My Father's Child

On the fifth anniversary of her father’s death, Vongai looked down from her office window and saw him walking along the street, his signature oversized brown leather folder tucked under his left arm. She smiled thinking that her grief had conjured a brief glimpse of Baba on this difficult day, and she watched him until he disappeared into the crowd entering the subway station. Then she turned back to her computer screen and thought no more of it.

But then she saw him again. In the evening, as she stood at a light, waiting to cross, she saw her father standing on a streetcar platform in the middle of the road, clutching his leather folder to his chest like he was scared someone might grab it. For a second she froze. How could this be? The man looked exactly like her father. Tall, with a balding head, but with his back straight like he had shrugged off the weight of his sixty years of living.

She called out to him, “Baba.”

And to her amazement, he turned and looked at her. He smiled sheepishly, left hand scratching the back of his head as if he was embarrassed to be caught. Then he stepped onto the red and white streetcar, and the door slid shut behind him. And just like that, he was gone again. Vongai stood rooted to the spot, watching the streetcar as it was slowly swallowed by the skyscrapers of Toronto, long after she could no longer make out Baba in the window.

The next few days, she looked for Baba wherever she went, hoping for another sight of him. Seeing him had reignited a previously deep pain inside her that had dulled over time. Now, she felt like she was right back at the beginning, back to those first few months after Baba passed when she had looked for him everywhere. She had looked for him in people’s faces, searching for comfort in even the most fleeting resemblance. She had looked for him in the songs on the radio, hoping to hear the songs Baba used to belt out during long road trips from Zimbabwe to South Africa. She had even searched for him in every little bird that approached her at the park, hoping for any tiny indication that it might actually be her father visiting her. She hadn’t found him then, and she couldn’t find him now. He was gone, leaving behind a need that gnawed at her so much that she decided that it was time to seek out the one other person in the world who had a piece of Baba in them. She decided to seek out her father’s child.

The first Vongai had ever heard of this child was at her father’s funeral. When she had flown twenty hours from Toronto to Harare, she had expected the wailing crowd of relatives at the airport. She had not expected her mother pulling her aside once they got home to tell her that there was a chance that someone might show up to the funeral claiming to be Baba’s son. The news had been a complete shock to Vongai. She had never suspected even once that her father had another life, much less another child.

His name was Tawonga, and he, too, lived in Toronto. He was the product of an affair that had spanned almost the entirety of her parents’ marriage. Tawonga had not shown up to the funeral, and he had never made any effort of contact. For a while, she had wondered if they might accidentally run into each other somewhere, but Toronto was far too big for that kind of serendipity. She located his LinkedIn, and every few months, looked at his profile to see what he had been up to, but she never reached out. Knowing that he was out there had been enough.

But now her dead father was wandering the streets of Toronto, and something in her said that Tawonga was the one person who could help her figure out at the very least how to feel about this. She sought him out, heading to his office building mid-morning on a Tuesday. She settled herself in the lobby and waited for him to come down for lunch. It was almost midday when the elevator doors opened and he finally emerged. He saw her almost immediately and he walked right over to her. He knew who she was. Vongai had thought about this moment of their first meeting a million times before and imagined what their first words might be. But the ones he actually spoke had never crossed her mind.

“You’ve seen him too, haven’t you?” he said.

Fifteen minutes later, the pair were sitting at a sticky table in a busy Timmies. Vongai clutched her cup of coffee tightly, as Tawonga described his own sightings of Baba.

“The first time I saw him,” Tawonga said, “was in a grocery store. He walked right past me and went to the self-checkout lane where he paid for two bananas. Then he walked out peeling one of them. I didn’t even think to approach him. I was too busy trying to figure out if it was really him. If he had the scar on his left hand? Or if his folder had a mark that looks like a woman with a large afro?”

As Tawonga listed all the places he had seen Baba, Vongai briefly thought it odd that Baba had appeared so many more times to Tawonga than her, but the thought slipped quickly out of her mind. She was struggling to pay attention to Tawonga’s words. She could not stop staring at his face. Tawonga probably had his mother's smile, but his face . . . Eyes so dark they were almost black, a large nose, and a hairline in rapid retreat? That was her father’s face. She felt a sharp pang of envy at the thought that when Tawonga went in search of Baba, he only needed to look in a mirror to find him. The envy was so intense, it almost made her leave, but she forced herself to speak instead.

“So what do you think we’re seeing?” she said. “Is it really Baba?”

“Why do you call him that?” Tawonga said.

“Call him what?”

“Baba. It’s so old-fashioned and formal. I just called him Dad.”

“Well, I don’t know about your father, but my father told me to call him Baba,” she said unexpectedly defensive.

“I’m sorry,” Tawonga said. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.” There was an awkward pause. Neither of them knew what to say next. Vongai picked up her cup as if to take a sip, even though the cup was empty. Then Tawonga began again to tell his story about the grocery store encounter, and Vongai let him because if they kept talking about Baba, then they wouldn’t have to address the awkwardness of meeting their father’s other family for the first time.

