Finding Dad

by Kara Sundlun

  I needed to put together a crackerjack tape to reflect my new name and maturity. The stuff I’d done when I interned in Rhode Island at seventeen wasn’t going to get me a real job as a TV news reporter, and I didn’t want to use my CNN stories that still had my old last name.

  I sent out tapes of my work to dozens of stations across the country. In return, I got loads of rejection letters, or nothing at all. This was a cutthroat business, and I quickly learned that it didn’t matter who your dad was if you weren’t what the news director wanted.

  After months of searching, and hundreds of dollars in postage and VHS tapes, I landed a job in the tiny town of Charlottesville, Virginia, home to the University of Virginia. Out of about two hundred TV markets in America, Charlottesville was market 196. It was a far cry from the network news job I aspired to, but I was grateful for their offer, since I knew they had hundreds of tapes from wannabe reporters. Dave Cupp—news director and evening anchor— decided he liked me enough to offer me an entry level reporter job for $18,000 dollars a year. I felt like I’d won the lottery, and couldn’t wait to tell Dad.

  “Dad, I got the job!”

  “Good for you! I know Charlottesville well, you’ll love it there. It’s not far from great horse country.” Too bad he had sold the farm. It was only a couple hours away and would have been a perfect weekend respite when I needed a break from beans and rice, which was all I was going to be able to afford.

  Even though I was only going to be a cub reporter, it felt cool to be following in Dad’s general footsteps. I drove to Rhode Island first and loaded up a U-Haul with furniture Dad gave me from his garage. I had an antique highboy, horse hair chaise lounge, and dozens of monogrammed placemats. He even threw in some pieces of silver.

  My new decor clashed with my humble salary, but I liked eating noodles on dinnerware fit for nobility.

  During my first week on the job, Dad called the newsroom frantically looking for me. The assignment editor who took the call came rushing over to my desk. “Kara, Governor Sundlun is on the phone for you…”

  I could see him suddenly connecting the dots…my last name, the Governor…and I realized any anonymity I’d enjoyed as a regular gal was blown. But by now, I was used to Dad making himself known.

  Ever impatient, he dove right in with little preamble. “Kara, I’ve been looking all over for you, and I couldn’t get your number from the operator. They say it’s unlisted.”

  “It is, Dad, that’s why I had you write it down. It’s not safe for a young woman on TV to list her address and phone number.”

  The exasperation in his voice grew. “What kind of news reporter are you? Emergencies happen on weekends and holidays, so how is anyone ever going to find you?”

  I tried not to laugh. “Dad, trust me, I’ll do fine. The station can always get hold of me.”

  A few days later he called back to admit he’d been wrong to blow his top. “I called Karen Adams at Channel 12 in Providence who, by the way, is someone you should aspire to be, really a first rate news anchor. Anyway, she agreed that you shouldn’t list your number, so I’ll yield to her advice.”

  My father’s antics never angered me because his concern was the grounding force I had always needed in my life. Mom’s effervescence sometimes meant living life in the clouds, which translated to not knowing when, where, or how to land. By contrast, Dad’s tight tether on me made me feel steady and safe. I needed both energies to feel balanced.

  As much as Dad tried to keep his finger on my pulse, I had big plans to conquer the world of TV news. Being the next big name as a war correspondent or network anchor danced through my head. However, it didn’t take long for my delusions of grandeur to crash and burn. After only two weeks on the job, I was working on a Sunday morning and heard “murder/suicide, Commonwealth Ave.” on the police scanner. Since this was Tiny Town, USA, I was a one woman band, shooting, writing, and editing my own stories.

  I grabbed a map and rushed to the scene, cursing my horrible sense of direction. When I arrived, I was the only reporter on the scene. A man had shot his girlfriend and turned the gun on himself, leaving their two-year-old baby crying in the crib. The woman’s family was understandably distraught and yelling profanities at me as I tried to get footage from a safe distance, hoping the camera was straight. The teenaged sister of the victim came rushing at me and shoved the camera into my face. It fell to the ground with a loud cracking sound. Watching it splinter into several pieces, I thought my whole career had splintered with it because I knew the camera cost more than a family car. The police rushed over to grab the girl before she could do anything else, but it was clear my eye was already swelling and developing a black and blue ring around it. I decided I’d better call my news director, Dave Cupp, and let him know what happened. Dave calmly asked if I was okay before sending in a photographer with a truck, so I could report live from the scene. I had never done a live shot before and wanted to tell him about my black eye, but I decided I’d try to cover it up with some makeup, since this could be my big break.

