My first memory of my dad is when he told me he hated me. I was however tall four year olds are, standing stubborn in front of his overstuffed grey chair where he would have his dinner served to him by my mom on the giant cutting board. The board was big enough to stretch from arm to arm, a table on his lap. After dinner, she would cart off the board and he would stretch his black socked feet out in front of him onto the matching ottoman. He and my mom would watch tv from their perches—his the chair and her’s the corner of the sofa near the end table where the lamp would shine on her crossword puzzles and dimestore thrillers. Sometimes I would curl up next to her, straining my eyes at the book while she absentmindedly alternated between patting my legs and erasing incorrect answers.
My sister Karen had told on me. She was five years old, much taller, and slimmer than my short sturdiness. She looked to me like how Snow White was described in the Old Grimm’s Fairy Tales—white skin, black hair, green eyes. I knew even at four that she had been the tiniest baby, and I had been the biggest baby. In her baby pictures, she was dressed in yellow and had a bright smile as she gazed at the camera, holding a block in her slim little hands. My baby picture had garnered me the nickname “Sumo”. I was chubby all over, knuckles mere dimples swallowed by my fat hand that held my oversized head with its dripping cheeks up off the floor. Anyone looking at that picture could tell that baby didn’t coo, she grunted and snorted. I tried to convince myself I looked like Rose Red, Snow White’s baby sister. Rose Red had blonde hair and blue eyes and was shorter. If I didn’t have freckles, if I weren’t so….sturdy, maybe I could be in a fairy tale, too. Rose Red. Even when I was a little kid, I knew I would be the fat best friend, not the star.
Karen had told our dad that I hit her. I probably had, and she had more than likely deserved it. Always so bossy. We were the little ones at home after the big girls had left, one by one. There was a brief bit of time where we all overlapped. The big girls in the one room, Karen and I in bunkbeds in the other. After Becky died and the twins moved out, Karen moved into the big girls’ room. My mom painted it yellow and bought matching curtains and a bedspread. My room was fully pink, from walls to linens as well. I loved my pink room, but missed the sound of my sister when she slept. Sometimes, when she was feeling lovey and I hadn’t been too ornery, Karen would let me sleep in her bed with her. She tucked into the space near the wall, and I would cram right up next to her. Karen always fell asleep before me, mouth open and spit solidifying in the corners of her mouth, loudly breathing. I would put my face up to hers and listen to her breath, inhale the night smells from her mouth.
We fought and loved like puppies. As I grew older, I became the tattle tale, sharing when Karen would do terrible things like ignore me or not give me something I wanted or poke me with her fingers. I would run to my dad and tell him how awful she was. Then I would run to the garage to hide, sad and scared I had told on my sister, and wondering how she could ever handle the terrible punishment that dad must be doling out. My dad would come out to the garage where I had squeezed between the black car and the wall, crying, and ask what was wrong. “Karen’s not sooooo bad!” “No, Karen’s not bad. Come inside, have some cookies.”
This was before that though, when Karen was still more of a tattler than I. I had been called to answer for my four year old crime in front of my dad’s chair. “Come here,” he said sternly, pointing to the floor just to the left corner of his chair, “come here.” I hated that phrase growing up. Nothing good was going to happen when you got there. I stood in front of him, being sternly spoken to for my crime. “Unjust!” my brain screamed. It wasn’t fair. Karen had started it all, and I was in trouble because she spoke up first. I tried to argue, but he wouldn’t listen. My mouth turned down and my brow furrowed, I spoke my terrible instantaneous truth, “I HATE you.”
“Well, good. I hate you, too”
Tears came up behind my eyes as I stared at him. He HATED me??? HE HATED ME??? “You can go to your room.” Then he turned back to the golf on tv.
I went to my room and ignored Karen’s taunts from her own. I lay down on my bed. My dad hated me.
I had always been kind of scared of him, and that continued throughout my childhood. I would be happiest when he would be out of the house at night, refereeing basketball games. He was so tall and it seemed like he would call you to the spot in front of the chair for pretty much any reason. I was more comfortable around my quiet mom who loved books like I did. She would read me stories until I had them so memorized I would convince her I could read them myself. She started thinking I was super smart when I would recite Little Bunny Follows His Nose at the age of three. My mom was where I went when my dad was angry. My mom heard my little secrets and misdemeanors, tearfully confessed on her shoulder or against her arm where I would snuggle while she did her puzzles. My mom paid me no mind as I would act out fanciful pretend stories based on the old school fairy tales she read me, then I would read myself. The ones where little girls danced in shoes that had been heated so thoroughly in the fire they glowed red, the ones where the wolf swallowed everyone only to have his stomach cut open by the woodsman, the ones where one-eyed and three-eyed princesses tortured their two-eyed step sister.
Yet, I also wanted to be with him. My dad would take me swimming, take me running, try to teach me golf. He wanted me to be athletic and smart and strong. Instead I was dreamy and fat. Still smart, though. He could play well sometimes. I would pretend to be a nurse and take his blood. Then, not knowing what one does with blood once one takes it out with a giant syringe, I would pretend to squirt it into a glass to have him drink it back. You need to have plenty of blood. Then my dad would turn to me after finishing his glass of blood, eyes gleaming, “Ohhhhh that blood is gooooooooood. I’m a vampire now!” And he would come running after me, chasing me around the living room. I had turned my dad into a vampire and had to figure out how to make him just a dad! The only answer was another shot, carefully administered by poking my right index finger through a v made with my left hand. His eyes would then soften and he would stop trying to grab me, and would let me lead him back to his chair so he could rest up from having been a vampire.
I look like my dad’s side of the family. When I go to see my cousin’s from my mom’s side, they see me, “Oh, you’re your dad’s girl!” I hated looking like my dad when I was little. He was scary, and a boy. As I grew older, I still hated looking like my dad. Too masculine, too sturdy. I also continued to be slightly afraid of him. I would watch sitcoms where the dad gave the daughter some wise advice and a hug. My own dad would practice putting in front of his chair and talk about the golf game with my mom. I would ask if he would do things with me and he would be puzzled, “You can golf with me anytime you want.” I didn’t want to golf. That’s all my parents did.
As I grew older, not golfing became a part of my identity. I refused the game my dad loved, that my sisters played well. I was a decent golfer, probably could have been good. But dad yelled even more when playing golf than he did normally. It seemed a poor option to continue. I also didn’t date much in high school. I didn’t feel valued by my dad and didn’t see how anyone else could value me, either. I could have sought validation from guys my own age. Instead, I decided there was no way they would like me. When I was 23 after having left and come back and left and come back to live in my parents’ house a few times since I was 18, my dad asked me when I would find a man to take care of me. “I can take care of myself.” He was unconvinced.
I ended up moving far away from home, first to Reno, then Colorado (then back home), then Alaska, then Japan (then back home), then Alaska, New Orleans, Mongolia, Southern Oregon, Korea, then to DC to start a proper career of international development. My first post overseas in my new role was in the Philippines. I was to be there for two years, then go to a nice four year post, continue my growth in my chosen work in international development with a health focus. I was as far away from home as I could get. Far away from the family I had grown apart from over the years. Hoping that I had found my chosen home.
Twenty Years Gone 