And when Vongai walked away at the end of the lunch, she told herself she wouldn’t be seeing Tawonga again.

But Tawonga had his own plans. Every two or three days, Vongai received a text from him, and the texts all started the same: “Hi, Sis. I saw Dad . . .” Every time she saw “Sis,” she marvelled at the ease with which Tawonga had claimed her as sister. To her, he was still just her father’s child. He told her about the places he saw their father. Tawonga saw Baba’s back entering an elevator at the library. He spotted Baba on TV in the stands at a Toronto FC game. And talking about the sightings led to Tawonga recalling things about the past, memories of his childhood with their father. The glimpses of Baba that Vongai saw through Tawonga almost made her question if they really had the same father after all. The differences were glaring. Tawonga talked about an active father who took him to soccer games. She remembered a father who spent most of his time at home sitting in front of the TV with a beer in his hand. Tawonga talked about a father who would pop up unannounced and take him to the arcade. She remembered a father wedded to routine who insisted on the same meal every day. And when Tawonga talked about Saturdays spent at the Lake with his father, Vongai knew he didn’t realise that those were the Saturdays Baba left her at home, claiming he had to work.

Tawonga would ask Vongai about her childhood and sometimes she answered. But she only had one question for him, which she asked on a rare phone call.

“Why didn’t you come to the funeral?” she asked.

“I wasn’t sure I would be welcome. Dad asked me to never come looking for you.”

“Welcome? My aunts would have lauded you like the long-awaited heir. You have no idea how many people stood up at that funeral and lamented that Baba didn’t have a son to carry his name.”

“That must have been hard for you.”

“It was weird listening to their lamentations when I had just discovered a son actually did exist.”

"I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about, Tawonga.”

Sharing her father was new to Vongai. She felt like she was losing a key part of herself now that she could no longer claim to be an only child. And for the first time, she knew what sibling rivalry felt like. It bothered her that Baba kept appearing to Tawonga when she had only seen him that one day. It felt like Baba was playing favourites. And the more Tawonga shared, the tighter she held on to her own memories of Baba, refusing to share them with Tawonga for fear that it might taint them. Already, when she compared their experiences, her memories felt dull and lifeless, a contrast to Tawonga’s, whose recollections were so joyful and buoyant that she could feel his smile even in the words of a text message. She didn’t share anything at all with him. She didn’t even share with him when she finally saw Baba again in Toronto. She was walking towards the subway when she saw Baba standing on the corner of the street, laughing loudly with a hotdog vendor who was making his lunch. She could have walked right over and talked to him. But she didn’t, worried that it might break the spell and he would disappear. Instead, she stayed where she was, watching him, spellbound by the wonder of being able to hear her father’s laugh once again.

A few weeks later, Vongai allowed Tawonga to talk her into visiting him in his Vaughan apartment. As she sat on the long subway ride to the end of the line, she scanned the faces of people getting on and off, wondering if she would see Baba today. What would he think about his two children knowing each other? But she didn’t see him. She hadn’t seen him at all since she heard him laugh.

When she knocked on Tawonga’s door, she heard something clattering to the floor inside and it was several seconds before he finally opened the door. The smell of fish wafted out.

“Come in, Sis,” he said as he rushed back to the kitchen. “Lunch is almost ready.”

Vongai found her way into the bright living room, still feeling awkward about being called “Sis.” The room was sparsely furnished, but one wall was covered in framed photographs. Tawonga carried on the small talk from the kitchen, but Vongai only half-listened. One of the photographs had caught her eye. Tawonga was in his graduation gown, and next to him was a beaming Baba in a grey suit with his leather folder tucked under his arm. Vongai struggled to catch her breath. Baba had come to Toronto, and he hadn’t sought her out?

“That was the happiest day of my life,” Tawonga suddenly said, right behind her.

“I didn’t realise Baba had come for that,” Vongai said.

“Dad missed a lot of things, but he always showed up for the big milestones. He even came here with me when I first moved to Toronto for college.”

“Let me guess,” Vongai said. “You moved here in 2017.”

“How did you know?” Tawonga asked.

It hurt too much to answer him. Vongai furiously tried to blink the tears away, but she could feel herself beginning to lose the battle. Vongai had known it was 2017 because 2017 was the one time Baba had ever come to visit her. For years, she had begged him to come see her, and he had always said he didn’t like flying. Then she had been fired from her job and sunk into depression. She had felt like she was drowning, but then Baba came to save her, appearing on her doorstep like an apparition. And now she was learning she might have just been an afterthought. She didn’t have the words to explain all this to Tawonga.

“I’ve been wondering why Baba is in Toronto,” she finally said. “I mean after all, shouldn’t he be in Harare, the city he spent his whole life in? But I get it now. He’s here for you.”

