Chapter 7 - My Daughter Asked What I Wanted From Her
I planned to leave after the memorial.
That surprised Claire.
It offended her too.
She found me in the foyer putting my clothes back into the canvas bag.
“You’re leaving.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I have a motel.”
“You can stay here.”
“I know.”
“No, apparently you don’t.”
I stopped packing.
Claire stood where Derek had shoved me that morning.
The shattered glasses were gone.
The marble had been polished.
Rich houses erase evidence quickly.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I mean it.”
“No, you don’t.”
She came closer.
“You came across the country.”
“Yes.”
“You carried one hundred and forty-three letters.”
“Yes.”
“You kept my graduation picture.”
“Yes.”
“You walked into this house after twenty-three years.”
“Yes.”
“And you want nothing?”
I understood.
Nothing sounded virtuous.
It wasn’t true.
“I want you to know I didn’t stop loving you.”
Her face softened.
“I want you to believe me.”
She nodded.
“I want you to eventually call me without feeling like you owe somebody.”
Her eyes filled.
“I want to know what your favorite restaurant is.”
She laughed through tears.
“I want to know whether you still hate peas.”
“I do.”
“Good.”
I swallowed.
“I want a lot.”
“Then why leave?”
“Because wanting doesn’t create entitlement.”
Claire stared.
“Where was that wisdom when I was sixteen?”
“Somewhere under a bottle.”
She looked away.
I continued.
“You don’t have to decide what twenty-three years means tonight.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t want this house making the decision for us.”
“What does that mean?”
“If I stay in Richard’s room, eat breakfast at his table, get introduced to everyone tomorrow as your father—”
“You are my father.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not changing.”
“No.”
“But?”
“You might wake up next week furious that I walked back into the space he occupied before you decided what space I actually get.”
Claire looked at the staircase.
Then at me.
“You’ve thought about this.”
“For the first time in my life, yes.”
That got a small smile.
She sat on the bottom step.
I sat two steps below.
Not beside her.
That distance felt honest.
After a while she asked:
“Where did you live?”
“Recently?”
“All of it.”
“That’s a lot.”
“I have time.”
So I told her.
Not the heroic version.
Construction camps.
Montana.
Idaho.
Two winters in Oregon.
A woman named June I almost married.
Claire looked at me sharply.
“Richard told me you left us for somebody.”
“No.”
“When did you meet June?”
“Eleven years after your mother died.”
Claire relaxed slightly.
I noticed.
So did she.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said.
“What?”
“That I care.”
“It isn’t.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She wanted a house.”
“And?”
“I kept moving.”
Claire looked at me.
“Because of me?”
“No.”
I thought.
“Because by then leaving before something became permanent was what I knew how to do.”
That was mine.
No Richard.
No grief.
No daughter.
A habit.
I had turned mobility into identity because staying made people able to ask things of me.
June eventually did.
I left.
Claire absorbed that.
Then:
“Were you happy?”
“Sometimes.”
“Were you lonely?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever think about coming back?”
“Every year.”
She looked furious.
“Then why didn’t you?”
There was no new answer.
So I gave the old one without decoration.
“Fear.”
“Of me?”
“Of learning I had wasted more years than I could explain.”
Claire stared at me.
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“You stayed away because staying away made staying away harder to explain.”
“Yes.”
“That’s incredibly stupid.”
“Yes.”
She started laughing.
Actually laughing.
I did too.
It lasted maybe ten seconds.
Then both of us were crying.
Not a reconciliation.
A release valve.
When it passed, Claire leaned against the banister.
“I spent years thinking if you walked in that door, I’d make you explain everything before I let you sit down.”
“And?”
“You sat down all day.”
“Terrible security.”
She smiled.
Then:
“I don’t forgive you.”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure I forgive Richard.”
“I know.”
“I’m angry at Aunt Elaine.”
“Reasonable.”
“I’m angry at Benjamin.”
“Also reasonable.”
“I’m even angry at Emily’s mother and she’s dead.”
I almost smiled.
“People survive that.”
Claire looked at me.
“Are you going to disappear if I get angry?”
There it was.
Not the past.
The present.
“No.”
“How do I know?”
“You don’t.”
Her face tightened.
I continued.
“You watch what I do.”
She nodded slowly.
“Where’s the motel?”
I told her.
“That place is disgusting.”
“It has a door.”
“So does this house.”
“Yes.”
Claire stood.
“Fine.”
“What?”
“Go to the motel.”
I blinked.
She almost smiled.
“See? I can make choices.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Breakfast tomorrow.”
“Here?”
“No.”
She thought.
“Diner on Hawthorne. Nine.”
“I’ll be there.”
“If you’re late, I leave.”
“Fair.”
“And don’t come thirty minutes early and sit outside because you’re afraid to walk in.”
My daughter knew me alarmingly quickly.
“Okay.”
I zipped the bag.
Then she stopped me.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Show me the ring.”
I held out my hand.
She touched the old hawk signet.
“I remember this.”
“You were small.”
“Mom used to twist it when she was nervous.”
I had forgotten that.
Claire looked at me.
“Richard had one too.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
I didn’t know.
Elaine did.
She brought it from upstairs twenty minutes later.
Richard’s ring had been removed at the hospital.
Same hawk.
Same gold.
Claire put the two side by side.
Then frowned.
“What?”
She looked inside Richard’s band.
There was an engraving.
Not a family motto.
A date.
May 18, 2008.
The day I came to the side door.
Elaine stared at it.
“I never knew that was there.”
Neither did I.
Claire looked at me.
“What does that date mean to him?”
I knew only one possibility.
May you like
Richard had engraved the day he sent me away.
The question was why a man would memorialize something he insisted had been necessary.
