Finding Our Fathers

I stood frozen in CVS picking out a Father's Day card for the first time in 40 years. The last time, I was a teenager, and my dad was dying. Now at 59, this was the first card I'd be giving to my biological father, Larry.

Recently I'd sent Larry a letter explaining how I'd come to believe I was his son. My heart leapt one morning to see he'd called. I paused, realizing his 26-second voicemail held acceptance or rejection.

"Let's hear it already," my fiancée Catherine said, knowing how long I'd already spent searching for my father. 

It all started about 10 years before. At the time, I was a clean-shaven, liberal, never-married, 50-year-old Jewish businessman working in corporate events and had just taken up songwriting. One day, I was co-writing a tune with a Nashville songwriter who'd been adopted. She was afraid to take a DNA test alone and asked if I'd take one with her. Curious to know more about my background, I said "Sure."

I never suspected that Robert Romanoff, my Russian Jewish dad and Little League coach, wasn't my father. The test revealed I was 50% Irish, and that my biological father was a stranger.

Overnight, my reflection became a question mark.

Every day, I'd sneak glances at older men's faces — at the supermarket, the gym, wherever — looking for a resemblance. Having scoured the internet and talked with genetic experts without luck, I gave up.

But after our engagement, Catherine suggested I try again. "Technology is so much better now. I bet you'll find him this time," she said. She was right.

Within weeks, Dawn, a "Search Angel" with a company called The DNA Detectives, found Larry. His picture showed my same blue eyes, oval face shape and light wispy hair. I felt instantly, that's him.

And now, his voice was waiting on my phone. Catherine sat beside me on the edge of the bed. Taking a deep breath, I pressed play.

"Hello, this is Larry." His voice was gentle and kind. "I got your letter. I'd be happy to talk with you." 

Catherine and I jumped up and down while bells from a nearby cathedral rang. An omen, I thought. Maybe the Catholics will take me. Growing up, I had often felt out of place, even in my own family. My bar mitzvah photos depicted a blondish, freckled kid cutting cake beside what looked like a dark-skinned, Russian Jewish mafia.

 Dialing Larry, my hands were shaking. 

"Is this Ed?" he asked.

"Yes," I responded.

"Hello, son," he said.

I had to either laugh or cry, so I laughed. 

"Your family has grown, and so has ours," Larry told me. "We welcome you with open arms."

Years of worry fell away. Yet I wondered: why hadn't he ever reached out?

 "I never knew about you," he said, reading my mind. It turned out that my late mom, a bookish Jewish girl from West Haven, Conn., could keep a secret.

"I met your mom in high school," Larry continued, "she was lovely. When I came back from the service, I was going through a divorce. She was having trouble in her marriage. We'd have drinks, sometimes dinner. One night we went to a drive-in," he trailed off in a way that suggested this was an important detail. Later, I asked Larry which movie, but he couldn't remember.

"Well now we know why," joked his second wife, Andi.

Larry invited us for Christmas, a holiday I'd never really celebrated. But soon I was driving to their Guilford, Conn. house with a carful of gifts, past baseball fields I'd played on as a kid. All this time, Larry had lived only a few exits away. 

Getting closer, I worried: What if he didn't like me? What if they're watching Fox News? Catherine and I laughed when our dog, Freckles, yipped with excitement as we pulled into his driveway. 

Larry stood outside to greet us and waved us in. He was tall with white hair and strong arms, like Clint Eastwood, with the words "love" and "hate" tattooed on his knuckles.

Once inside, we saw the house was filled with ship replicas, spyglasses and mermaids carved from driftwood; it felt like a nautical museum.

While Freckles darted about, I could hear MSNBC from the living room. Another good sign, I thought.

We also shared a love of music, it turned out. At 83, Larry still performed with a popular sea shanty group, The Ancient Mariners. 

The best night of my life happened soon after, at a pub, where Larry invited me to play during The Ancient Mariners' intermission and joined me onstage. I couldn't believe it. At 60, I was singing with my father. 

"Who the hell is that, Larry?" someone shouted. 

Larry leaned into the mic. "Don't mess with him, he's my son,"  he said.

And that's when I learned we had even more in common. Dawn, the DNA detective, had also discovered that Larry's biological father wasn't who he'd originally believed. Apparently, Larry's mother had kept a close relationship with the same man while having married twice.

For me, the shock about my own identity had led to depression. I wondered how Larry might feel knowing his father was someone else.

The truth also meant that Larry and the man he thought was his 89-year-old half-brother, Ted — a patriotic former Army Ranger — had the same dad. They were actually full brothers but didn't know it. I felt I had to tell them.

