Эд Макбейн - Love, Dad

Love,

He missed her desperately.

He missed her debris: the shoes and sweaters she used to leave in the dining room or on the hallway stairs of the old Rutledge house, the bathrobe or nightgown draped over a banister; the books strewn all over the house like the discarded pillage of a barbarian army; the unwashed pots and spoons in the kitchen after she’d made popcorn or fudge; the mysterious little seedlings in glasses full of water she’d left on every windowsill; even the bathpowder footprints that trailed across the dark wooden floors after each of her hour-long showers, during which she used every drop of hot water in the house.

He missed her noise: the banging of screen doors; the shouting down three flights of stairs; the blaring of her bedroom record player, the bass turned up full so that all anyone could hear was the insistent thrum of the electric guitar chords; her single-fingered pounding at the piano as she tried to master a tricky passage from this or that latest rock hit, her foot stubbornly nailed to the loud pedal; the sudden jubilant shriek whenever she received a telephone invitation to a party or learned that a movie she wanted to see was playing in Greenwich. He missed her silences as well: Lissie sitting on the deck, staring at the river, sunlight in her golden hair; Lissie chewing a pencil as she pondered a translation from her French textbook; Lissie sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the usually off-limits living room stereo equipment, earphones on her head, her eyes closed, listening; Lissie’s dark and dangerous sulks at the dinner table whenever she felt she’d been crossed, especially by him. He missed Lissie’s presence and her essence; he missed having his daughter home , if only for a brief visit.

He wrote to her again at the beginning of October. He read the letter several times before putting it in the envelope, and then asked Joanna to read it, and finally he retyped it, making a few changes Joanna had suggested, and mailed it off to her:

October 4, 1971

Dear Lissie:

I am feeling bewildered and hurt just now — a deep personal hurt I wake up with every morning of the week. The distance between us now seems longer than when you were in India, primarily because you are now only a phone call away and refuse to pick up the receiver. Can’t you see how hurtful your silence is? If it’s deliberately designed to inflict pain, then it’s unforgivable. If it’s simply the result of carelessness or thoughtlessness, then it’s immature. You can’t expect people to continue caring about you when you show every evidence that you don’t care about them.

Lissie, my darling, I feel more and more often that you never came back from India. Somebody came back, but I’m not sure it was you. The last time I saw you was just after the wedding, all that horrible mess after the wedding. That was the last time I saw you. In June. And this is now October. But Lissie, I’m beginning to think the last time I really saw you was just before you left for Europe without telling us, when you came home from San Francisco just before Easter last year and apologized for all that business with Judd and the argument on the telephone, and then went back to Brenner to live in the dorm, and then disappeared from the face of the earth. I feel as if you’ve disappeared again. Or perhaps you’ve only extended your disappearance.

I tried to explain to you a long time ago that a man does not divorce his children, he only divorces his wife. I tried to explain that there would be two families in the future, Liss, the one you share with your mother, and the one you share with me. Lissie, my dearest, I have only one family now, and it consists of you and Joanna and Grandmother Croft, that is all the family I have. The only connection I now have with your mother is the alimony check I send her every month. You’re behaving as if I divorced you as well, Liss — or worse, as if you’ve divorced me. What is the matter? What have I done to you?

You are my daughter, and I love you. I would like to make a strong effort to restore some honesty and harmony to our relationship. There is much to be said. I do not know whether a more open communication and a renewed, true and valid family relationship rank high enough among your priorities to merit your giving of your time and yourself. That is something you will have to let me know. Our home is open to you. Will you please come to see us? I miss you, Lissie. I love you.

Love,

She called her mother on the day before she was scheduled to leave for Europe.

“Are you all packed and everything?” she asked.

“Hardly,” Connie said. “I’m sure I’m taking too much. I’ll only be gone for three weeks, but you’d think it was a year.”

“Well, just don’t decide to go on to India or someplace,” Lissie said, and was pleased when her mother laughed.

“No chance, don’t worry. Just London, Paris, Rome...”

“Try not to get pinched on the ass, okay?” Lissie said.

“I wouldn’t mind a pinch on the ass,” Connie said, surprising her.

“And be sure to write me, okay?”

“Every day.”

“I’d hate to think it runs in the family. Not writing, you know.”

“Every day, I promise. If only a postcard.”

“Well, some letters, too.”

“Letters, too, I promise.”

“You sound good, Mom.”

“I feel good.”

“Does... uh... Dad know you’re going?”

“I haven’t spoken to your father since... God, I can’t even remember. August sometime.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Lissie said.

There was a silence on the line.

“What do you mean?” Connie said.

“I haven’t talked to him,” Lissie said.

“Your father?”

“Yeah.”

“You haven’t talked to him since August?”

“Well, actually, I guess maybe longer than that.”

“When, Lissie?”

“Well... since after the wedding, I guess.”

“The wedding was in June.”

“Yeah.”

“This is October. Are you telling me you haven’t talked to your father in all that time?”

“Yeah. I guess. Well, he writes to me, you know.”

“Do you answer his letters?”

“Well... no, not really.”

“Lissie, what is this? When you asked me not to give him your phone number, I thought it had something to do with Sparky, your not wanting him to know you were still living with Sparky. Now you tell me...”

“Well, let’s just skip it, okay, Mom?”

“No, let’s not just skip it.”

“Come on, Mom, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why haven’t you spoken to him?”

“I just haven’t felt like it.”

“He’s your father, Liss.”

“Sure, he is.”

“What does that mean? That... sneer in your voice.”

“It wasn’t a sneer.”

“It sounded like one.”

“It’s just that I find this boring.”

“He’s your father, Liss. He loves you, he...”

“Then he shouldn’t have left me. He shouldn’t have...”

“What’s done is done, there’s no changing it now. I want you to call him.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Then I’ll call him. And I’ll give him your number.”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Mom.”

“Lissie, can’t you see how wrong this is?”

“Mom, I called you to say goodbye, I knew you were leaving tomorrow, I just called to say goodbye. I didn’t want to get into a long thing about Dad, really, Mom.”

“I want you to call him.”

“No.”

“Lissie, please do me that favor.”

“I can’t, Mom, I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”