  Well, so much for my big break. So much for Dad’s great genes. It was absolutely awful. I gave a terrible, shaky, jumbled report. My voice was irritatingly high, I couldn’t keep the facts straight, and I even messed up signing off. I was so nervous, I said “Live in Charlottesville,” when it was really Albemarle County, the kind of mistake that would make any local think you were an idiot. I was so upset with myself, Dave’s disappointment felt like nothing. Thankfully, he didn’t fire me, and instead put me on easier fluff stories and had me help out with data entry in his office.

  My very wise talent agent, Steve Dickstein, had always told me that you want to make your mistakes in a place where no one is watching, so you don’t offend your future employers. I was learning that my lineage didn’t matter, I would still be judged on what I produced, regardless of my fancy new last name. In some ways the name was a curse because people had greater expectations of me, so starting from a false pedestal ensured that I had farther to fall. Fortunately, my determination muscle was already strong, and I overcame my image of being too green by working hard. I had already seen how persistence paid off when I was trying to get Dad to accept me, so I used the same strategies to convince my employers I could get better. And I did. I started breaking big stories in town and took voice lessons to learn how to sound more authoritative. I spent weekends in writing workshops polishing my craft and, after about fourteen months it paid off. I got a job offer from Grand Rapids-Battle Creek Michigan, market thirty eight, which was about a 160 market jump!

  This time, I was ready. I got an apartment next to the police station and worked day and night developing sources and breaking stories. My drive was, in part, fueled by a deep need to make it to an even bigger market on the East Coast, so I could be closer to Dad. He was nearing eighty, and I felt like I was racing the clock. I wanted to see him as much as possible, but I also wanted to grow a great career. Part of me thought about just quitting TV and living with Dad while I got some sort of job to pay my bills, but I felt like that would be selling out. I now had two dreams, building a relationship with my father and a solid career that would make both of us proud. While I was in Michigan, I covered some big stories and got to interview presidential candidates like John McCain, since they all campaigned often in our swing state.

  I loved sharing the stories with Dad as a way to bond over his love of politics. I was also starting to tell Dad more about the new beau in my life, whom he knew very, very well. David, the staffer who picked me up at the airport the first day I met my father, was now my boyfriend. We’d reconnected on a reunion trip for my father’s old staff. I knew my father loved him, and that meant the world to me.

  “You know he’s actually known me longer than you have,” I teased my father.

  My father loved having him around. “He’s a good young man.”

  And it didn’t hurt that David still called him Governor! It felt good to have a man in my life who understood our
complicated history without my having to explain anything. We dated for a few years and had a wonderful time, but eventually went our separate ways.

  I wasn’t the only one who had gone separate ways: Dad delivered his own breaking news. After being married to Marjorie for a little over a decade, he’d decided to divorce her and marry Soozie, the woman he’d been secretly dating for years. Dad promised he would always take care of Marjorie—and he did— since she wasn’t self-sufficient after her accident.

  “We are madly in love,” Dad said about Soozie.

  It would be my father’s 5th wedding, and my brothers joked that each time the women kept getting younger. Soozie was only forty-six years old, thirty-four years younger than my father.

  I didn’t know what to say. It’s not that I didn’t know about Soozie, because I did, but I always felt guilty about knowing. She was a photographer, and they’d met while she was taking his picture—years before I surfaced. Eventually, he introduced us, and I liked her.

  She was a beautiful, talented, loving mother of two wonderful children a little younger than me. Though they’d been together for years, I never thought he’d marry her. He had always insisted that he would never leave Marjorie because of the accident. It made it doubly hard because Marjorie had been so nice to me. I wondered if I should just be happy for Dad and Soozie. After all, what were my choices? I mean, I could stamp my feet, but that wouldn’t change the outcome. Facts were, he loved her and she loved him, so wasn’t that enough? Marjorie would be taken care of, so do I need to worry about something I can’t control? There were no easy answers, and all I could do was look to my brothers for guidance on how to handle this news.

  Tracy wasn’t thrilled, but he wasn’t exactly surprised either. “Dad is Dad—this is what he’s been doing all his life. He did it to our mother and every wife after.”

  “I really like Soozie, and I know how happy she makes him, but I just feel bad for Marjorie.”

  This wasn’t easy. My dad had become my hero, yet he was far from perfect. I could either judge him and lose him, or love him in spite of his imperfections. My brothers had far more experience with this, and their attitude was that step-families come and go—it was part of life with Dad.

  I didn’t want to think of my father as the “womanizer” the papers referred to, but I also didn’t think it was my place to intervene, especially since my brothers’ experiences had taught them to take the news in stride.

