rumors that he had an illegitimate daughter in Washington state, but we were his family for the time being, the occasional outside fling notwithstanding.

I know he made a show of providing for us, of caring about my mother, my half brother and me. After I learned to crawl, the masquerade grew less convincing.

My mother quit her job, and the four of us lived in a small North Hollywood apartment for two years. His parents paid the rent — and the bills for my complicated breech and caesarian birth — losing the family business as unpaid bills drove them deeper into debt. They were Jehovah's Witnesses, ringing doorbells, doing God's work on a dime. This world could wait on the next one.

My mother stayed up nights with me, pacing the floor. The nagging questions about our future must have worn her down. Some months later she miscarried what would have been my younger brother or sister, keeping my father at a distance, almost relieved he had other women to divert him. By this time, she knew about my father's legal wife. He had promised to get a divorce and

make things right by us, but he never kept his promise.

I am tempted to end the story here by noting that my mother told my father she was visiting her sister Jessie — who had moved to California in 1945 with her husband Walt and their three sons — with no plans of returning to Los Angeles. This is exactly what happened, and it would be another two decades before I was again in my father's presence.

I hear in my mind's ear, though, the whispers of those who have urged me to be fair to the memory of this man, my father, who died in 1989, seven years after my last contact with him.

From the lips of others — my brother Bob, and my Aunt Jessie — I learned that Frank was far from being a bad man. Bob remembers him as an even-tempered, caring stepfather. Even my mother had some kind words for him, remembering him as part of her family, the father of her younger son. It is peculiar to hear him in that context, and then to see the decades that separated us.

Most of what I know of his background,  his history