Don't Call Me Mother (29 page)

Carlos sees that the subject is hard for me and takes his leave. On his way out he says, “You need to rethink your relationship with your father. A father needs to be forgiven. No matter what has happened, he is still your father.” The look on his face is sad, not judgmental.

I pick up my bow and play “Kol Nidre”—a Jewish prayer for the dead, a beautiful melody that burns into my heart. I’ve buried my secret feelings and longings about Daddy deep so that Gram couldn’t see them. Any connection I might express, any hint that I was ready to forgive and forget, would have made her even more determined to destroy our bond.

This heartbreaking melody of longing and loss penetrates the dark, tar-filled place inside me. When I have finished playing it, I wrap my arms around my cello and weep.

As autumn passes, I think about the daddy I dreamed of for so long. I always wanted to know him, to have a father like other girls, but for as long as I can remember, Gram has made sure I wouldn’t have any chance to love him. Eventually she won her campaign of hate. I have become exactly like her, speaking ill of him, refusing any contact for months at a time.

The next week, over coffee, I confide in Carlos about the fights between Gram and Daddy, keeping the kissing part to myself.

“You think he should come to you?” Carlos asks, his voice neutral.

“He’s the father,” I say self-righteously.

“Perhaps if I were him, maybe I would. But he is different. Maybe he’s waiting for you to reach out to him.”

“But…” I hesitate, looking down, avoiding his eyes. I can’t tell him I’m afraid that Daddy will leer at me or that he might put me on his lap to kiss me.

Carlos must glimpse my deeper feelings in my face. “So, there’s more to this story, isn’t there? But he’s still your father. What if you talked to him in person? Maybe you’d see that things have changed. You’re not a child now. You can make it turn out different.”

I leave the café wondering how Carlos came by so much wisdom at such a young age. The fall wind turns sharp against my skin. I look up at bare trees etched against the light of the rising moon and think: Maybe, just maybe, he is right.

In mid-October, I finally write to Daddy, pouring out my regrets, apologizing for not telling him before that I managed to get away from Gram’s negativity and am attending OU. I watch the envelope slide down the mail slot with a special prayer in my heart, and hope for the best. Every day that passes with no answer tells me that it was a mistake, that he doesn’t care about me. Finally, a thick envelope arrives bearing his loopy, cursive writing. I tear it open and read hungrily.

“I have been waiting and hoping such a long time,” he says. “Your letter was the answer to my prayers. I knew that you would grow up and realize your grandmother was wrong. I always knew you didn’t write those letters, that she made you do it. Of course I love you and want more than anything for us to be father and daughter. I am sorry for all the years that we have lost, but we can make up for it from now on. Let me know if you want me to visit and when, and I’ll come right down on the train.”

My heart surges with joy. I fold and unfold, read and reread the letter. My secret cache of hope flares into full flame. I have a father after all. The bad and confusing memories are not gone, but they hover beside happier images of my father—our roller skating together, his exuberant hugs at the train, his great excitement about life.

I imagine a perfect father and daughter duo—he’ll come to my concerts and we’ll spend holidays together. He’ll tell me all about his life. We have many years ahead of us to make up for lost time. He is sixty; he could live to be eighty at least. I am determined to do whatever it takes to have my father and even my mother belong to me at last. I vow to reclaim them, leaving my bitter grandmother smoldering in her self-made hell.

I wait in Norman by the station, gazing at the tracks that meet at the horizon, at that infinite point where the future resides. I face north, toward Chicago, the magic city where we all came from. The trains of my childhood came hurtling from that city in the clouds. The old stomach ache is there again since I opened up to my secret longings.

The train men drive carts of luggage and people buzz around like bees, waiting for the silvery horizon to produce the magic light of the train and the whistle that announces other times and places. The train sound is deep in my blood, ancient as cell knowledge.

All at once I hear it as a rush of wind sweeps my hair. Tears bubble up from buried wells. The train ritual has me in its grip now, with its language of arrival and departure, the language of my life. I am ten years old again, and Daddy is coming. My old childhood joy surges, along with my tears.

I’ve seen my father only twice in the past seven years. As I watch people clambering down from the train, my stomach in knots, I wonder if he will even recognize me. Finally my heart leaps, as if his blood is calling to mine, and then I see him. He runs toward me, his coat flapping, his shoes slapping the concrete, crowing my name. He sweeps me up in his arms and around we go in our whirling dance of old. His beard feels the same on my cheek, his Old Spice is as comforting as it has always been. After a moment, he stands back and looks at me. “My girl, my girl,” he murmurs, and clutches me to him. A missing part of me slips back into place.

We take a cab to his hotel. I perch on the edge of the bed talking about my life, telling him all the wonderful things I am learning, hoping he won’t touch me except for the proper kind of fatherly hug. Joy and fear play tug-of-war battle inside me.

What a miracle it is to be with my father in the flesh, watching him hang up his clothes, doing ordinary tasks that normal families share. How little I know him, this stranger whose blood I carry in my veins. He looks older, with a slight double chin, yet trim for a man his age. His head is shiny and bald, with a fringe of dark hair. His eyes sparkle with joy as he looks at me.

