Chapter 4 - The Blank Line Where My Name Should Have Been
The county clerk's office smelled like old carpet and copier toner. I sat on a plastic chair that was too small for me while a clerk in a county polo shirt typed with two fingers behind a plexiglass window.
She didn't look up right away. The printer behind her hummed and the fluorescent lights buzzed. I'd been waiting twenty minutes since the caseworker had called ahead and asked them to pull the record before I got there.
"Mr. Vitari?" she said finally, sliding a printed sheet toward the slot under the glass. "We have a certified abstract. Original's sealed, but this is what shows for the birth certificate filed seven years ago."
I stood and took it. My hand left a faint print on the paper.
Mother: Elena Marris. Date of birth, her birthday. I remembered that. Father: blank. A clean, typed line with nothing after it.
I stared at that blank for a long second. My neck felt hot under my collar.
"That's it?" I said. "No father listed at all?"
The clerk nodded. She tapped another page, a photocopy that was lighter, with handwriting on it. "But intake doesn't always match the certificate. This is the hospital admissions sheet from labor and delivery. Mother fills it out herself when she checks in. See here?"
She pointed with the end of her pen. Under 'Father/Partner name (if not married)' someone had written 'Marco Vitari' in quick, slanted handwriting. And underneath, a phone number with my old area code, the one I'd had before I changed it three years ago.
I breathed out slow. My thumb was right over the ink where she'd written my name.
"She wrote me down," I said, quiet.
"She did," the clerk said. "But she left the legal line blank when they did the official worksheet the next day. Happens a lot. Means there's no legal father on record. No acknowledgment was ever signed."
I folded the papers carefully and put them in my jacket pocket. The paper felt too thin for what it meant.
The caseworker was waiting for me in the hallway by the water fountain. She had her folder tucked under her arm and she didn't waste time.
"So you saw it," she said.
"Yeah."
"That blank line is why we can't just let you take her home today," she said. Her voice was even, not unkind. "The intake note tells me what Elena told the nurse. It tells the court nothing. Legally, you're still a stranger who a child ran to in a hallway. I need something the judge can file."
"What do you need?"
"Either a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity signed by both parents, which we don't have because we don't have Elena, or a DNA test," she said. "If you want kinship placement to move forward, I have to have one of them before the hearing. The judge won't grant temporary custody on a hunch, Mr. Vitari. Even a hunch that feels right."
I looked down the hall toward the exit doors. Through the glass I could see the parking lot and my truck.
"Where do I go?" I asked.
She handed me a printed slip with an address. "County health clinic. Two blocks over. They do the swabs for family court there. You sign an intent to claim paternity pending results. It's not binding until the lab comes back, but it tells the court you're stepping up and not disappearing."
"How long for results?"
"Forty-eight to seventy-two hours if we mark it priority. Which I will."
At the clinic, a nurse in scrubs led me to a small exam room with a paper-covered table. She didn't ask me why I was there. She just read the form, checked my ID, and handed me a clipboard.
"This says you understand a positive result creates a legal obligation, and a negative result ends your claim," she said. "Initial here and here. Sign at the bottom."
I read every line. My hand was steady when I signed. It didn't feel dramatic. It felt like signing for a delivery I wasn't sure I deserved to receive.
She opened a kit, snapped on gloves, and held out a long cotton swab. "Open. Rub inside your cheek ten seconds each side. Try not to touch your teeth."
I did it. The cotton was dry against my cheek. She sealed it, labeled it, put it in a bag.
"All done," she said. "They'll send it to the lab in the morning."
On the way out I asked, "Does this happen a lot? Guys coming in like this?"
"More than you'd think," she said, and left it at that.
I drove back to the children's home even though visiting hours were almost over. The playroom was bright with that same warm daylight from the big windows. She was at a low table coloring, still in that red lace dress, the big satin bow a little crooked on the right side of her head now. When she saw me in the doorway, her whole face lifted.
She left the crayon and came over fast, but stopped a foot short like she wasn't sure if she was allowed to hug me again.
"Hi," she said.
"Hey," I said. I crouched so we were eye level. Up close I could see the small mark above her left eyebrow, just like yesterday.
"Did you see the lady with the papers?" she asked.
"I did," I said.
She looked down at my hands, at the tattoos there, then back at my face. "Are you gonna come back tomorrow?"
The caseworker was standing by the door, watching but not interrupting. I didn't know what the protocol was. I didn't know if I was allowed to promise anything before a lab told us what we already felt.
I should have said maybe. I should have said we'll see what the ladies in charge say.
I didn't.
"Yeah," I told her. "I'll be here tomorrow."
Her shoulders dropped like she'd been holding her breath. She stepped that last foot and put her arms around my neck. I held her with one hand on her back the way I had the first time, and I breathed in and out slow so I wouldn't squeeze too tight.
May you like
"Okay," she whispered against my shirt.
Behind us, the caseworker shifted her folder. She didn't say I shouldn't have promised. She just let us have the minute before she had to walk me out.
