We all have a past: little ghosts of pain and regret that can haunt us forever.
But for some people, ghosts can become demons.
My father was one of those people. In his 94 years, he was married four times and had at least seven children besides me. I grew up knowing three of them: my half-siblings Donna, Karen and Michael, born after World War II, when my father separated from the military and came to Los Angeles with dreams of being the next Perry Como.
He kept the other children hidden at all costs.
That was because he had left them when he met my mother, his fourth wife. He married her in 1982 and had me, when he was 57, in 1984.
I was the only child he raised to adulthood. Growing up, knowing little about my father's past, I idolized him. He was a decorated veteran. Usher at the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana. My elementary school soccer coach. Neighborhood watch leader.
He put the “everything” in totally American.
But it was almost too perfect. Like most people with skeletons, my father was an expert at hiding them. As I became an adult and began to make my own mistakes, as I began to understand the weight a person's decisions can carry, I found myself wanting to find just one chink in his armor; some flaw of his that would allow me to put my own problems in context. I didn't want to idolize him anymore. I wanted to connect with him.
But he never left me, until our doorbell rang one summer afternoon in 2010 and I forced him to.
It was a woman, about 10 years older than me, with light brown skin. Her name was Maria. She asked if Ned Manley lived there. I said he was. My dad came to the door and spoke to her quietly on the front lawn of our corner lot in Temple City. I looked from the window. When she left, she looked at me for a moment and I knew my life had changed forever.
Maria was one of three daughters my father had during a decade-long relationship in the 1970s with a Mexican immigrant in East Los Angeles. At the time she was in his third marriage. When he met my mother at Sunday Mass in 1979, he fell in love with her. And then, for reasons I still don't fully understand, he left Maria and her siblings and never looked back. He managed to hide everything (the affairs, the children) not only from my mother and me, but also from Donna, Karen and Michael.
When I confronted him, he confessed. He said Maria had spent years looking for him. She wanted a relationship now. Her fear was palpable. She begged me not to tell my half-siblings. Not telling my mother, a devout parishioner and faithful wife. The news would devastate her.
I was angry at him for putting me in this impossible situation. I told him I didn't want anything to do with it. I tried to get him to confess. I tried to tell him that everything would be okay. But then, little by little, my anger began to melt. His fear began to form a strange, unbreakable bond between us. As the weeks passed, I realized, uncomfortably, that, if anything, I loved him now more than ever. For the first time in my life, I saw my dad as a human being. As fallible.
So I kept his secret for 11 long years. He met with Maria whenever he could and emailed her every week, making up for lost time until he was on her deathbed in 2021. Just before he died, with the specter of Maria and her sisters possibly attending his funeral , I told my family. About them. My mom and half-siblings said they understood. They told me this was not my fault. They tried to welcome their new family members with open arms. But his eyes told a different story. They were hurt; Shocked to discover that a man they thought they knew so well could have hidden something like this. Not to mention the pain Maria and her sisters were still feeling, a pain that eventually led us to keep in touch only with Christmas cards or the occasional text message.
I don't blame them for feeling that way. But my own feelings toward my father were (and still are) different. Because I'm the only person he never left. He gave me every ounce of blood and sweat he had, quietly trying to atone for the long-buried mistakes of his past. And we connected in her later years in a way we never would have if Mary hadn't knocked on our door. Through his mistakes, I came to understand mine. I understood why he had alienated many people who loved me. I understood why I liked leaving people and situations that were good for me. I understood the anxiety I had about entering into committed relationships and why, when I was in them, I was tempted to mind my own affairs.
But most of all, I understood why I reveled in secrets. I understood why I liked to hide my true feelings from my family, my friends, and my romantic partners. And I understood, long before I married my wife in 2019 and had two beautiful children with her, why I had to stop doing it.
After my father's death, genealogical and family records revealed that he had a seventh child, a son named Lionel, born during his third marriage. We are still looking for it. And I'm still unraveling my father's secrets, one by one. But his last few years taught me, in his own way, that it's never too late to open up, be vulnerable, and start over. It lit a light deep inside me that let me know that it's always okay to be honest and come home, wherever that may be.
The author is a screenwriter and recent law school graduate. He lives in Covina with his wife and his two children. Visit his website at darrenmanley.co.
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