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Reunion: Hearts on the Line, Page 6

Revelation

Kerri continued to meet with Kathy who evaded any conversation about David, not aware that Kerri had located him. Together, we brainstormed possible reasons why she wouldn't talk about him with Kerri. She would, at each meeting, tell Kerri that she would "talk about it the next time we meet." Finally, Kerri told her birth mother that she had found David, and Kathy reluctantly surprised her by announcing that David wasn't the birth father. She admitted having a "thing" with a married man, a man whose last name she insists she does not know, and this new-found daughter is a nearly perfect copy of her other lover.

Although it was Kathy who had insisted that he accompany her to the adoption agency and terminate his rights, it was also she who had provided his name and birthdate so Kerri could conduct her search -- and it was also she who fabricated the inconsistencies that finally led to David's broken heart as he lost his daughter for the second time.

Because Kathy told Kerri that David was a drug addict and a loser, had a common last name, and had moved to New York, she was confident that Kerri would never find him. Instead, Kerri was obviously surprised to find a successful family man twenty miles away who had been awaiting her phone call for twenty-five years. Kathy had conveniently blamed a young man whose thinking had been clouded by raging hormones and naivete.

With the latest phone call and this revelation, my isolation turned to anger, but then quickly returned to alienation as David told me: "It's my problem, not yours. It's not for you to worry about."

I turned to stone. Nothing I should worry about? He was not the only one who had waited so many years for the child to find us. I had prepared myself to welcome her into my life as well -- our life -- as any part of David would certainly be a part of me. Just as he had felt about "our" first son, my child, to whom he'd been Dad for the past twenty years.

***

I couldn't rid my mind of an image of the man with whom I make love having sex with another woman among the trees on a warm afternoon. Strangely, my image wasn't one of fumbling children.

I tried to humor myself by imagining David coming to a Marriage Interview wearing his best suit and toting a Relationship Resume. Kathy would be listed under the bolded subheading Youthful Indiscretions. Would I call her for a reference? Would she write him a letter of recommendation? In fact, she was no more than a high school "field trip." She was simply a practice piece for the sexual symphony we play over and over again.

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