church in San Francisco had invited him to help design its youth ministry. After six years, the city was at once familiar and unrecognizable. The streets were the same, but the feet that trod them belonged to strangers. One afternoon he strolled through the Haight, where no trace of the sixties remained except in fading graffiti and a couple of old hippie businesses. Moved by nostalgia, he stepped into a phone booth, opened the phone book, and looked up Gwen. He didn’t really expect to find her since, as far as he knew, she’d never returned to the city. But there she was: Gwen Baker. Or, a Gwen Baker. Living in the Mission on Fair Oaks Street. Impulsively he called her. She knew him by his voice, even before he said his name, and invited him to dinner.
Daniel had stood at the front door of Gwen’s flat— one half of a tall Victorian on a street of tall Victorians— and peered through the window at a steep flight of stairs. He rang the bell. A moment later the small figure of a boy came hurtling down the stairs and opened the door, breathless. He was seven, Daniel later learned. He had Gwen’s frizzy hair, complexion, and elegant features but his eyes— blue and awash with curiosity— were Daniel’s.
“Hello,” Daniel said. “Is your mother home?”
“She’s cooking,” he said. “She said to let you in. I’m Wyatt.”
“I’m Daniel.”
••••
Their conversation was limited by Wyatt’s presence. Bright, inquisitive and bold, he had interrupted them when they attempted to speak in grown-up code and demanded to know what they were talking about. Eventually, they gave up and restricted themselves to pleasantries as they sipped coffee in Gwen’s comfortable living room while Wyatt sprawled on his belly on the floor with crayons and paper, coloring with one hand and shooing away a plump gray cat with the other.
“What are you drawing?” Daniel asked.
“It’s a stego— stego . . .”
“Saurus,” Gwen said.
“Mom! I was going to say that.”
“I’m sorry, Wyatt.”
“My school went to the natural history museum, and we saw the dinosaur bones. When I grow up, I want to be a paleo— a paleo . . .” Now he glanced at Gwen for help.
“Paleontologist.”
“And dig up dinosaur bones from millions of years ago.”
“You know, Wyatt,” Daniel said, “the Bible tells us God created the world and all the animals in it in seven days and seven nights.”
He gawked at Daniel and exclaimed, “That’s ridiculous!”
“Wyatt, don’t be rude to our guest.”
Wyatt grunted and went back to his drawing. A few minutes later, he got up with his picture and went to Daniel. He held out the drawing and said, “I’m sorry I was rude. You can have my picture.”
Daniel studied the drawing of the lumpy, spiky-backed green blob with Wyatt’s name in the corner. “Thank you, Wyatt. That’s very nice.”
“And now,” Gwen said, “it’s time for you to go to bed.”
While Gwen put Wyatt to bed, Daniel walked around the living room. On the mantel over the fireplace there were framed photographs of Gwen’s family— people Daniel had never met— and Gwen in a graduation robe and mortarboard. A banner on the wall behind her indicated the photograph had been taken at the nursing school of San Francisco State. There were a half-dozen photographs of Wyatt from infancy on, some with Gwen or other family members, some of Wyatt alone. But no men other than those he took to be her father or brothers. No boyfriend. No husband.
She came into the room and said, “I usually have a glass of wine after I get him into bed. You want one?”
He shook his head.
“You mind if I do?”
“Not at all.”
She disappeared into the kitchen and emerged holding a large wine glass half-filled with dark liquid. Drinking was not proscribed by his church— even his future father-in-law enjoyed his occasional tumbler of Scotch on the rocks— and many of his congregants drank, a few to excess. Daniel chose to set an example of sobriety for the younger people he worked with. Now, looking at her wine, he thought if ever there was a time for alcohol, this was it.
“You know,” he said. “I think I will have a glass.”
“Here,” she said. “Take mine. You probably need it more than I do.”
She sat beside him on the plush couch and handed him the wine.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Wyatt?” Daniel asked, turning the glass in his hand.
She took a deep breath. “I didn’t know until I went home that I couldn’t go through with an abortion. After Wyatt was born, I had enough on my plate without tracking you down and adding that complication. I thought that maybe later I could find you, but by the time I came back to the city that place in the Haight was closed down and I didn’t know where else to look for you.”
“What changed your mind about the abortion?”
She took the glass from him for a sip, then handed it back. “Wyatt may not have been planned, but he was conceived in love. And you were— are— a good person. I’m sure you’re a wonderful father to your other children.”
“I’m not married,” he said.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Sorry. I’m surprised.”
“I will have to, eventually,” he said. “We’re not Catholics. Unmarried pastors don’t inspire a lot of confidence.”
“Getting married is like a job requirement?”
“I want a family,” he said and, after a moment, continued. “You aren’t married, either. Why?”
“I didn’t want a man who wasn’t Wyatt’s father to raise him.”
“Will you write to me sometimes and let me know how he is?”
“He can write to you himself.”
“You’ll tell him who I am, then?”
“When he’s a little older. Is that all right?”
“Yes, but, when the time comes, I’d like to be here.”
“Of course. You are his father.”
He gazed at her and thought she didn’t want to marry a man who wasn’t Wyatt’s father and here he was, Wyatt’s father, also unmarried. Shouldn’t they at least consider . . . ? For Wyatt’s sake? He looked at the glass in his hand as he imagined breaking the news to Pastor Taggert, the man who called him “son,” and who had grown up a white man in the Jim Crow South with all the prejudices that implied.
She broke into his thoughts, observing, “We lead very different lives, Daniel. I’m happy with
