When my flight touched town to O’Hare airport the next day, I realized a few things.

One, last minute flights are pricey as hell.

Two, I actually missed having the majority of people around me speaking in my native English language.

And three, I had absolutely no idea where Amy lived aside from the fact that she was hopefully still at Illinois Masonic Hospital, a place I’d had to Google. She hadn't answered any of my texts or calls in the past day since I'd booked my flight. I couldn't be sure if this was a result of her being in the hospital, or maybe she was seeing my messages and constantly ignoring them. I did not like either option.

I still had the envelope Amy had given me inside my coat pocket. I’d been carrying it around with me for the last week, but I hadn’t felt the need to open it.

Amy thought it would be good for me to know my father, but I wasn’t so sure.

Once I had picked up my modest black suitcase from the baggage claim, I walked straight outside and hailed the nearest cab. The man rolled down the window.

"How fast can you get me to Illinois Masonic Hospital, and how much is it?"

He punched it in on his GPS. "Says forty five minutes. It's a sixty dollar flat fee."

"I've got a hundred for you if we make it there under a half hour."

His eyes widened a little. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get the fuck in, buddy."

As promised, we pulled up in front of Illinois Masonic, which was on the north side of Chicago, in twenty-five minutes. I handed over the hundred-dollar bill, said my thanks and grabbed my suitcase.

I ran into the front desk, trying to mask my nervousness. The fifty-something guy behind the counter seemed indifferent to me as he sat in front of his computer screen.

“Hello sir.”

“Hello,” he dryly replied without looking up.

“I’m here to visit someone. Do you happen to have her room number for Amy Kershaw?”

It seemed like it took everything he had to move his eyes to look up at me. “You a relative?”

“Yes,” I lied.

He examined my face as if he was considering the truthfulness of what I’d said to him. “What’s your relation?”

Shit. “Fiancé,” I blurted out.

He assessed my panicky face and then nodded. “Okay,” he said, typing on his keyboard for a second. “Room two-twenty eight.”

I thanked him and walked briskly to the elevator, past a few nurses carting people around.

Finally I arrived at room two-twenty eight. The door to the room was closed. I set my suitcase by the door and knocked gently a couple of times. There was no answer, so I decided to open it, but then the door opened and I saw a girl.

“Hi,” I said, examining her face. She stepped outside of the door and shut it behind her, her expression not at all welcoming. “You must be Andrea.”

“Good eye. You’re Chandler.”

“That’s me. I came here to see Amy.”

She put her hands on her hips. Her eyes were kind, but her figure was tall and a little imposing. “Let me get this straight. You came all the way from Barcelona to see Amy?”

“That’s right. Are you going to let me in?”

Her expression was soft and feminine but stern at the same time. She didn’t move and kept glaring at me.

“Listen, Amy mentioned that you were a great friend of hers. And I don’t know what’s happened to her exactly. But if you could just let me in to talk to her, I can explain things and whatever it is—we can work it out.”

She crossed her arms, still standing between me and the door. “Look, I don’t know you. I don’t know the full history between you and Amy. But what I do know is that she ended up in the hospital because of something you did,” she said, her voice hard. “She’s fallen into another depressed state, and she’s being evaluated for a couple of days. The doctors say she shouldn’t take visitors aside from close friends and family.”

Despite her soft and pretty appearance, this girl knew how to play hardball.

“Andrea, please. I know this might not look great from your viewpoint. But you have no idea what’s going on between Amy and me. I love her.” Fuck, did I just say that? Why couldn’t I say that to Amy? “And I need to see her and figure out why she thinks I cheated on her. I would never do that. Just wouldn’t. Not to her.”

“If I let you in, she’s going to get all riled up,” she said, still being a hardass. “Her parents and brother just left ten minutes ago and got her all calmed down—she’s finally resting. You’re going to upset her all over again.”

“Please,” I said, and there was a hint of pleading in my voice, which was foreign to me. “I’m begging you to let me see her. Please. Just one minute.”

Maybe she heard the desperation in my voice, because she finally opened the door and let me through.

Amy was hooked up to an I.V., and certainly looked weaker than she had in Barcelona.

“Squirt! What happened?” I ran to her side and took her hand in mine.

“Chandler,” she smiled softly for a moment, then yanked her hand away.

“Help me understand what’s going on.” I furrowed my brow.

“You butt dialed me yesterday night. I heard everything. I know about your secret hijo, and your relationship with another woman. It’s over. No more lies, Chandler.”

My heart suddenly kicked into high gear. I racked my brain. What the fuck could she be talking about? “A butt dial? Let’s see. Last night…last night I was with…Doña Maria! She’s had a baby! Mateo. I was with her. She was probably talking about her son! Maybe that’s what you heard?”

