I always cringe a little when I think of my behavior in Kansas City. I was not the person I am today. Add my unhealthy behavior to culture shock, and the result is that this poor man never received the reunion he hoped for when meeting his long-lost children. Mom not only took me from that side of my family, but she took me from our cultural heritage. My father will never have the Puerto Rican father-daughter relationship he imagined, and I’ll never know what it is to grow up Puerto Rican. It’s a real loss.

November 1986, I was 21

The organza was so slippery, and all I was doing was trying to make a neat hem. I stopped the machine and cut the thread, thinking I’d have better luck on the serger, when the overhead announced I had a call on line 2. I sighed and left the sewing room for the laundry area, where the phone was, expecting another pre-booking for a Santa costume. “Jo speaking, may I help you?”

“Your name is not Dumont, it is Bautista and your father is looking for you,” said a heavily Spanish-accented frantic voice.

“Um, what?”

“Your name! You’ve been lied to. Your real name is Bautista and your father is trying to find you!”

I didn’t appreciate the dramatic tone in her voice and began to suspect a prank. “Well, I’m married now, so it’s neither. Who is this?”

Something in my own tone must have tipped her off that she wasn’t handling herself professionally. With more calm she said, “This is the Red Cross. The man you think is your father is not your father. You are a missing child. We’ve been helping your father look for you for 18 years. He is anxious to meet you.”

Well, I had already found my real birth certificate years ago, and knew my birth father’s last name was Bautista, but I was married with a toddler and another light blinking on line 3. There was nothing life-or-death in this call and my boss frowned on personal use of the phone. And not for a minute did I believe I was a missing child. I was right here in Kansas City for over a decade. It was a bit of a surprise to learn my real father was alive, but why he was bothering to look me up now, after all these years, was beyond me. Whatever, I thought, it’d be nice to know the family medical history.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll meet him. Can you call me at home tonight? I really have to get back to work.”

She took my number, clearly disappointed with my anti-climatic reaction, but what did she expect? She was practically hysterical, unlike any Red Cross person I had ever heard of, she had nothing much new to say and I had work to do. She said she was calling from New York, so maybe that’s just how they talk out there. I picked up line 3.

“Jo, it’s Meg. Did you get a call from the Red Cross?”

Good grief, that crazy woman called my sister, too. We talked about how frantic she sounded, and how we both agreed that she was very unprofessional. If the whole missing-child story was real, why weren’t the police calling us? Or why not our real father? If I had a missing child and knew where she was, I’d be on that phone lickety-split myself, not leave it to some crazy person. Meg said that mom had called her yesterday, warning her that she might get this call. Astonished, I asked how mom got the heads-up, and why Meg hadn’t called to tell me. She said that somehow mom’s brother had found out, and told mom, and Meg wasn’t sure whether it would be fair to call me and possibly prejudice me. Mom had told her not to listen to anything he had to say. But Meg had a son, and I had Demi, so we both agreed that a medical history was an important enough reason to meet this guy. It’s not like mom was able to give us any decent information about her side of the family. The biggest drawback of meeting him, though, was that neither of us felt any need for a parent at our age. We’d had enough of those.

A few days later, I was sitting in a Waffle House facing the man who claimed to be my father. He had dark hair, worn a little on the short side. His skin was smooth and a darker olive than mine. He had a neat mustache. Other than his coloring, he didn’t look like me at all. He was – well – compact. Taller than me, but average height for a man. He appeared muscular but lean, an average build but well-shaped and probably stronger than he looked. I felt overblown and blousy next to him. His face and features were smaller than mine. I had big, brown eyes, unlike either of my parents. He was clearly fastidious, also unlike me. I was willing to just accept the diner’s dirt with a shrug and surreptitiously wipe my silverware on a paper napkin. Not he. In a Spanish accent with an educated and well-modulated tone, he politely asked for a clean fork, charming the waitress as if it were his fault that the fork wasn’t cleaned properly.

I didn’t know what to think. He told me this fantastic story about my mother taking me and Meg out for ice cream when one of my uncles was babysitting us, and never coming back. That he called the police, went to the courts, and even reported us to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Surprised, I asked him if our pictures were on milk cartons, and he said no, that by that time we were too old and he only had baby pictures of us. Then the pictures came out.

He was the oldest of eight boys. My grandparents were still living. I was the first girl in the family, and my grandfather had my baby picture on his nightstand this whole time, waiting for me to come home. I listened to Papa Bautista tell me about how his whole family missed me and my sister, how delighted and surprised he was to learn about Amy and how he wanted to bring the three of us home to New York. Apparently, mom was pregnant with Amy when she abducted us. I stared at the baby pictures, all younger than the ones mom had, and tried to see myself in them. There were pictures of him with mom, whom I had no trouble recognizing despite how young she looked. It must be true – but how did I turn out so big and curvy compared to everyone else on his side of the family?

He reached his hand across the table to stroke mine, and I pulled it away. He was 20 years older than me, but he looked young for his age, and I have had way too many older men put their hands on me. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it, but I didn’t know who this guy was. His story rang true, but he was so different from anyone I had ever known. There was a restrained passion about him that made me a bit nervous, and I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I tried to bring a little coolness to the conversation, and asked him about our medical history.

He sat back, easily able to sense that he needed to back off, and said I came from a very healthy family. I had a great uncle who had lived to 115 years old. My grandparents were as healthy as could be. No heart disease, no cancer, no arthritis – nothing for me to worry about.

He apologized for not finding us sooner. He explained that the courts all felt that girls belonged with a mother, and flat refused to help him. That he had broken his leg at one point, and was in long months of physical rehabilitation. That as soon as he got word from the Kansas City sheriff’s office as to where we were, he hopped into a car and drove through a Pennsylvanian snow storm to get here. He wanted to know everything about me, and was surprised that I wasn’t in college. He said I come from a very intelligent family and must know that I’m very smart. He was certainly charming.

After about an hour of talking, I felt comfortable enough to invite him to my home the next evening to meet Dell and Demi. He took care of the bill, just as charming as ever to the waitress, and we paused outside before separating to our cars. He reached both his hands toward my face, respectfully asking if he could touch me. I nodded and felt his two warm, dry hands resting on each of my cheeks. His face was very close, and he pulled my head down and gently kissed my forehead. As he pulled away, there were tears in his eyes, but he was smiling and said he looked forward to meeting my family tomorrow. Then he quickly stepped away.

Embarrassed, I went quickly to my own car, but hesitated with the key in the ignition. There was something so sad about him. Almost as if he were disappointed that I was too old to call him daddy, to sit on his lap and play patty-cake. I turned the key. I had plenty of problems of my own. Eighteen years were a long time, and there was nothing I could do about that. I couldn’t be his child, but perhaps we could be friends. Right now, I had to figure out how I was going to tell my husband that I had agreed to bring this man into our home without his permission.