Эд Макбейн - Love, Dad

“Forgive me? For what?”

“For everything.”

“Everything? Honey, I’m not sure I know what you’re...”

“Well, for example, you never really helped me, no matter what you say now, when Holtzer restricted me to campus that time.”

“I came up to see you every—”

“Sure, but you didn’t get the restriction lifted, and it got into my files, and that’s why I didn’t get accepted at Vassar.”

“Lissie, you don’t know that for a—”

“And then, right after graduation, you ran off to Italy...”

“We’d planned that trip months in advance.”

“... and shipped me off to the Cape while you were having a good time over there. Well, so what? I’d been left alone before. But then you raised that terrible fuss when you found out I was living with Judd...”

“I think you can understand how—”

“And you wouldn’t even trust me with cash when I got stranded in Venice that time.”

“But Lissie, you did cash in the ticket I...”

“And again in India, it took forever to get the five hundred dollars I asked for...”

“I sent it the minute I received your letter. Lissie, I don’t see the point...”

“The point is... and Sparky, all that business with Sparky... the point , Dad, is you never seem to think about how I might be feeling about anything. Can’t you for once wake up in the morning feeling a little happier for me? Mornings are a beautiful time. Can’t you try to dig them?”

“All right, I’ll try to dig them,” he said, and smiled.

“Well, you don’t have to make fun of the way I talk, Dad.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t...”

“I mean, that’s just another sign of disrespect, isn’t it? You keep telling me there are two families now, but until I can become a respected member of this new family, as you call it, then how can I respect you in return? Or Joanna, either.”

“Let’s go back just a bit, okay?”

“Sure.”

“You said you wanted a sincere apology. What kind of...?”

“I don’t want a superficial apology, Dad.”

“You just told me...”

“How the hell can anyone apologize for all the hurt that’s been done to me? Jesus, why do you keep trying to make me feel guilty? What did I do, would you mind telling me?”

“Lissie, let’s try to hear each other, okay? I don’t think we’re hearing each other just now.”

“Maybe ’cause you’re not listening. I thought I was making myself perfectly clear.”

“You said you wanted an apology. All right, I think I’m adult enough to—”

“Meaning I’m not, right?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“When are you going to accept me for what I am, Dad? Mom accepts the real me! I don’t care how generous you are, Dad, I mean fuck the little gifts from Saks or Bonwit’s. It only matters how honest you are. And if you think going to bed with a dozen other women while you were still married to...”

“Lissie, I did not go to...”

“Oh, fuck it, who cares? But it wasn’t honest, can’t you at least admit that?”

“If it isn’t true, why should...?”

“Well, I happen to think it is true. Can’t you even discuss it with me? I’m almost twenty years old, I’ll be twenty in December, I’m not a kid sucking lollipops anymore. You should be able to discuss anything under the sun with...”

“Not what’s private and personal between me and...”

“Joanna, right, Joanna. Everything’s private and personal between you and Joanna, with nothing left over for your daughter. What the hell do you see in her, anyway?” Lissie asked abruptly, turning from the mirror. “Would you mind telling me? What the hell did she offer that none of the others did? All I can see...”

“What I see in Joanna is none of...”

“What is it you share with her, Dad? Your enormous ego?”

“My ego? What...?”

“Yes, your goddamn fame and your financial success and your fucking ego, yes! Where the hell’s the substance, Dad? Jesus, don’t you see what I’m saying?”

“No,” he said tightly. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re saying, Liss?”

“Here comes the anger again, right? I can see it in your eyes, I can hear it in your voice.”

“Yes, here comes the anger again,” he said.

“What the hell have you got to be angry about? You’ve moved on to greener pastures, haven’t you? It’s Mom and me who were abandoned.”

“Lissie, I really don’t want to hear...”

“Oh, fuck, who cares what you want to hear? How the hell can you possibly expect me to accept this new family of yours, this fake fucking family you’ve created, when you...”

“Lissie, I think we’d better...”

“Am I supposed to accept Joanna simply because you love her?”

“You’re making it imposs—”

“Why should I communicate with...”

“All right,” he said, and nodded.

“... people who think I’m a worthless shit?”

“All right,” he said again, very quietly, and she fell suddenly silent.

They stood staring at each other.

He took a deep breath.

“How’d you ever get to be this?” he said, almost to himself. “Blame it on the times,” she said, and suddenly and surprisingly smiled.

“No.”

“Then blame it on yourself.”

“I blame it on you,” he said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“For what? For telling you the truth about...?”

“I’m your father!”

“Then why the fuck don’t you try acting like—”

“Damn you, shut up!” he said.

Her eyes opened wide.

“How dare you?” he said. “What else have you got for me in that sewer of a mouth? What else do you expect me to invite, and accept, and apologize for?”

It took her only a moment to recover.

“I don’t have to take this kind of shit from you or anybody else!” she shouted, and slammed the hairbrush down on the dressing table, and then turned and walked out of the room. He heard her moving angrily through the library, heard her hurried footfalls going down the three flights of stairs and across the living room, heard the front door of the house slam as she went out. The last glimpse he had of her was from the bedroom window as she walked past the lighted lamppost outside the house, her blond head ducked against the wind, her tent dress flapping about her legs, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of the fighter-pilot jacket.

She must have written her letter that same Sunday night. It was undated, and written on YWCA stationery. He received it on Tuesday morning. It repeated much of what she had said to him in anger in the empty hours of the night, as though she wished to give her words the final stamp of permanency:

Dear Dad,

You’ve leveled with me, so now I’ll level with you.

I appreciated (and curiously so) your attempt to settle all this, but was immediately insulted by your error in assuming that I am still a child who can be pushed around and led around by the nose. Yes, I am angry with you. You offer many things, oh yes. Gifts and guilt. Everything under the sun except real love. You have never confronted the facts as Mom knows them, and as she has told them to me, you have never admitted that not only were you committing adultery with the woman you later married, but almost certainly with Mrs. Blair as well. You left this family because you were no damn good. Plain and simple. I can see why you don’t like Mom, and honestly why you will never like me. Because we both are reminders of your treachery and betrayal.