“I told you he’d say something like that,” Andrea said over my shoulder.

I turned to look at Andrea, angry. “Oh, you’re the truth and lies expert now?” I asked, sarcastically.

“Unfortunately, I am. Being with a sociopath ex-boyfriend for a year will do that to you.”

My body stiffened and I tried not to get distracted from the task at hand, which was regaining Amy’s trust. “Amy, you’ve got to believe me. I came all the way here from goddamn Europe to clear up this misunderstanding. I’m missing basketball practice and games this week.”

All four eyes of the women were on me, searing into me.

“We had a fun week and a half, Chandler,” Amy finally said, breaking the silence. “I really want to believe you. But I’ve been hurt by this sort of thing so many times…I’m just tired of being betrayed.”

I stopped breathing momentarily at that ugly word. Betrayed.

“It’s over, Chandler,” she said, in that quiet way I’d learned was her deciding something. For good. She was stubborn enough to live by that decision, too. Her expression was set, resolute and she was in no mood to hear me out. I could beg and promise her the moon and she’d just look right through me like I wasn’t even there.

“So that’s it?” I asked, the wind knocked out of me. “You don’t want to see me any more? The future I’ve made for us in my head, was I just a fucking idiot to think we could be anything more than amigovios?”

“Please,” she said, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “Just go.”

A cocktail of helplessness, anger, and confusion welled up inside me. I could keep pleading my case, but this seemed like a battle I wouldn’t win.

I looked at both of the women, nodded in acceptance of their verdict, and walked out of the room.

***

Fuck this, I thought. I needed a better plan. Let Amy realize I wasn’t going anywhere and come back later. But with a better plan, better words, something that would convince her to give me another chance. All the ideas I’d come up with, including all the fantasies of her just being happy to see me, went out the door.

I checked into a hotel nearby and dropped off my suitcase. Restless, I immediately left, needing to clear my head. That afternoon, I wandered through the streets of Chicago for hours. The early February weather was well below freezing, and my jacket was light, but I sadistically enjoyed the cold blowing through me. The more physical pain I felt, the better. It would help take my mind off my depressive mental state, which was getting worse by the minute.

On one hand, this didn’t make too much sense. She thought I had a secret son? What on earth was Amy talking about? She surely heard the conversation with Doña Maria and took it out of context. I tried to put myself in her shoes. If she felt I was lying, she had a right to be pissed off and cut me out. She made no secret of her trust issues with her lying boyfriends through the years. Though I hadn’t ever cheated on a girl, I’d been an asshole to many, and it seemed almost like poetic justice that my years of womanizing would come back and get me in trouble with the one girl I really wanted a deeper relationship with.

She was the girl I loved, although I hadn’t been able to totally verbalize it to her.

The winter sun was setting and the temperature dropping as I saw a plain, honest sign poking out on the sidewalk that said Charlie’s Bar. It was black with white letters, and the sign called out to me. It seemed like just the place for what I needed right now: a drink. Or maybe five.

I opened the door and was greeted with a gush of warm air. The place was mostly empty inside except for a group of four playing darts, and a blonde woman sitting at the far end of the bar in a dark red dress.

I sidled up on the opposite end of the bar, and a white bearded man with glasses and kind eyes approached me.

“What’ll ya have, son?”

“Whiskey neat. Make it a double if you can.”

The man turned and grabbed a bottle of Maker’s Mark from behind the bar and put it into a glass.

“Tough day,” he said, speaking in a deep voice, saying it more as half a question, half a statement.

I nodded as he set the drink in front of me and took my twenty-dollar bill.

“Women,” I said gruffly as I took a pull of the drink. It burned all the way down. “Well, to be exact, a woman.”

“Usually that’s the case.”

The woman at the end of the bar signaled to the bartender, taking his attention away from me. He moseyed down and got her a drink, leaving me alone with my thoughts for the moment.

I stared at myself in the mirror behind the bar. I looked fucking miserable, my hair messy, and dark circles under my eyes. I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. I took out the envelope Amy had given me. She thought confronting my father and my past would help me in some way. Despite all the ways she’d helped me open up, this was the one avenue I’d been hesitant to fully explore.

I stared at the envelope while I took another swig of whiskey, enjoying the sting of the liquid on my throat. I felt so low right now. How bad could it be?

I worked my finger into it and ripped it open. Inside were just a few pages of articles she’d found on the internet, but it was enough to send a chill through my body. In one, my mom, age eighteen, with an older man at her high school prom. The guy looked shockingly like me. Holy mother fucking shit. I finished off my double and my chest pounded.

“Another?” the bartender asked. I hadn’t even heard him creep up. I was in a total fog.

“Yes,” I croaked, setting the papers down.

