Father’s Day

So,” I said to mom during our next phone call, “if I was born in mid-March of 1959, that means you conceived sometime around June of 1958, right?”

“Right. See, now, I had appendicitis when I was pregnant with you. That was when we lived in San Jose.”

“Who is we?”

“Jake. I married him.”

This was news to me. I was always told that Jake skipped town to join the Air Force before I was born.

“We were living in San Jose,” she continued, “And Jake was in the Air Force.”

“Wait a minute. Jake was in the Air Force when you married him?”

“He enlisted, yes. And then I got appendicitis and the cheap motherfucker wouldn’t pay the hospital bill so I left him and moved back to San Francisco with my mother.”

“This was in June of 1958, when you would have conceived. Then that means Jake is my biological father, not James Van Stern.”

“Well — yes. But I’m not so sure.”

I sighed into the mouthpiece. “When did you discover you were pregnant?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember the moment when you were told that you were pregnant?” I laughed incredulously.

“But you were a long pregnancy,” she offered. “You were supposed to be born in January but you were born in early March instead. It had something to do with the appendicitis surgery.”

“So — you did not conceive in June of 1958?”

“Well, no. I guess not.”

“More like April or May?”

“Probably.”

“Were you seeing James Van Stern in April or May?”

“I think so.”

“Were you sleeping with him?”

“Yes.”

“When did you marry Jake?”

“In June.”

“Oh …”