What The 🤬 Do I Do With This Information?

Donal called, this morning.  Donal, as you may recall, is my biological father.  He left the state before I was born and we had zero contact until I went looking for him when I was about 21.   We have had tiny bits of contact over the nearly three decades since.

I suspect Donal is on the autism spectrum, though I know from speaking with his brother that he has never been diagnosed.  He’s just always been “awkward.”

Donal and I had spoken a couple of days ago.  I don’t always pick up when he calls, but given the state of the world, I thought I should take the call.

He made small talk, as usual, and as usual, he couldn’t remember where I live, what the time difference is, etc.  I tried to be patient, because the last few times I’ve spoken with him, I’m led to believe he may be declining into dementia.

Then he brought up my sister, Kendra.  I was Donal’s first child, but he had a son named Jason and later a daughter named Kendra.  I never got the opportunity to communicate with either of them, but I have searched for them since the advent of the internet.

I learned that my brother Jason died in 2005.  I found a memorial for him online.  I had no idea if he was actually my brother, but I learned just last year that he was, indeed, my brother.

I once found a post on a message board on Ancestry.com that had been posted by my sister, Kendra.  She was looking for Donal.  I wrote to her, then, but she did not write back.

So when Donal and I were talking the other night, he told me that he thought he had found her.  He told me that she is a real estate agent in Los Angeles.  This surprised me, because I thought she lived in Massachusetts.

I cut the conversation short, because, as usual, he was jabbering about things that I have told him many times before. It’s hard to talk to him because he repeats himself repeatedly.  (bad grammar on purpose, for humor — har har)

The next night, I noticed that my phone had lit up.  I have it set to automatically switch to DO NOT DISTURB at 10:00 PM, until 8:00 AM.  Donal had called at 11:05 PM.  I was annoyed for a number of reasons.  Primarily, because having just talked to him, I thought I was off the hook for a while.  I was further annoyed because he “forgets” that I am 3 hours ahead of him.  It creates a lot of anxiety.

So when the phone rang, this morning, I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I really wanted to talk to him.  I decided that I would.  It went like this:

“Hi, Jenna?”

“Yes,”

“This is Donal, your father.”  Anxiety escalates.  I do not have a father.  I have a dad.  His name is Mike and he’s been married to my mom since 1985.  I was born in 1971.

I said, “Hi,” rather cheerfully, actually.  I surprised myself.

“I wanted to tell you something, but it’s not easy to say.”

My stomach turned to concrete.  I’m not sure how or why, but I knew what this was about.  “Ok,” I said, cautiously.

“Well, if you’re going to try calling Kendra… this is hard,” he stammered, “There’s some bad blood between Kendra’s mom and me.”

I just listened, trying to calm my pounding heart.

There was more stammering before he finally blurted out, “When her mom left me, I kinda took it out on Kendra.  And I molested her.”

As I have told in previous entry, my first experience with my paternal family was meeting Donal’s father when I was 12.  One weekend, he invited me to his apartment to swim.  After we swam, we went upstairs.   Long story, short, he behaved inappropriately enough to set off all of my alarms.  I knew that I needed to get the fuck away from this man.  I told him to take me home.  He did.  I never spoke to him again, and he never tried to contact me again.

I’ve been dealing with baggage over this ever since.

Donal told me that he felt bad about what he’d done, and had turned himself in to the police against Kendra’s mother’s wishes.

I felt like I was on a bad date.  I just wanted to get off the phone and deal with the fact that something I have suspected from our first meeting had just been confirmed.

Fortunately, Drew came back from dropping off my baby girl, Despereaux at the groomers.  He walked in just as I asked Donal if he’d had to register as a sex offender.  His eyes just about bugged out of his head.  I used his arrival as an excuse to get off the phone.

I really just want to go somewhere like the ocean, where I can scream FUCK!!!  at the top of my lungs, and no one has to hear it but me and God and maybe a few sea gulls.

What am I supposed to do with this information, now?  What if I have already found her and she just doesn’t want to have anything to do with anyone or anything related to her father?  Why is this so fucking prevalent?

Autistic, dementia, whatever, I don’t want to have anything to do with him.  But that makes me feel like a bad person.