, even if I was only a story.  She thought she was going to make her father real and now she doesn’t even have the story.”

“That’s Vicky’s fault, not yours.  It sounds like old Vicky was more of a sport than you realized.”

“She certainly didn’t seem that way at the time.”

“At least Vicky preferred to tell Elizabeth your story rather instead of someone else’s.” 

Peter waited to call Elizabeth until the results of the second DNA test came by fax.  “This is Peter,” he began, “and I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“Oh this is horrible!” she said, her seeming rock-solid confidence suddenly gone.  Her voice sounded almost like a teenager’s.  “Horrible on every level.  I was so happy getting to know you.  I’ve thought about you every day.  I’ve thought of so many things to ask you I started writing them down.”   

“We can do the test again, if you like,” he said.  “And you can send the swabs in.  I don’t want you to think that I sabotaged the results in some way.  Linda and I were both very happy to think were my daughter.  We’re sad to find out that it’s not true.  No matter what, though, you and I have a lot of hopes and emotion invested in each other already.  I don’t want to cut that off.  I want you to call me anytime you like and I want to know what you’re doing.  We’ve come to care about you.  We’d still like to meet your children sometime.”

“Thank you,” she said.  “I don’t know what to think or what to do at this point.”  She might have been crying.  It sounded like a man might be whispering to her on the other end of the line.  Peter hoped he was holding her.  The whisper seemed to be asking a question.

“Your nephew is driving up from Connecticut to see us this weekend,” said Elizabeth.  “I guess there’s no point in that now.”

“Would you like me to call him?” Peter asked.

“Yes.  If you would, please.  I’d feel so stupid calling him if he has no reason to have anything to do with me.  He sounded like a nice man.  I was looking forward to meeting him.”

Elizabeth called back three days later and talked to Linda.  Peter was out fishing.  “I hope you don’t mind my calling you,” Elizabeth said.  “Peter has been part of my life since I was born, even if he was only a story.  I can’t bear to just suddenly cut him out of it.  I hope you don’t mind if I call you both and write you from time to time.”

“We’d love it if you would,” said Linda. 

“If you come to the east coast, I hope you will come and see us.”

“I think Peter might still like to come and so would I.  We like half pretending that you’re our daughter, or at least Peter’s.  We might be coming as far as Boston in January.  Let me call you back.”

“Great.  I know this is strange but you and Peter mean a lot to me.  My husband says it’s like not believing in God but still needing to go to church and pray.”

“Have you told your mother?” 

“I don’t think telling her would make her happy.  So I haven’t.  I would like her to know that I found Peter but then I’d have to tell her everything.”

Linda and Peter got into Boston late the Saturday before Martin Luther King’s birthday and stayed overnight in the city.  They drove out to New Hampshire the next day.  All the trees were bare except for the evergreens.

“What has Elizabeth told her children?” asked Linda.

“Just that we’re friends coming by for a couple of hours.  It’s no big deal for the boys but Elizabeth will make sure they are home, not off at a friend’s house or something.  We’ll take some pictures together and we’ll see if they hang around while Elizabeth gives us a tour of the house and we get to know her husband.”

“What’s his name?”

“Phillip.  He works for a tech company.  Elizabeth says he’s a fisherman too.”

“Then you’ll have lots to talk about.”  Linda liked fishing with Peter.  But she didn’t love it enough to go fishing on her own.

Phillip and Elizabeth lived ten miles off Interstate 93 on five wooded acres.  The house had a covered front porch and sat on a low hill.

“I bet this driveway gets tricky when it snows,” said Peter.  “If they leave a car at the bottom of it they still have a quarter mile to walk.”

Elizabeth and Phillip came out the front door and down the steps from the porch to meet them.  Phillip was taller than Peter, with reddish blond hair.  Peter thought he looked like an Irish rugby player.

“I’m very glad to meet you,” said Phillip, “We’re both excited to have you here.”  The boys came out to meet them in thin cotton checked shirts.  The air seemed chilly to Peter, even in his lined jacket.  Grant and Brandon both had their father’s red hair and looked more like him than like Elizabeth.  They said hello politely and shook hands. 

“How was the drive up?” asked Grant, the oldest, with assurance.  “Did you find the driveway on the first try?” 

“Yes we did,” said Linda, “The directions were excellent.  Did you draw the map?”

“Brandon did.”

“Come inside,” said Phillip.  “It’s cold out here.”

The living room was on the right.  A thin good-looking woman of about sixty rose from the couch to meet them.