“And you too, of course,” Tawonga said.

“I’m not so sure about that,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Tawonga said sliding his hands into his pockets like he didn’t know what to do with them.

It’s not your fault,” she said as she picked up her handbag and walked out the door. And as she made her way back home, all she could think about was how in the past, she had felt sorry for Tawonga, imagining him as a little boy whose baba always said goodbye at the end of the day because he belonged to another family. Now she was starting to feel like she was the one whose father belonged to someone else.

The following Tuesday, Vongai was sitting in a coffee shop, working on her laptop when she felt eyes on her. She looked up, and she saw Baba on the other side of the glass smiling at her. She gave a timid wave, and he waved back. And then he walked away. By the time she rushed outside, he was gone.

What would she have said to him if she had caught up to him? Before, she would have given the world for the chance to see her father again and to speak to him. She would have handed over all her earthly possessions for a chance to say the things that had been left unsaid, to tell him that she loved him, to tell him she was grateful, to tell him she missed him more than she could have ever thought humanly possible. But now? Now, she knew that her father was a lot more affectionate with this mwana wemusango than he ever was with her. Now she knew that Baba had crossed oceans for that boy, and not her. Now instead of missing him, she kept wondering if all the times he had been with her and her mother, if he had been missing Tawonga. She was angry. She was jealous. But she was mostly just very lonely at the realisation that all that time, she had been the one on the outside.

Vongai tried to avoid Tawonga, ignoring all of his calls and texts. She didn’t want to have to explain herself, but he was more determined than she had expected. One day, she came down from her office, and found Tawonga waiting for her in the lobby. Reluctantly, she agreed to talk to him in a nearby park.

They sat on a bench watching a fountain.

“So what do you want?” Vongai said.

“I guess I wanted to apologise,” Tawonga said. “I should have known meeting your father’s outside child would be difficult for you. And I’m sorry I pushed things.” He waited for a reply. Vongai said nothing, so Tawonga continued. “When I saw you that first day when you came to my office building, I was so excited that I was finally going to meet this person who I’ve been hearing about my whole life. I was finally going to meet my sister. Now, it’s like every time I try to pull closer, you pull away, and I get it now. You didn’t feel that excitement. You just wanted to find Dad. I won’t bother you again . . . if you don’t want me to.”

Tawonga stopped his monologue, and there was an expectant air about him, like he was waiting for Vongai to tell him if he should stay or leave. He waited for an answer, but Vongai didn’t say anything. She had no answers. All she had was an unsteady feeling, like the ground was constantly shifting under her feet as the story she told herself about what kind of father she had rewrote itself. And now this stranger was asking her where he fit into the story. The silence between them grew, and Vongai began to realise that Tawonga was as stubborn as she was, something they probably both got from their father. He would wait as long as it took to get an answer. She tried to find the words to explain what was going on in her head these days, how she walked around holding her breath, simultaneously hoping and dreading that she would see her dead father walking, and feeling conflicted about this half-brother who had suddenly entered her life and shifted her understanding of who her baba was.

“I looked for you after Baba died,” Vongai said. “That first year after he was gone, there was part of me that hoped beyond hope that I would run into you. I looked for you in the crowd everywhere I went. Because in my mind, I thought you would look just like him. I wanted you to look just like him. To have hair just as soft and curly as his. To scratch your head right before you told me no. To make two small coughs before you laughed, like you were revving up the laughter engine. And I imagined you asking me questions about this man you never got to know the way I did. And he could be alive again in you and in those moments when I got to tell you exactly what he was like. But that’s not what this is, is it? And it turns out I’m the one who didn’t really know him. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

Tawonga rubbed his hands on his thighs, and awkwardly coughed, but no words came. For several minutes, they sat there in silence, watching the water sprouting from the fountain. Finally, Tawonga tried to say something.

I’m sorry,” he began. “I didn’t mean to—”

“God,” she said, rising to her feet, “would you stop apologising. None of this is your fault.”

Vongai turned to walk away, and that’s when she saw Baba standing on the other side of the fountain. He was looking right at her, and he smiled a sad smile, one that made her feel like it might be the last time she saw it. Then he turned and began to walk away.

But then Tawonga saw their father too. “There he is!” he said. He jumped to his feet, grabbing Vongai’s hand. They began to follow the rapidly retreating back of their father. Tawonga pushed his way through the crowds on the pavement, creating a path for Vongai who followed close behind. Their father disappeared behind a corner, and Tawonga began to run. And as Vongai began to run, too, struggling to keep up with his long strides, she realised that there was a part of her that hoped that they wouldn’t catch up to Baba today, that they would never catch up, that time would stretch before them in a never-ending search for their father, giving her time to get used to this brand-new feeling of having a brother. And as she kept on running, battling to catch her breath, she wondered if this moment of brother and sister side-by-side tearing through the streets of Toronto was what Baba had been trying to do all this time.