“I play golf every weekend,” he tells me. “I love going out there on the green. Maybe that’s my way of worshipping. Nothing like the early morning dew on the grass, clouds against the blue sky.” Daddy’s eyes glow as he talks. He is still so alive, so passionately, thrillingly alive. No wonder I wanted so desperately for him to come see me when I was younger, to give me a strong dose of life as it can and should be lived. I needed his vitality to combat Gram, who I knew was sinking into a kind of soul death and trying to drag me along with her.

Daddy rushes about, his voice running up and down the scale of emotions. He is a passionate man—in some bad ways, but in good ones, too. Maybe I can have less fear and more courage now that I’m a grown-up, be optimistic instead of worried. At dinner, he orders himself a beer and a coke for me. He leans toward me and rushes through the stories of his life, as if trying to fit in all he should have told me through the years. I understand his underlying message, that he needs to have me in his life now.

“You could go to school at the University of Illinois. You’d still be an in-state resident, and not so far away from me. I could show you Chicago. It’s so terrific, all the wonderful buildings and museums. The city is almost a college education in itself. It’s exciting, with new developments and research going on all the time. Growing up on a farm an hour away from Louisville, I thought Louisville was the cat’s pajamas. But Chicago—there’s really nothing like it.” He bangs his fist on the table to emphasize his point, grinning from ear to ear.

“Remember, it’s your life. Make your own decisions. Decide what you want and go for it. That’s how I got to be an executive at the L&N. I came from nothin’, just a freight boy with his first pair of real boots. I decided I wanted to escape the farm, and I did. Not many people do that.”

He fleshes out his story. When he was sixteen years old, my father started working in the freight yards of a small town in Kentucky, and later moved to Louisville. His father owned land, but lost everything late in his life. Daddy loved being free of the burdens of farming, and worked his way up the ladder at the L&N Railroad. In his twenties he married for the first time. His brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles—whose names I know, though I don’t remember meeting them—all lived nearby. His parents died before I was born. Daddy always believed in hard work and the school of hard knocks, but he thinks college is good, even for a girl, because now education makes a difference. I wonder how much my mother knows of his story. I know that she still cares for him. This whole saga involves all of us.

Daddy’s eyes dance with images of the future he wants us to have. “I’ll help you. Maybe it’s time for you to break away from your grandmother. She had her chance; now it’s you and me. We can have a lot of fun!”

It’s wonderful to learn that my father wants me in his life. I’m still confused about the kissing, but that man seems so different from this one, who has proper, fatherly feelings for me and wants to help me get on in life.

Too soon it is time for him to go. I watch him pack, the old ache near my heart reasserting itself. I memorize him—the stubble darkening into a beard, the rumble in his throat, his quick movements on gazelle legs. I wonder how long he will live. Will we get another twenty years to make up for what we’ve lost?

At the station, I weep in spite of my resolve. We stand together, faces to the bitter wind, arms linked. The train whistle blows; train men bustle with suitcases. My father turns to me. The look on his face speaks of the power of machines and of the dreams we can make come true.

Memories float like ghosts inside my head as my chest turns to liquid. Daddy’s going again. I am losing him.

His sparkling green eyes and big smile are to help me, I know. He doesn’t want to leave me looking desolate. “I am proud of you for leaving Enid and being on your own,” he says. “You’re doing fine, but from now on I’m going to help you.” His arms bury me into his thick, manly coat. He turns to board the train, then looks back for a moment. “You know I love you.”

Parts of my lost self knit together. The sky is rose and lavender, the colors of hope, as the sun eases itself down past the western horizon.

Endings and Beginnings

It is December in Iowa. The Mississippi River is frozen and the day is gray with spitting snow. Arching above the river is the old bridge joining Iowa to Illinois. The heater in Willard’s car blasts hot air onto our feet. He turns up the hill, leaving behind the river and railroad tracks.

“Mama used to talk about crossing that bridge in a horse and carriage,” murmurs Edith. Gram has been crying all morning. Blanche is dead. Willard is driving us to the same funeral home where family members have been laid out generation after generation. I look at Gram, her mournful early morning cry still in my ears. “Mama, oh Mama,” she wailed. “How will I ever live without you?”

Earlier she sat smoking at Edith’s kitchen table, staring at the empty rocking chair by the window. I stared too, expecting Blanche to reappear and take out her embroidery. She would wear her gold-rimmed glasses; she would sew for half an hour, then haul herself out of the chair. She’d find something to do—hang the laundry on the line, peel peaches, or snap beans. She’d hoe the weeds and pick the rhubarb before breakfast. She used to say that if she ever stopped, she’d die. Now, at ninety-two, finally she is still.

The funeral home is crowded with Blanche’s seven children and their spouses, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Men whose normal garb is plaid flannel shirts and work pants with thick boots look awkward in their shiny suits, starched shirts, and off-center ties. I don’t remember ever seeing my great-uncles so dressed up. Everyone lines up to pass by the coffin.