All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir(8)
Our premature little bodies were placed in incubators. I imagine the hospital staff just looked the other way when my parents came to visit. What to say? My dad and mom continued to use, and the relationship dissolved when the coke business was done. We were a product of the union but also a reminder that they were not good together; they split after we were born.
I have been told that my dad’s moment of reckoning, as captured in his memoir, came when he left us in the dead of winter, strapped into our snowsuits in the car, to go score and get high in a nearby crack house. We could have frozen to death.
In our first year he and my mom took turns taking care of us, these little babies. She had two previous kids of her own, and it was obviously a lot to handle. Once again she turned to drugs. It was clear that she was not a viable option in terms of guardianship, nor was my dad. Who was left?
In December 1988, when we were eight months old, my dad entered an inpatient rehabilitation facility whose name was held in a sort of reverence in our home: Eden House. My sister and I were placed temporarily in foster care through Catholic Charities. Our caretakers were Zelda and Bob, kind Minnesotans whose kids were all grown up. When my dad was writing The Night of the Gun, he interviewed them, and they recounted his erratic behavior. Direct, intense, falling over. He wanted us to receive perfect care, but he looked desperately unable to provide any. Zelda recalled feeling horrified and glad to scoop us up into her arms. My grandmother was with him when he dropped us off. She didn’t have high hopes. It would be his fifth time in treatment.
My dad was the fourth of seven kids. He outlived both of his parents, John and Joan Carr, but barely. His dad was a smart, well-dressed Minnesotan with a fondness for speaking in his own homegrown idioms. His mom, Joan, whom we called JoJo for short, was a loud, friendly, loving creature who became deeply involved in Catholic Charities and the local St. Patrick’s Day parade. I’m told that my dad was a wryly funny kid, a voracious reader, and very much a middle child. His brothers picked on him, but challenged anyone that tried to do the same at school. He loved mischief and would try to get away with as much trouble as possible.
After much hard work on his part, we were returned to our dad after he successfully finished his six-month program. He had the reason for recovery right there in front of him. What would happen to us if he picked up a drink or used again? I can only imagine how unmanageable it must have felt for him at times, single-parenting two babies that needed every goddamn thing from you.
When we were growing up, my dad spoke to us often about the joy and terror that took hold in those years. He made sure to show us the finer places in town, even though we had very little money. That meant the lunch special at the local Vietnamese restaurant known to us as Quang Deli. Giant, steaming bowls of pho soup would arrive at our table. The cilantro, onions, and beef swirled around to create a magnificent concoction. We were taught to use chopsticks from the earliest of ages, no forks for these kids. The waiters smiled at what must have been an odd sight, this large bearded man accompanied by two animated cherubs. My dad would lean in close to us and whisper before motioning to our waiter. When he approached the table, Meagan or I (let’s be real, mainly me) would pipe up and say, “More meat please!” What a con artist, using a baby to get some free grub. He played the game well.
We developed a life, in small, finite ways. Grocery store, walk home, dinner, bath, story, bed. A routine is what we all craved after the chaos early on. His lawyer Barbara asked him to keep a journal of our life together, in case the judge needed proof that he knew what he was doing. How many times he changed us, what he fed us, what bedtime looked like. While the diary started off as the ramblings of an incoherent and sleep-deprived addict in early recovery, it became the written testament of a single parent who fiercely loved his children. And we loved him back.
Oct. 1, 1990
It is a Fall monday and they both are as sweet as only little girls can be, different as only sisters can be. We spend the quickly darkening fall evening wheeling up and down on your plastic trikes—one purple and one red.
Erin knows how to work the pedals as she rolls by, pointing to her feet and saying “Watch.” I sit on the steps and listen to the chatter. “My bike. Two bikes.” Erin talks constantly. “No touch,” she says, wagging a finger at me.
Meagan is less specifically interested in riding, unless she gets some distance between me and her. As soon as I yell and begin to run after, she goes like the wind in the other direction. A white kitty stalks both girls as they ride.
Both girls insist on a bath when we get upstairs, bolting naked as soon as their clothes are removed. Long peals of laughter trail behind them like vapor, hovering even as the bare footfalls fade.
Right this minute, the girls are playing a game of their invention in the tub. Like so many others, it involves one accomplishing some little task and the other cheering like there’s no tomorrow when it is accomplished. They take turns…mostly.
It’s near 8 and they will soon both be in bed and I will be grateful. Grateful they are mine, grateful they are so precious, and very grateful they are finally out of my hair. bye for now.
Jill came into our lives in 1994. She was blond, stylish, and basically my dad’s exact opposite. Her beauty was outmatched only by her smarts, and he was instantly smitten. Jill was a former director of administration for the Republican National Convention and in 1994 was headed back to her home state of Minnesota to apply to grad school to become a teacher. They met at a bar at a gathering of mutual friends. Sarah, a woman my dad had waited tables with, thought they might hit it off and had invited them both out. True to knucklehead form, my dad brought a date with him. When Sarah walked over to make the introduction, she sized up my dad’s date and said he should come over solo. My dad rolled his eyes but followed her. He walked into the next room and there was Jill. They shook hands and everything melted away. He asked her out immediately. True, she did not resemble the women he had dated in the past—often brunette and a bit rough around the edges—but he had a feeling that Jill was something else, something quite singular.