“This my mom, who’s visiting us,” said Elizabeth.  “Mom, this is Peter and Linda.”

Peter’s shoulders tensed.  Confusion and anger flooded his thoughts.  But years of habit cut through the haze and he extended his hand.

“How do you do?” he said through what felt like clenched teeth.

“How do you do,” the woman said, “I’m Vicky Ormsby.”  The woman seemed pleasant and untroubled as she shook first Peter’s hand and then Linda’s.  But then she paused a moment.  She looked at Peter again and turned to her daughter.  Elizabeth only smiled back at her.

“This is quite a surprise,” said Linda, “and not a fair one.”  She spoke in an even tone.  The children were looking on but did not yet appear to be concerned. 

“I wanted so much to get you two together,” said Elizabeth.  “I hope you don’t mind.”  Neither Peter or Vicky said a word.  Phillip, who appeared so confident moments ago, now looked embarrassed and unsure what to do.

Linda broke the silence, “You should have asked Peter whether it was alright to meet.  I take it you didn’t tell your mother you found Peter.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Elizabeth.  Her eyes were focused on Peter and her mother, a slight smile of enjoyment on her face, neither triumphant nor apologetic. 

“I need to talk to you,” Vicky said to Peter.  She took a heavy ski parka off a hook in the front hall and headed out to the porch.  Peter followed her and pulled the front door shut behind him.

“I can’t believe she did this,” said Peter.  “She told me she wouldn’t tell you.”

“Your wife is right,” said Vicky, “Elizabeth should not have done this.  I’m sure I’m a long-lost memory to you.  When did she find you?”

“About two months ago,” said Peter. 

“She told me her guests didn’t have any children.  She was careful to make sure I knew that.  Is that true?”

“Yes.  Very true.”

“Discovering you had a daughter must have been pretty exciting.  How far did you come to see her here?”  She looked like a woman who wanted a cigarette.

“From Oregon,” said Peter. 

“I always debated whether to find you and tell you,” Vicky said.  “At first it didn’t seem fair.  You didn’t sign up to be a father and it was my decision to keep Elizabeth.  I thought you must have gone on with your own life, married and had children.  Elizabeth and I would have only complicated everything for you.”

Vicky looked down the driveway before she continued.  “Elizabeth has chosen to complicate things for you now, even more so by having me here.  Children just can’t resist the urge to test their parents.  Elizabeth didn’t have the chance to test you earlier so she is doing it now.” 

“I’m sorry to tell you the person being tested is you,” said Peter.  “It may even be a sort of revenge.  It turns out I am not her father.  We did two DNA tests and they both came back negative.” 

Vicky stared at him, examining his eyes for the truth.  Her mouth was open and her breathing became shallow.  Tears appeared on her cheeks in big drops.  She wavered on her feet and Peter caught her, holding her to him.  Her arms wrapped around his back and she pressed her head against his shoulder.  She made no sound but her body contracted with sobs.  Peter held her up as her legs weakened beneath her.  He wondered if he should turn her toward the door and go in.  There seemed no point.

Vicky withdrew her arms and stepped back from Peter’s embrace.  “I have no right,” she said looking down at the deck.  “I have no right.”

“We’re two human beings sharing some bad news.  You have every right,” said Peter.  He took one of her hands.  He remembered the thrill he felt when he first held her hand – how natural and wonderful it felt.  The thrill was absent but the memory warmed him. 

“Thank you,” she said. 

“I’m sorry I’m not her father,” said Peter.

“It was such a wonderful thought that you were,” said Vicky.  “I liked you.  You were a good man.  And a good skier.”  Peter thought he was too unproven back then to be reliable provider of genes.  The world was full of good skiers.

“You were the first man I ever loved.  The first man I ever slept with.  When you left at the end of the season I thought I was already pregnant.”

“That was a special time,” said Peter.  “I remember it fondly.  I remember you fondly.”

“We were young,” said Vicky.

They went back in the house.  Peter said he and Linda had to be going soon.  He was sorry they couldn’t stay longer.  The formalities made things easier.  Choosing words for the sake of the boys made things easier too.  Peter and Linda kissed Elizabeth on the cheek and shook hands with Vicky and Phillip.  No one paid any attention to Vicky’s tear-damp face.

The car was still warm and the heater started to pump warm air as Peter and Linda drove down the driveway. 

“You told her you weren’t Elizabeth’s father?” asked Linda.

“Yes.”

“Did you learn who the father was?”

“I didn’t ask and she didn’t say.”  They turned onto the road and headed toward Boston.