"If I learned more, would you want to know?" I asked, worried about Larry's reaction. We were getting on so well I didn't want to blow it. But Larry nodded.

"This is your father," I said, pointing to a black-and-white photo. He seemed to absorb the shock. "There's more," I said, "you have a sister, too."

I then handed him a picture of Gale, a woman with the same cheekbones and glinting eyes. Larry jumped up to phone Ted.  

"We're full brothers," Larry announced. "And we have a sister!" I could hear the two men laughing with joy.

Over time Larry and I grew closer and talked a few times a week. When Catherine and I married, Larry walked me down the aisle, holding Freckles' leash. Throughout the pandemic, as my company was struggling, he offered support and encouragement.

Like a dad.  

This summer, I coordinated with Ted's son, Scott, to have our entire, new extended DNA family meet at Larry's house. Since we'd never all been together, we called it a "union," not a "reunion." 

Ted agreed to make the long, 10-hour drive from North Carolina with his four sons. Uncle Ted was so excited, he stood by the side of the road with his bags at 2 a.m., anticipating their 5 a.m. departure. 

Savannah arrived first, with her husband and three kids. She was Uncle Ted's granddaughter and had taken a DNA test years ago for medical reasons, becoming the puzzle piece Dawn needed to connect our family.

Soon, Ted and his sons pulled up in a maroon rental van. Scott emerged in a T-shirt with an American flag and a bald eagle. "Hey cuz," he said in his low, gravelly drawl, his shoulder-length grey hair spilling from beneath his baseball hat. He looked rocking and dignified, like Ben Franklin in a Harley gang. 

Uncle Ted handed me a new belt buckle with an American flag. Kerry, another cousin whose grey ponytail poked through the back of his hat, gave me a knife he'd made, with a handle carved from my favorite tree: the honey locust.

Ted and Larry hugged for the first time in years.

Gale arrived Saturday midday. "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum," Ted said as Gale entered the house, "I hear my baby sister."

"There you are," Gale answered, as they hugged.

On Saturday afternoon, Gale, Larry and Ted sat together for a photo, the first time the three siblings were together. Catherine, typically introverted, coaxed everyone to come closer, as 40 people gathered to join for another picture.

Surrounded by my father, my new half-sister and two half-brothers, my new aunt and uncle and dozens of blood relatives, I'd gone from having one cousin to 20.

Asked how this all could have happened, Gale laughed and said, "It's all Ed's fault."

Gale tapped my shoulder as she handed out envelopes to Ted, Larry, and Savannah and me. Each of us got a silver puzzle piece. When connected they revealed the phrase: "Always together, never apart, maybe in distance, but never at heart."

The puzzle was the shape of Ireland, with the word "heart" in Cork where our bloodline originated. 

Catherine looked after the kids by the pool then set up a spin-art station she'd brought. I loved how effortlessly she clicked with my newfound relatives.

Later, with a corn hole game in progress and Gale rocking Savannah's newborn, Catherine commented how this was the nicest family she'd ever met. "These are definitely your people," she told me.

I loved these quirky, kind, hardworking people: Builders, nurses and cake makers, people whose politics faded at the door. I felt so lucky having so many warm new family members this late in life.

Larry gave me a ship's prism that he'd fashioned into a lamp. I brought him a picture I'd painted from a photo of us, along with my favorite possession, the red Pinewood Derby car I'd made as a 10-year-old Cub Scout.

I told Larry how I'd cut myself several times with an Exacto blade while daydreaming as I carved the block of balsa wood into a miniature race car. "It's made with love and blood then," Larry said, pointing to his own leg scars from when he made model airplanes.

As we left the weekend for a few days on Cape Cod, Catherine mentioned how she'd now changed her mind about having kids. I was elated thinking of the family we might have together.

I marveled at how much had changed: I was now married, had two records out, had a beard and longer hair and now have this new DNA family who's already planning next year's gathering.

Then I thought about my first father, Robert; how hard it must have been for him to raise another man's child.

I can still see his toothy grin and baseball cap, teaching me how to take a lead off first base. I'd learned he knew I wasn't his but chose to raise me as his own anyway. I loved him for that. 

And I hoped I'd be as good a dad as he and Larry were.

That night, Catherine and I smiled to each other as we pulled into the Wellfleet, Mass. drive-in for a double feature. 

Ed Romanoff is CEO of PineRock, a global corporate events production company, and an award-winning songwriter. He is writing a memoir about his 10-year search to find his biological father. Read More