[img]2113|right|Image from chungdesigns.freehostia.com||no_popup[/img]Twenty-four years ago this morning should have been one of the four happiest interludes in my life.
Not close, though.
As our third consecutive son was being born at Cedars-Sinai, our marriage was skidding even faster than she could flash one of her customary expressions of shameless disapproval.
Kvetchy-faced in-laws were grumpily milling about outside of the delivery room as if they just found out I had been awarded a Nobel Prize.
At first, I thought my mother-in-law (for a few more months) was going to claim paternity because I was shunted farther into the shadowy recesses of the room.
The formerly fetching former Mrs. Noonan and I split up two weeks before Zach turned six months old, bringing desperately needed – if permanently acerbic – relief to a home life that felt like a rehearsal for the wars in Egypt and Syria.
The domestic air was so foul that Zach’s hair threatened to turn gray before he could enroll in pre-school.
Came home one afternoon from the office and found myself locked out. When I peered in a window, I thought the vaunted Furniture Thief had struck.
“What’s left is yours,” my once charming wife said. The residue didn’t require Bekins. My left arm handled everything fine. In a single trip.
During his growing up years, Zach and I had a rocky, abbreviated relationship. Three hours every week divided between two weekdays. Except for the times when his mother said he was busy. Unlike pensions or overdue parking tickets, there was no accumulation of time.
I know Zach had a bar mitzvah because my wife and I were there – except for the times she fled the sanctuary because of socially unacceptable acts committed against her.
That was 11 Septembers ago. Zach was 13 years and two weeks old.
I have not seen him since. But in the 12 telephone conversations we have had, 11 were hangups, and in the 12th he took the time to say we could meet for dinner if I would pick him up at his mother’s home. His eyesight does not allow him to drive.
Quivering with excitement and a dash of fear, I rang the doorbell. No one ever answered – just like old times when I would stop to pick him up and a laughing voice would ring out from behind the door, “I am not here. Bye.”
I went to a nearby restaurant, ordered a soda and dialed Zach’s cell three or four times. It went straight to his recorded answer.
He went to college, returned to Southern California, became a chef, but never really reconnected.
He is tall now, very spare. Doesn’t remotely look like the blond-haired wiry little kid I last saw in 2002 when he helped out my wife in the kitchen.
A few weeks ago Zach moved to San Francisco. I neither know why nor what he is doing.
Realistically, I have given up hope of ever seeing him again.
