My Evil Mother: A Short Story(5)

My father made contact by sending me a letter. He must have got my address from my mother, I realized later, but since I was in one of my phases of not speaking to her I didn’t ask her about that. It seemed to me she’d been getting crazier. Her latest thing—before I’d put her on hold—had been a scheme to kill her next-door neighbor’s weeping willow tree. I wasn’t to worry, she’d said: she’d do it by pointing, at night, so no one would see her. This would be in revenge for something about running over a toad on a driveway, and anyway, the willow roots were getting into the drains.

Avenging a toad. Pointing at a tree. Who could handle that kind of thing, in a mother?

At first I was surprised to get my father’s letter. Then I found that I was angry: Where had he been? What had taken him so long? I answered with a note of three lines that included the house phone number. We spoke, a terse, embarrassed exchange, and arranged to meet. I was on the edge of cutting him off, telling him I had no interest in seeing him—but this would not have been true.

We had lunch at a small bistro on Queen Street that served authentic French food. My father chose the restaurant, and I was impressed despite myself. I’d been intending to disapprove of him in every way.

My father asked if I would like some wine; he would not be having any himself, he said. Although I now considered myself a sophisticated young working girl and had taken to drinking at parties and on dates, I stuck with Perrier on this occasion; I needed a clear head and some self-control. Although I was very curious about my father, I was also furious—but I didn’t want to upbraid and denounce him before I’d heard his excuses for the shabby way he’d ignored me.

“Where have you been all these years?” was my first question. It must have sounded accusing.

My father was a pleasant-looking older man, fairly tall, neither obese nor cadaverous—nothing out of the ordinary, which was a disappointment; when you’ve spent your infancy believing your father has been magically transformed, there are expectations. He had hair, though less than he must once have had. Some of it was gray; the rest was the same dark brown as my own. He was wearing a good suit and an acceptable tie, ultramarine with a small geometric pattern in maroon. His blue eyes were like mine, and so were his thickish eyebrows. He raised these eyebrows now, which gave him an open, candid look. He smiled tentatively. I recognized that smile, which was like my own. I could see why he might have felt overpowered by my mother.

“Part of the time I was in prison.”

“Really?” I said. Suddenly he was more interesting. Whatever else, I hadn’t expected prison. “What for?”

“Impaired driving. I almost killed someone. Not that I could remember doing it. I was black-out drunk.” He looked down at the table, on which there was now a wicker basket containing thick slices of bread, both rye and white. “I’m an alcoholic.” His voice was oddly neutral, as if he were talking about someone else. Was he sorry for the damage he’d done?

“Oh,” I said. How to respond? By this time I knew several people who had problems with liquor, but none of them admitted it.

He must have sensed my nervousness. “That was a long time ago. I don’t drink anymore. At all. I went through the steps.”

“Oh,” I said again. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. The steps? “But where do you live?” I asked. Did he have a home? Was he one of those people you sometimes saw on the street, collecting money in cups? HUNGRY, SPARE CHANGE? No, because here we were in this tactful restaurant—his treat—preparing to eat a glamorous lunch. There was nothing homeless about his tie.

“I live here,” he said. “In this city. I’m married; I have two children. Two other children,” he added apologetically. He knew I would feel betrayed by this information, and I did.

He’d walked away from me, he hadn’t looked back, he’d been living a whole other life. I felt instantly jealous of these half siblings I’d never met.

“But what do you . . . But how do you . . .” I wanted to ask if he had a job, but wouldn’t that be rude? What kind of a job could you get with a run-over person and a prison term on your record?

He guessed what I wanted to say. “I couldn’t go back into my old job,” he said. “I used to be in sales and marketing; now I’m in social work. I volunteer at prisons, as well. I counsel people like me—about being an alcoholic and how to pull yourself out of it.”

I was relieved: not only would he not become a responsibility for me—someone I’d have to tend—but he was at least partly a virtuous person. I hadn’t inherited a totally rotten set of genes.

“Mother told me she’d turned you into a garden gnome,” I said. “The one beside our front steps. To explain why you weren’t there. That was her story when I was four.”

He laughed. “She used to say I’d be better off as a garden gnome,” he said. “I’d cause less harm and be more amusing.”

“I really believed it. I used to ask you for ice cream and things.”

“Did I give you some? The ice cream?”

“Yes,” I said. “You always did.” Foolishly, I began to sniffle. Inside my head I heard my mother’s voice: Never let anyone see you cry.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he said. He extended his hand across the table as if to pat me, thought better of it, withdrew it. “When you were little. Your mother decided I should leave, and the way I was then, I’m sure it was the right choice. She said I had a weak character. Hopelessly weak.”