Эд Макбейн - Love, Dad

Where does that leave us? It leaves your daughter many bad places. It leads me to equate financial success and some measure of fame as being a place devoid of love and responsibility, of endless ego gratification with little real substance. Your daughter does love you as much as her mother, she just doesn’t like you as much. To be blunt, again, my mother’s well-being is of concern to me because we’re in a similar position; we’re both alone and facing the many problems of life. You and I do not share a common position right now. It’s not that I have consciously taken sides. I am simply seeing things clearly and with my own eyes. I am not convinced that the distance between us is the only thing you’re confused about. Mom served you long and well, and you repaid her by abandoning her. I can only believe this was the act of a man who was and probably still is very confused indeed. I’m sincerely glad that you seem to know exactly where you are in this matter, because no one else knows where you are. I am also glad that after screwing around for so long, you married the woman you “loved.” At least you’ve got a family.

There are two reasons why I haven’t accepted your new marriage. First, I had to learn from Mom how long your little romance had been going on. And secondly, I don’t like your new wife, okay? And I will not accept her simply because you love her. I would not accept anything rotten simply because you love it. Anyway, I’m not sure I know what love means in your book. You seem to be a superficial father who gives everything but honesty and love. My instinct tells me to give consolation where it is needed most. You think Mom poisons me against you. But that’s your own poison. It is you who have poisoned me against you. I don’t believe anything you say about the divorce. Anyway, who gives a shit?

Once again, I’m glad you have a new life with a new woman you love. I can’t help but wonder for how long. I am not invited to Mom’s house, I am accepted whenever I choose to go there. I am her blood. You don’t treat blood relatives as guests, and you don’t embarrass them later by telling them about their bad behavior. Family is supposed to be stronger than that. I am me. Take it or leave it! I give you the same love I give Mom, only she — by accepting the real me — offers a more comfortable environment for honesty. Not brainwashing, just honest observation. I love my parents equally, I just don’t like them or respect them equally. It doesn’t matter how generous you are to me, it only matters how honest you are, and you were not honest by going to bed with other women when you were still married to Mom. That was not being honest, that was being a crook! I don’t see how you can possibly talk to me of truth.

There is really nothing for us to talk about and hasn’t been for a long time, even before you started your new family. The reason I broke off with you in the first place was because I ended all relationships that were founded on lies and guilt. So now you know what I really think. I am really curious to see if your heart and your home are as open as you profess now that you get a clear view of Melissa Croft the woman. As always, my heart and my home are really open to you — but not to the members of my “new” family.

Love,

P.S. Joanna is a cold fish, and I really don’t want any relationship with her, thanks!

P.P.S. Anyone for seconds? No, thanks, I’m full!

P.P.P.S. My trust can be regained, even if the road is a hard one — but only with honesty and love. Do you even know what love means? Love, Dad!

He read her letter again, and then another time. He sat very still in his chair for a very long while. Then he lumbered to his feet, and went upstairs to the guest room she had shared only Saturday night with Sparky, and went to the closet there, and took from it the several cartons in which he had stacked her photographs. He carried the cartons downstairs to the living room, one at a time, and spread the pictures on the floor around the fireplace in a widening circle, as though he were dropping pebbles into a still lake the exact center of which was the hearth, watching their ripples move out, overlapping, to touch a distant shore.

Here was the picture he’d taken of her in Central Park when she was six years old and stooping to pluck a dandelion from the ragged lawn. Here was the one he’d taken at Martha’s Vineyard in 1965, Lissie almost fourteen and sitting in a flaking, rusting rowboat. He moved back from the hearth, dropping pictures on the floor at his feet, the ripples widening.

Lissie at the age of twelve, tangled in her skis at Stratton. Lissie by the river in Rutledge when she was sixteen, the secret shot taken from the deck above. Lissie at the Jacobsons’ Fourth of July party that same year, grinning around a hot dog dripping mustard. Pictures of her, widening circles, pictures of his daughter.

Lissie in her graduation gown, the mortarboard rakishly tilted, the zoom shot across the lawn. And here... ah... his favorite, Lissie at Jones Beach in the second year of her life, looking down in consternation at a sand-covered lollipop, her blue eyes squinted, her blond hair catching the sun for a dazzling halo effect. She had known who she was on her second birthday. When she’d seen the poster-sized shot of herself squinting at the lollipop, she’d squealed with glee, remembering, and then ran to him and hugged his knees. He’d lifted her into his arms and kissed her plump little cheek and whispered into her hair, “Daddy loves you.”

He picked his way among the photographs, gingerly treading through them as though he were walking a minefield sown with memories. He stood back from them then, surveying the panorama of pictures, the floor covered with them, the room bursting with Lissie. He stood looking at the pictures for a long, long time. Then he went to the dropleaf desk in the corner opposite the fireplace, and lowered the front of it, and took a sheet of stationery from one of the cubbyholes, and picked up a pen. Sighing deeply, he began writing:

October 12, 1971

Dear Lissie:

You’ve reviled my wife, you’ve called me an adulterer, an egomaniac, a loveless and dishonest person, a worthless father. I think, Lissie...

He crumpled the sheet of paper, and dropped it in the wastebasket under the desk. He took another sheet from the cubbyhole, looked at it blankly for several seconds, and then began writing again:

Dear Lissie:

I’m sorry I’m not the father you want or need. That is my apology. I am sorry for that. But Lissie...

Tears were beginning to form in his eyes.

He took a deep breath. His hand began trembling:

... no father in the world can be expected to take such abuse from a daughter and still offer friendship to her, no less love. You have made it impossible, finally, to offer you anything at all. If this is the freedom you’ve wanted all along, then, Lissie, you may have it, you may have your freedom from me.

He looked up sharply, as though she were standing immediately behind his shoulder silently reading every word as he set it down on the page, the pen moving slowly, the tears coursing down his cheeks:

You do not know how it pains me to say this, my daughter, but please understand that you are no longer welcome in my home or in my life. Lissie, my darling, good luck — and goodbye.

He read the letter over again, and sat at the desk, crying openly, while across the room the clock ticked away the fleeting minutes. Then he put the letter into an envelope, and addressed it, and sealed it, and went out to mail it.