Excuse me, waiter? This is not the fairytale I ordered.

This weekend it all became too much. I, icon of fortitude and consummate anti-feeler, broke down.

Biodad came over for dinner Friday night. This was our second bonding ritual and Jenn's first time meeting him. The conversation flowed easily, past midnight even. He brought the customary bottle of wine and we served the customary hummus. Going by the rubric for Second Dinners with Biodad, all the boxes for a successful evening were checked.

What I did not anticipate, all rubrics aside, was that Biodad's version of my showstopping debut as an illegitimate embryo does not match my mom's version. In fact, his version differs from hers so much that I might prefer an alternate reality altogether, perhaps one involving immaculate conception or a noir plot rife with pearl-handled pistols and silhouettes in streetlamp mist, a tail-finned getaway car driven by Cindy from the swabbing lab thrown in for good measure.

I've known for ten years that the circumstances of my conception were scandalous. I would tell the tale here, but some things are just too sacred [and must be preserved for future book deals].

It turns out, though, that even the scandalous version I tucked neatly in the pocket of my cargo shorts of self ten years ago is inadequate. As I learned from mom this weekend, the Mitigated Ten Years Ago version is to the Whole Truth version what childhood bedtime prayers are to the haj.

The bottom line is that I need their versions to resemble one another more closely than they do, which means that Biodad has some onions to peel (my mom's version being more sturdily grounded in her 30 years of service as The Mom). Until then, I don't know what can become of us.

This quaking of hope by a weekend of resurrected memories is what provoked my breakdown. Because as rational as I try to be about all of this, I still want a dad -- more than anything. This weekend, that felt further away than it ever had in the past.