She never did, but years later Jandali saw his relationship to Jobs mentioned online. (A blogger noticed that Simpson had listed Jandali as her father in a reference book and figured out he must be Jobs’s father as well.) By then Jandali was married for a fourth time and working as a food and beverage manager at the Boomtown Resort and Casino just west of Reno, Nevada. When he brought his new wife, Roscille, to visit Simpson in 2006, he raised the topic. “What is this thing about Steve Jobs?” he asked. She confirmed the story, but added that she thought Jobs had no interest in meeting him. Jandali seemed to accept that. “My father is thoughtful and a beautiful storyteller, but he is very, very passive,” Simpson said. “He never contacted Steve.”

莫娜·辛普森从没提过，但是多年以后钱德里在网上看到有人谈到他和乔布斯的关系。（一个博客注意到，辛普森在一本书里把钱德里列为她父亲，据此猜到他一定也是乔布斯的父亲。）当时钱德里已经第四次结婚，在内华达州雷诺市西部的布姆顿俱乐部酒店（BoomtownResortandCasino）担任餐饮经理。2006年，他带着新任太太罗希利去看望辛普森时，提起了这个话题。“史蒂夫·乔布斯是怎么回事？”他问道。她证实了这个传闻，但补充说她觉得乔布斯没有兴趣见他。钱德里看似接受了这一切。“我的父亲很能体谅人，他讲起故事来是把好手，但他也是个特别特别被动的人，”辛普森说，“他再也没提起这件事。他也从未联络过史蒂夫。”

Simpson turned her search for Jandali into a basis for her second novel, The Lost Father, published in 1992. (Jobs convinced Paul Rand, the designer who did the NeXT logo, to design the cover, but according to Simpson, “It was God-awful and we never used it.”) She also tracked down various members of the Jandali family, in Homs and in America, and in 2011 was writing a novel about her Syrian roots. The Syrian ambassador in Washington threw a dinner for her that included a cousin and his wife who then lived in Florida and had flown up for the occasion.

辛普森用她寻找钱德里的故事作为第二本小说的蓝本，名为《失散的父亲》（TheLostFather），1992年出版。（乔布斯说服NeXT标识的设计师保罗·兰德为这本书设计封面，可是按照辛普森的说法，“简直糟透了，我们根本没用它。”）她还找到了在美国和在叙利亚霍姆斯的多名钱德里家族成员的下落，并于2011年开始写一部关于她叙利亚家族起源的小说。驻华盛顿的叙利亚大使为她举行了一次晚宴，她住在佛罗里达的表兄夫妇也专程飞来参加。

Simpson assumed that Jobs would eventually meet Jandali, but as time went on he showed even less interest. In 2010, when Jobs and his son, Reed, went to a birthday dinner for Simpson at her Los Angeles house, Reed spent some time looking at pictures of his biological grandfather, but Jobs ignored them. Nor did he seem to care about his Syrian heritage. When the Middle East would come up in conversation, the topic did not engage him or evoke his typical strong opinions, even after Syria was swept up in the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. “I don’t think anybody really knows what we should be doing over there,” he said when I asked whether the Obama administration should be intervening more in Egypt, Libya, and Syria. “You’re fucked if you do and you’re fucked if you don’t.”

辛普森以为乔布斯迟早会去见钱德里，但是随着时间的推移，他却越发对此不感兴趣。2010年，乔布斯和儿子里德来辛普森在洛杉矶的家里参加她的生日晚宴，里德还花了些时间看他亲生祖父的照片，但是乔布斯却视而不见。他似乎也不在乎自己的叙利亚血统。每当中东问题在谈话中出现，这个话题好像他既不感兴趣也不会如往常一样提出很鲜明的看法，即使叙利亚在2011年阿拉伯之春运动中受到波及，他的态度也没什么两样。当我问他，奧巴马政府是否应该在埃及、利比亚和叙利亚进行更多千预时，他说，“我觉得没有人真正知道我们到底该在那里做些什么，你干预也是完蛋，不干预也是完蛋。”

Jobs did retain a friendly relationship with his biological mother, Joanne Simpson. Over the years she and Mona would often spend Christmas at Jobs’s house. The visits could be sweet, but also emotionally draining. Joanne would sometimes break into tears, say how much she had loved him, and apologize for giving him up. It turned out all right, Jobs would reassure her. As he told her one Christmas, “Don’t worry. I had a great childhood. I turned out okay.”

另一方面，乔布斯跟他的生母乔安妮·辛普森却保持着友好的关系。多年来，她和莫娜常常飞过来，在乔布斯家过圣诞节。那些时刻很温馨，但也很耗感情。乔安妮常常会流泪，反复诉说她是多么爱他，很抱歉当初放弃他。乔布斯会安慰她说没关系。有一个圣诞节他曾跟她说，“别担心，我的童年很棒。我好好地长大了。”