goes to all their college reunions,” Brink said. “She knows where everyone is.”
“Figures,” Micah said.
He slid the sugar bowl toward Brink.
“You weren’t very hard to track down,” Brink told him.
“No, I don’t suppose I was,” Micah said.
“?‘Micah Mortimer, Prop.’ Like one of those general-store signs in a Wild West movie, right? Cool!”
“Thanks,” Micah said drily.
He took a swallow of coffee. He looked at the bar of sunshine on the floor. The little bit of light that made it through the window above the sink always arrived in the form of a horizontal stripe.
“Question is,” he said, “why you would want to track me down.”
Brink was stirring sugar into his coffee, but he stopped and raised his eyes to Micah. “Look,” he said. “You can see I don’t belong in that family. I’m a, like, misfit. They’re all so…I’m more like you.”
“But you don’t even know me,” Micah said.
“Genes do count for something, though,” Brink said, gazing at him steadily.
“Genes?”
Brink was silent.
“I don’t understand,” Micah said finally.
“I think you would if you thought about it,” Brink said.
“Excuse me?”
Brink released an exasperated puff of a breath. “Do I have to spell it out?” he asked Micah. “You and my mom…You two were this item…Mom gets pregnant—”
“What?”
Brink continued gazing at him.
“Surely your mom isn’t saying I had anything to do with that,” Micah said.
“Mom isn’t saying anything. She never has. Any time I’ve asked who it was, she says it’s immaterial.”
“Immaterial,” Micah said.
He felt an impulse to laugh, but he didn’t want to be unkind. “Okay, let’s think about this for a sec,” he said. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Eighteen,” Brink said.
“Eighteen years old. And I left school over twenty years ago—more than twenty years ago. By that time your mom and I weren’t even together anymore; hadn’t seen each other in months. Besides which—”
Besides which, he and Lorna had never once had sex. Lorna wore a special gold ring from her church that meant she was “saving herself,” as she put it, and Micah hadn’t tried to change her mind. He had sort of admired her absoluteness, you might say. Oh, a lot of Lorna’s appeal had been her absoluteness! However, this was probably something he shouldn’t get into with her son.
Who was staring at him blankly now. His face had a kind of frozen look. “Well, that’s…” he said. “Wait; that’s not possible.”
“Why not?” Micah asked.
“You can tell me the truth, you know,” Brink said. “It’s not like I’m planning to sue you for child support or anything. I’ve already got a dad. Who legally adopted me, by the way, when him and Mom got married. I’m not expecting anything from you.”
“Maybe your dad is your father,” Micah said. “Your biological father, I mean.”
“No, Mom didn’t even meet him until I was two.”
“Oh.”
Brink was looking angry now. It seemed he’d made a conscious decision to be angry; he suddenly pushed his mug away. A dollop of coffee splashed onto the table. “It was you,” he said. “Who else could it be?”
“That I couldn’t say,” Micah told him.
“You were the only boyfriend-type guy in the shoebox.”
“Look,” Micah said. “I didn’t even know she got pregnant. She’s who you should be asking.”
Brink was still glaring at Micah. “I’ve asked a million times,” he said. “She just says all that counts is Dad was the one who helped raise me.”
“She’s got a point,” Micah said.
“But what about my genetic makeup? What if I need to know about some medical condition that runs in that side of the family?”
“Well, if it’s any comfort, there are no medical conditions in my family that I know of,” Micah said.
He’d meant to lighten the atmosphere, but from the expression on Brink’s face he