He filled my glass up halfway, then paused. “Dear fucking God. What the hell are you doing with that picture?” he asked, shock on his face. He twisted his neck a little to see the high school photo I was looking at. I spun the photo around for him.

“My mom and her prom date, circa nineteen ninety-one,” I said. I’d never once looked at her high school pictures. Because we’d never been that close, I’d never invested in learning her past—my past. And all right there, if I’d just looked. “She was eighteen, god knows how old the guy was.”

The bartender stroked his beard and finished my pour. “He’s twenty-three.”

I stared at him. “How the hell do you know that?” I asked. “And why are you so curious?” My heart was beating a mile a minute with this strange, bearded man holding my dad’s photo. It made no sense. He flashed his eyes back up my way.

“Let me ask you this, just to make sure…” He jabbed a finger at the picture, at Jake Whitehead’s face. “Does he live in Murphysboro?”

I shook my head at him, confused. “I’ve never met him, but he might be my father.”

When I said that, the man’s already pale-ish face went stark white. He pursed his lips, staring at me then the picture. “I know the guy. Know him all too well, actually.”

A chill ran through me. “W-what…? H-how?” I stuttered. I hadn’t had a stiff drink in a while but I was wondering if the whiskey was affecting me already. Had I just heard all that correctly?

“You said that young woman in the picture is your mother?”

I nodded, slowly, still dazed.

He sighed, shaking his head, as though he wasn’t sure what to say but I needed to know what he knew.

I looked at the other names in the newspaper. “Jack Whitehead is his name.” I pulled out the other piece of paper. I had no idea how Amy had gotten all this information but it was mind-blowing. “Looks like he’s got a nice long rap sheet, too. Seems like he was a real piece of work. Left my mom all alone after she had me. And I already know he has a bunch kids all over, too.”

The old man nodded. “Yep, sounds like Jack all right,” he said, grimly.

I blew out a whoosh of air. “Excuse me?”

“Jack Whitehead,” he said, soberly and another chill crawled down my spine that this random guy in a bar knew my biological father. “From Southern Illinois. I’ve known the guy for a long time.”

“Hang on,” I said, and took out my phone. “Mr…”

“Charlie.” His smile was warm. “Just Charlie is fine.”

“And you really know him?” I asked, still in disbelief.

He nodded. “Unfortunately. Moves around a lot to avoid paying child support. Hell, half the kids he’s fathered, he’s denied paternity to but I see him in you, clear as day.”

That wasn’t at all comforting. No wonder when my mom looked at me, she’d pause a little. I wondered how torturous that had to have been for her and suddenly, I was beginning to understand her, and our fucked up mother-son relationship. I thought about dialing her just then. I’d started Skyping her, and had even chatted with Bob, a little more regularly in the past few weeks, but we still weren’t on great terms. I was going to try though, I owed her that. However, asking about my dad was still a hard topic for her and one she wasn’t ready to explore with me quite yet. The way she’d talked about my dad, you’d think he was a serial killer. Hell, maybe he was.

I looked back at the picture and thought, how strange it was, a guy his age with a high schooler, barely legal. Jesus. I could only imagine the kind of life my bio-dad could have had at that age, just traveling around and making it his job to woo women before moving on, like a job? Christ, did the guy even know I existed?

The fact that Charlie knew Jack Whitehead was such a strange coincidence, it seemed to me that I had to find out more. “You’ve any idea where he could be?” I asked, not hoping for much. I mean, it couldn’t possibly be that simple, so easy to locate him after all these years of wondering about him. I wondered if my mom had known but it was hard to say. I couldn’t blame her from not telling me much about him if she had known more than she’d let on, especially growing up. With a rap sheet like his, even if it was all mostly petty crimes, it wasn’t something to be remotely proud of, not something you’d want to pass onto your child, that’s for sure.

“He always touches back at Murphysboro, has property there,” Charlie was saying. “But like I said, the man runs away as fast as he can if someone’s trying to find him. Has an instinct for it, I’d wager.”

I was sounding more and more like father then I liked. Up until a few days ago, I’d been a runner. Not anymore.

“However…I can make a couple calls, see if anyone in town’s seen him since the last time,” Charlie offered.

My heart beat a little faster, the alcohol buzz making it feel like it’d burst right out of me. “And, ah…how long ago was that?” I asked, anxious.

“A couple years.”

Damn. It was a definitely long shot but it was all I had. “Make the call, please?” I asked, urgently.

Charlie gave a nod, and moved away.

If this was really going to happen, I needed someone to go with me. And I knew exactly who.

I dialed Amy’s number.

Pick up. Pick up. For the love of God.

It rang and rang, then went to voicemail. I called again.

After two rings, I heard Amy’s voice. “What, Chandler?”

