I almost veered off the bumpy road, slowing to get a good look at the single story ranch-style house. Oh God, I thought. There’s someone in the doorway, looking back at me.

I pulled my 1975 battleship gray Chevy Nova into the driveway, next to an emerald 1977 Chevy Nova — the first of two decades of too coincidental curiosities between the man and me. But that hadn’t registered. My brain swirled while I tried not to bump my Nova into his Nova.

He was a bear of a man, with a gray ball of curly hair atop a long face (not long, as in depressed, but long as in long) partially hidden by his gray beard. He was grinning, which was a good start, I supposed. Wearing a plaid shirt and sweatpants, he met me halfway up the walkway — a tight smile scrunching the eyes behind his glasses. He looked like he was battling apprehension.

Me too.

He stuck out his big paw, which I shook, and said his name was Bill. He was a couple inches taller than me, and a bit wider. I looked at his nose, chin, and shape.

Bingo.

I followed him inside and slid onto the first piece of furniture to which I could anchor myself — the couch in the family room straight off the entryway. His smile, while still showing no teeth, looked genuine. I noticed his face was flushed, which was something I knew happened to people, but didn’t remember actually witnessing. As he lowered into his recliner — which I later came to understand was his defensible turf — my father said the first non-perfunctory thing he ever told me.

“Well … if there was ever any doubt, it’s gone now,” he said, breaking into a real smile while looking me square in the face. “Though you have your mother’s eyes.”

I looked back with my mother’s eyes, again noticing the nose with the slightly upturned nostrils I’d been looking at for eighteen years in my mirror. I looked around the room. I knew he said something else, but I’d zeroed in on the mantel, where two pictures of girls with skin much browner than mine sat.

His close-mouth smirk reappeared.

“I suppose you’re wondering who they are,” he said.

I’d been an only child growing up. Apparently not anymore.