Becoming Shayla's Father

The next Thanksgiving, Shayla's mother called.

What are you talking about? I asked.

I've done the best I could. It's time for you to step up, she said.

It was already a tumultuous time in my life. I was facing the prospect of losing daily contact with my twin daughters, who were 6 years old then. I had been left with a mountain of debt from the divorce and from living beyond my means. How, I wondered, how could this have happened? I had become a partner in a prestigious law firm -- one of the first African Americans in Reed Smith's history -- in record time; had been head of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce; and had the trappings of wealth -- luxury cars, an expensive home in Georgetown and a seat at the best tables for some of the most important functions in Washington. But hindsight would reveal just how unbalanced my priorities had become. Money, power and political ambition were my holy trinity, my amen and hallelujah chorus. Although I fancied myself a family man -- working to provide for my wife and children -- I was also serving my own interests. And before it was all over, Shayla's arrival would shine an even brighter spotlight on the mess I had made of my life.

I was a long-lapsed Catholic, and, like so many people when things go wrong, I found myself suddenly praying to God. I begged Him to make me a better, deeper and more loving person. This might invite skepticism, but I am certain now, as I write this, that Shayla was God's response. But when Shayla's mother called, I felt wronged and depressed. My lawyers advised me first to demand a paternity test. If the child was mine, they suggested that I should make arrangements to pay Shayla's college tuition and other expenses. They thought I should include a confidentiality clause asking Shayla not to divulge that I was her father. I wasn't looking at a small sum of money. But the cash didn't really matter. If Shayla were indeed my daughter, the money was the least of it. How could I forsake my own flesh and blood? While I had been a father to my twins for only six years, that was long enough for me to measure their importance in my life and mine in theirs. And I imagined how bereft my life would be without them, and what they would miss without me. I'd read the stories -- girls who grow up without fathers often have low self-esteem and a hard time trusting men. They're at greater risk of dropping out of school and getting pregnant out of wedlock.

I thought of all the school plays and dances I had missed. I wondered how Shayla explained my absence. I thought of the boys she must have brought home, without a father to look them over. The paternity test could do more than determine whether I was the father. It could make me a villain. I did not look forward to it.

The envelope with the results was waiting for me one day after work. I sat down on my bed, alone, to open it. Here it was, my moment of truth. Glancing down at the paper, my eyes fixed on one phrase: 99 percent. There was a 99 percent probability that Shayla was my biological child.

Eighteen years ago, I had become a father, and my denials all these years had done nothing to erase that fact. My heart raced. What kind of man was I? And what kind of man was I going to be?

I couldn't find it in me to follow my lawyers' advice. There would be no signed agreements. Instead, I called the one person in my life who would love me no matter what and tell me the truth. I called my father. We talked for a long time. In the end, he didn't argue with me, he didn't judge me, he simply declared: "Bolden men don't leave their children."

I PAUSE TO STEADY MYSELF AND REACH FOR THE DOORKNOB.

I had told Shayla's mother that I wanted to meet my daughter, who planned to study nursing at a community college in Trenton, N.J. We had scheduled a meeting, but they postponed. Shayla's mother finally confided that Shayla was pregnant -- and unmarried. I would soon become a grandfather. My father would be a great-grand-father, and the twins were going to be aunts.

So, what I'd read about girls with absent fathers was true, I thought to myself then. We chose to meet in Philadelphia because I had planned to be there with some friends for the NBA all-star game.