Transcript for Stories We Tell

NARRATOR: Michael remembers a time or two after Diana died when the children would come up for Sunday dinner to join Sarah and him. And he remembers how one day someone said Sarah did not look troll like a father. It's time to go back many years once more.

Johnny was working in the living room on a list for a casting call. And his mother was alone in the den. Then he thought he heard something that sounded like distress and found himself being unable to resist moving a little closer. He stopped, and he listened. And there was no doubt that she was crying.

BOY: What I overheard was mom saying that she was pregnant and that she was considering an abortion and that she wasn't sure who the father was. But I remember mom, whoever she was talking on the phone, talking about this big weekend that she and Michael had had and how it had reinvigorated the relationship. And he started to write her all these love letters after the weekend that they had in Montreal. It was clear that you had been conceived while mom was in Montreal.

NARRATOR: He listened for a while longer than hurried guiltily back to his work in the living room. He said nothing. And so the event passed, and John kept it all to himself while an entire generation went to their graves.

BOY: I guess I kind of blocked it. I guess I kind of stopped thinking about it, because what good is it going to do? You know, the family was a big enough mess already. Anyways, years later, when I was in my 20s, you know, long after mama died, Anne Tate mentioned something about somebody in Montreal when mom was in Montreal for that period of time.

WOMAN: Johnny once led me into talking about that, because I think I was quite tight-lipped about it. I thought that this actor in the play might have been the father-- your father.