She’ll Do
by Craig W. Steele
Paul Fisher was a graduate student studying biochemistry at Emory University when he met my mother. That was thirty years ago.
Today my father is a professor of chemistry at Southwest Pennsylvania College. It was the beginning of the college’s spring break when my father told me the truth.
We were driving from Pittsburgh to Lake City, just the two of us, to open the cabin and get it ready for the family’s annual spring fishing trip. Dad wasn't very enthused about the trip this year, which was odd because he’s an avid fisher. I told some of my favorite jokes, but Dad was mostly unresponsive. He seemed to be lost in his thoughts, melancholy, as if something was really bothering him. Although I wanted to know what was wrong, I respected him enough not to ask.
I thought it might be that I was pregnant. Of course, it was about time; Ed and I had been married nearly three years. But I knew I wasn’t an only child because my parents didn’t want more children. They did. But “something happened” after I was born and they couldn’t have any more babies. I didn’t know which parent the “something” happened to, but I knew better then to pry. Maybe my pregnancy had reopened old wounds.
For a long time, I thought I was the reason I was an only child. My parents told me that from an early age, three or four, whenever they asked me if I wanted a little brother or sister I would respond “No!” adamantly and enthusiastically.
As I got older, I sometimes thought it would be neat to have a brother, or maybe even a sister, but that my attitude as a child had convinced my parents not to have any more children. I was actually relieved to learn, as a teen, that “something” had happened and it wasn’t my doing.
We stopped at the Crossroads Dinor in Sawyerstown for coffee. Dad grabbed my arm to keep me from getting out of the car and looked at me with trepidation.
"I have something to tell you, Paula, and I'm not sure how you're going to take it."
I knew he was going to tell me he had cancer. "Dad, are you okay?"
"Yes ... no ... well, yes. It's not me. It's just that ... when I was a much younger man, I met a girl, a woman, Marla Stone, whom I loved very much. We spent a long wonderful summer together and I decided to ask her to marry me."
He’d definitely piqued my interest! "I assume this was before you met Mom, right?"
"Yes, of course, two years before I met your mother. Anyway, it didn’t work out with this woman. She and I were from too-different worlds and her parents were very upset when they found out about us. They didn't want us together; I guess a poor graduate student wasn’t in their plans for their daughter. Shortly after they learned about me, her family moved back to Texas and I never saw her again."
"Why would I be upset about that, Dad?"
"Last week I got a telephone call. Marla had died, and her daughter wanted to let me know about her death."
I was confused. Why was he telling me this at all? What did it have to do with us now and why did it seem to upset him so?
"Her daughter, Shirley, is your sister, Paula. I didn't even know Marla was pregnant at the time. I didn’t know that all these years I had two little girls. Shirley wants to meet us, naturally. She’ll be flying into Erie tomorrow morning. Your mother already knows and has been very understanding. I hope you aren’t too upset, but I’ll understand if you are. I didn’t tell you sooner in case you wouldn’t come with us to the cabin to meet her."
“What ... what’s her name again?”
“Shirley, Shirley Stone. Marla gave our daughter her last name, of course.”
I was numb. I had a sister, a big sister — after twenty-five years of being an only child. And I was going to meet her tomorrow! I wasn't sure what I was thinking, but it wasn’t about the dinor’s coffee anymore. I didn’t want other people around us just then. So we left the Crossroads and went through the McDonald’s drive-thru instead.
We were both quiet the rest of the trip, sipping our coffee slowly, making it last. It was a good excuse to avoid conversation.
As we pulled up to the cabin, I thought about Dad as a young man, being told he wasn't good enough for the woman he loved. And if he hadn’t suffered that pain, then I wouldn’t be me.
When he stopped the car, I smiled at him and said, "Dad, if she's your daughter, then she’ll do."
P.S. The Crossroads Dinor actually exists, and “dinor” is spelled correctly, at least for around here. Northwestern Pennsylvania proudly claims to be the only region of the country where people eat at a “dinor” rather than at a “diner.”
Craig W. Steele is a writer and university biologist who lives in northwestern Pennsylvania. His stories have appeared in Calliope, The Hiss Quarterly, Stories for Children Magazine, The Storyteller and StoriesThatLift.com, with one forthcoming in Concisely. Contact Craig.
