Not parthenogenesis

 Not parthenogenesis or a Jesuit, maybe or not a man named Smith

The next morning - the morning after the night in Dexter (See here.) - we went to the cemetery in La Fargveville, where Uncle Albert’s mother is buried.

     “Like you,” he said to me at breakfast as Roz was joining us, “Like you I had no father. That’s not quite right,” he said, looking at my dismay. “You did have a father for a time, though not a long one.” He continued looking at me. I looked up from my eggs.

     “No,” I said, “not a long one.” Roz was looking at me, too, I could tell. Then she turned to look at Uncle Albert.

     “A conversation for another time,” he said. “This is . . . As that is all about you, this is all about me.

     “Obviously, I had a father, too. I am not the result of parthenogenesis. But I never knew my father. I never knew who my father was. You know this, of course.”

     I hadn’t thought of it in a long, long time, but I did remember something of it; my mother had told me the story as she understood it. I nodded.

     “Your mother told you, but probably not the details.”

     “No.” I realized I knew so little about the story I didn’t even know until the night before why we had come to northern New York, that Uncle Albert was born and grew up there.

     Actually, he was born in Albany, where his unmarried mother was sent to live with an aunt before all La Fargeville knew she was pregnant. There she gave birth, and some months later with a new last name if no husband, she came back as far as Watertown, where Uncle Albert grew up.

     “I am not the result of parthenogenesis,” I heard, “but I never knew who my father was.”

He turned to Roz. “As little as he seems to remember,” he indicated me by tilting his head, “you must know none of this.”

     “No,” she said. “Nothing.”

“Actually,” he said, “there is nothing to know. No one found out who Mr. Smith was or if his name was actually Jones, or Black or Brown or Giallo. It certainly wasn’t La Farge, though that fanciful rumor circulated for a while. I enjoyed believing it, even though I knew it wasn’t true - that I was the bastard son of John La Farge, the Jesuit, son of John La Farge, the artist, son of Jean Frédéric de la Farge, who came up from New Orleans to buy land and turn Log Mills into La Fargeville. I knew it wasn’t true because it couldn’t have been. The La Farge mansion may belong now to a Jesuit university, and the Jesuit in question may have lived in the same state as my mother, but he did not get her into her state.”

       Uncle Albert stopped. Roz said, “Go on.” He waved her away. “There’s nothing more to tell,” he said. “As I said, there is nothing to know.”

After breakfast, we packed the car. We went to the cemetery and put flowers on Uncle Albert’s mother's grave.

     “What does the ‘C’ stand for?” Roz asked.

     “Creed,” Uncle Albert said.

We drove north northeast along Highway 37 through Hammond and Morristown to Ogdensburg. We crossed the bridge to Prescott and continued to Ottawa.

08.15.17