Dear Old Dad

(Transferred from my last blog, one of my faves. It explains why I don't hang out with my Dad. Originally Posted 2006)


So, I finally speak with my father (in town, wants to see me, pelting me with phone calls) to find out he and Jane (stepmother) are leaving on Tuesday evening and since I've ducked them all weekend, I'm obligated to have lunch with them today. I'd rather plan to have lunch with them on Wednesday, but I don't seem to have a choice in the matter. I do have a choice, as Dad doesn't know where I live, I can easily avoid my cell phone, and if all that fails, I can forget I speak English, but he's getting old and regardless of who he is, I respect oldness.

Finally I call him back to set a time and place for the Heeman Cactus Showdown 2006 and he lets me pick the place. I choose, of course, The Cheesecake Factory, because if all else doesn't go well, I have cheesecake.

I dress up in my red outfit, which is light enough not to be stifling, I do my hair, nails and toes are perfect and I'm at my girly best. I expect my father to be different from what I remember, horribly aged, possibly sporting a walker, but really, he looks like him but with gray hair. His wife Jane looks much older, but her hair is dyed the same 'not to be found in nature' shade of red I remembering it being when I was five, and ten, and seventeen. She's got a sweet smile and swallows her stress, and though we have nothing in common, she shares my last name, so I give her a somewhat realistic, pleasant hug. Boy, she looks younger than ever, it's nice to see her, finally. During the hug I note that she has that old person hollowness, as though her bones were as delicate as that of a bird, easily broken if pressure were to be applied. I hug my father, who is as solid as ever. Of course he has a gut and his shoulders seem a little thinner, but I have no doubt as to his health, which is both annoying and reassuring. Why is it the bad parent who lives the longest??

We are seated promptly in a booth, so I'm sitting across from them, which brings back the time I was eight and found Bob's Big Boy mashed potatoes travel well when flung from a spoon and are really tough to get out of the hair of a woman who has her hair done once a week (Jane) with several coats of Aqua Net, applied daily. I bet cheesecake would travel at greater velocity and be harder to remove but, pfft, I'm a grownup. I'm pretty happy that, while I'm older now, I'm still a juvenile at heart. My father studies me and I have a feeling he too is remembering the mashed potato melee of '80 and the corner of his mouth tightens a little.

I don't want to tell my father anything, give him information that can be used against me later, or that can be related to relatives I no longer remember, nor care to remember. My brothers and sister, every time we get together, rehash what they remember of Dad's sister Phyllis, his brother Ben, weird Uncle Ben, but they never seem to be able to tell me how he earned that title, and my father's other two brothers. If I met any of these people I was still in diapers and while my attention at the time was spent on filling said diaper, I couldn't remember their faces.Though, while my father is staring at me, and then after he begins examining the menu as though dining at a place with more than 10 items on the menu is like reading Greek, I try to think why I don't like him. He was never abusive, really, and though he wasn't very sensitive, I can't remember a time when he was hugely unkind. All things given, I probably have a hotter temper than my father, so I can't fault him for being hot headed.

Other than having a long standing attachment to Elvis and Oreos, I really don't remember why I don't like him. But then, I think it's subtler than that, a natural uneasiness. If I were a basketball player on a professional team, I would be able to play anywhere, but I feel better about playing at home (Mom), where the fans love me and want me to win, than away (Dad), where the fans might appreciate my talent, but most definitely want me to lose.

We order and I wait for my father to explain why he called this meeting, to tell me something important, to do something overtly offensive, but nothing comes. Of course, we aren't really talking, either. I take the lead. (How are you enjoying Arizona? Who are you here to visit? We sure have a lot of cacti, eh?) After we receive our meals we discuss the loveliness of the food, very tasty (as the Midwesterners say when they really have nothing specific to say) and so much of it. Huh. Mid-meal, my father mentions how sorry he was to hear about my mother. I nod, expecting him to go on, to say something good about her, or bad about her to which I can react, but he simply goes on with his meal. Maybe we'll get out of this meal without an argument.Jane doesn't say anything, which is Jane's lot in life. Jane knows I don't remember the names of her children, who were in their twenties by the time she married my father, who is eight years her junior. She can't say anything about my mother because she understands that she lost that race decades ago. She can simply sit there, look pleasant, and eventually she admires the length of the list of cheesecakes and in true Jane fashion, she orders plain cheese cake, no topping, no whipped cream. My father orders Oreo, no surprise, and I order white chocolate/raspberry, and apparently with dessert comes the time to talk.

My father tells me he thinks it would be better if I moved back to Ohio. (Better? I'm thinking that my version of better and his version are entirely two different betters.) Better, he goes on, because he worries that I'll grow old without really enjoying life. I ask him why he thinks I don't already enjoy my life and he counters by saying that he talked to my sister Mary and the way she tells it, I don't attend church. Um, alright, I admit it, I don't attend church. And then I ask the stupidest question, blatantly inviting the kind of speech that might be delivered by an evangelist or some other manner of religious zealot. But, from what I remember, my father isn't one for religious zeal. I remember he and Jane went to church, but it was non-denominational, the least they could get away with and maintain the moral high ground. I ask, why is he bringing up religion?Not only do I refrain from going to church, he goes on, but I play pool, and poker, and I smoke—which is where I cut him off, as I quit smoking three years ago. How about the poker and pool? Now his tone is accusatory in the 'they have a reservation in hell for you' sorta way and I say in a voice loud enough for people in hell, the ones holding my reservation, to hear, "I play pool. I play poker. (Well, really, I watch poker on television, but I'm not willing to back down.) What does any of that have to do with you??"And my Dad just goes with it, in a voice I haven't heard since I beamed my brother JT in the head with a can of baked beans when I was nine, "If you don't know how to manage your life, Elizabeth, obviously you aren't the best person for the job!"Enter, the silence.

The silence was punctuated with people staring at us from every direction, and I opened my purse and drew out enough money to pay for my meal. My father told me he was paying for lunch, and I assured him I didn't want to owe him anything, and I walked out.*sigh* At least the cheesecake was good.