Even hearing Amy pissed off made me smile. There wasn’t time for superfluous details. “The envelope you gave me at our last dinner. You remember it?”

I heard a breath go out of her. “Yes. Of course.”

“I opened it.”

“Just now?”

“Yes.” I exhaled, overwhelmed by it all. The past 24-hours had been insane. “Wow, Jack Whitehead and I have a hell of a resemblance, wouldn’t you say?”

“Fuck, Chandler,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to force that on you. I thought you’d thrown that away. I thought…”

“It’s fine,” I stated firmly. “It’s good what you did. But now, regardless of our status, I need you to do something for me.”

She paused. I thought I could hear her whisper-grumbling. “What do you want?”

“It’s sort of a strange coincidence, but I might be able to get his supposed address. I want you to come with me to visit him—he’s hopefully in Southern Illinois. I need you there to help me process all this. We can drive down to his place.”

And maybe you’ll explain what the hell happened, I added to myself.

A long sigh. “I don’t know Chandler…”

“Dammit, Squirt,” I growled. “I wouldn’t be in this mess if you didn’t give me that envelope. And now you’re just going to leave me hanging? We had a pact, remember? And that pact had an underlying rule that friends are there for each other, no matter what.”

I was totally pulling this out of my ass but she was quiet, just her breathing through the speaker and hopefully hearing me out.

I waited, and waited. “Amy—”

“I get out of the hospital tomorrow,” she blurted out at the same time. “Where does he live?”

“Hold on…” I said, as Charlie came back.

“Not sure if he’ll be there, to be honest,” the old man said, apologetically. “A neighbor saw him a few months back but nothing since then.” He had a little black address book. He had taken it out and scribbled the address onto the back of an old receipt. “But here’s his address, in case…”

“Thanks,” I mouthed to him and then got back on with Amy. The information wasn’t much but it was more than what I had. “Amy? He lives at 4141 West Lincoln in Murphysboro.”

“Southern Illinois? That’s like a four or five hour drive!”

“I’ll drive. If you’re up for it, how about Saturday?” I said quickly.

She hesitated. “I don’t know…”

“Amy, please? I need you…with me on this,” I said, swallowing hard. I was terrified she’d say no. “You’re the only person that will understand what this trip means to me. And I can’t do it alone.”

She sighed. “Damn you, Chandler. Fine. I’ll go with you,” she said, for a second, her voice was soft but then it’s like she remembered she was still pissed at me. “I’ll do this for you. As a friend. And then it’s goodbye.”

My heart dropped. Her words cut through me like knives. I had to try to defend myself. “And you know what you heard was just me talking to Maria, right? Do you believe me? I’ll have Maria call you herself.”

She finally relented. “Look, I do believe you, Chandler. But it doesn’t even matter. I’ve been thinking about everything a lot today. And we had a spectacular week and a half. My God, you’re amazing in a lot of ways and I love—” She stopped herself abruptly. “Loved the time we’ve spent together. And I’m sure you’ll make some girl happy one day. But it won’t be me. You’re basically my kryptonite. The fact that you have girls coming up to you wherever you go… I can’t go through life constantly insecure like I am with you. And, we want different things, remember? And I’m not going to change you because you’d just end up hating me for it, in the end. You shouldn’t change for anyone and some other girl will get that about you. I just…can’t. I won’t.”

I held the phone tight. I wanted to slam it against the floor. Or maybe crumble it in my hand. Smash it. I wanted to smash everything in my sight.

But I realized something. This was just the world finally throwing me back a dose of my own medicine. Even if I’d seen my relationships with past women as superficial and not going anywhere, how many of them had fallen in love with me? How many hearts had I broken?

“All right,” I croaked. “I’ll rent a car and pick you up from your place on Saturday morning, and we’ll head down.”

“See you then.” The call ended.

I finished my drink and slammed it on the bar. I fumed for a good ten minutes and then I burned myself out. How could I have fucked things up with Amy so badly? “Hey Charlie,” I said, waving him over. I waited until he’d walked over before speaking again. “You said you know him well?”

“Unfortunately,” Charlie said again, but somewhat good-naturedly.

“Got any stories you want to share?” I asked, deciding I needed a crash course in all things Jack Whitehead before I met the guy. If the guy would even be there. Even if he wasn’t, I knew his haunting grounds and I could always try again—if I cared to, that is.

Charlie’s eyes lit up. There’s nothing like an old man who’s lived the world, seen some shit, and made it through.

“Do I ever. How much time you got?”

I looked down at my phone. It was barely 6 p.m. I had two days in Chicago before Saturday, and basically no one to spend it with. I shrugged. “I got all night, old man.”

He smiled. “Let me get this dear lady over there another drink and I’ll think of where to start off.”

We chatted into the wee hours of the night.