The central and most imponderable mystery of most men's lives is this: Who is my father? The second part of the equation is: And does he love me? Many of my own male friends have spent a lifetime trying to figure out just who that stranger is or was. For there is something strange and unknowable about fathers. They are never around enough, they never share the loving and intimate language of children or mothers. They are, even the best of them, awkward and confused in the face of their love for their sons.