  Dad planned to marry Soozie at his home in Jamaica, and he expected us all to be there. “We’re getting married on January 1, 2000, and we want you all to be in the wedding party.”

  “Wow, that’s great, let me see what I can do about work.”

  Uh-oh was the first thought that came to mind, since we were staring down the gun barrel of the infamous Y2K, and everyone feared computer systems around the world might crash. My station had already informed everyone that no one would be getting New Year’s off this year—no exceptions. I was afraid asking about going to my father’s wedding would be career suicide, but I knew I had to push. I’d missed so many events with my father, and I didn’t want to miss this. After a few tense conversations, my boss relented and I promised if Y2K did corrupt the world, I could do reports from Jamaica, making our coverage look even more expansive. I don’t think he bought into it, but he was clearly sick of my asking, and finally gave in.

  Soozie wanted my brothers and me, along with her two grown children, Max and Heather, to make up the wedding party. We wore dresses in her favorite shade of blue, while Dad and Soozie were pronounced man and wife under one of the most beautiful sunsets I’d ever seen. I couldn’t help but stand back and look at everyone and marvel that we really had become a family. Dad had made it a point to include me, insisting that I attend and be a bridesmaid. I loved sharing another special moment with him, since we had missed so many. As usual, I didn’t want my time with my father to end, and I couldn’t wait for the next family gathering.

  As a footnote—and I know this is going to be hard to believe— Marjorie and Dad remained close, even after the wedding. He helped her get a nice apartment that offered assisted living, and when it came time for Soozie to host her first Sundlun Family Thanksgiving, she warmly invited Marjorie…and my mother. Shocker, I know. What’s even more bizarre is they both responded to the formal invitations with a yes! I didn’t know what was stranger—having my mother and father celebrate Thanksgiving together, or watch my father dine with his ex-girlfriend, ex-wife, and his new wife like nothing ever happened. Soozie made sure to snap the only picture I have of me and my parents sharing a holiday, and it’s framed in my home today. I had always dreamed of normal, and this decidedly didn’t qualify—but in a way it was better. We were a real family and, despite our many flaws, we all decided to love each other anyway. That was something to truly be grateful for.

  I returned to my job in Michigan depressed. It was hard being so far away from Dad, and I worked hard to find a job opening closer to him. I’d sent out tapes, but no one was biting.

  Finally, an exciting offer from WTAE in Pittsburgh came through, and my agent advised me to take the wonderful opportunity. It was tempting—a great station in a bigger market— but it was still a plane ride away from my father, and I couldn’t bring myself to commit. It was a hard decision, but soon after that, I received an offer for a part-time job in Hartford, Connecticut. My agent thought the Pittsburgh job was clearly the better choice, with its bigger market, more money, and full time. But I chose Hartford because it was only a two hour drive from Dad. I figured I needed one more good job before I could break into New York or Boston, and thought Hartford would be good enough. And the upside was that I could go home to Dad every weekend if I wanted. My heart was leading the way, so a bigger paycheck and more prestige would have to wait. Little did I know seven years after meeting my father, I would meet the man I was going to marry at that television station in Hartford. Seems the Universe was guiding me again.

  16 Dad Signs Off on the One

  Dennis House was one of the first people I met at my new station. He was handsome with dark hair that was always disheveled until moments before the newscast, and copper colored eyes. But it was his boyish demeanor that instantly disarmed me. He smiled broadly, making his dimples pop, and introduced himself in his deep, warm voice, “Hi, Kara, I’m Dennis, welcome to Channel Three.”

  I felt my face blush as I thanked him. One of the main anchors excited to meet me? I wished I’d have thought of something cleverer to say.

  Dennis was only in his mid-thirties, which was quite young to be one of the main evening anchors at WFSB, one of the most-watched CBS affiliates in the country. I was a bit intimidated on my first day, since some of the biggest names in the business, like Gayle King, Bill O’Reilly, and Mika Brzezinski, had come out of WFSB. But Dennis put me at ease by joking that he’d been waiting to meet me, especially after reading my bio. Obviously, it wasn’t because I’d broken some huge story. Come to find out, we’d both interned at WPRI in Providence, then worked in the Grand Rapids market before ending up in Hartford. It was fate that Dennis also loved Newport, and had a beach cottage there.

  We became instant friends, but I was leery of anything more since I knew it wasn’t smart to become the “anchor’s girlfriend.” I harkened back to what Dad always told me: “In the military, they taught us to keep it five hundred yards from the flagpole,” meaning keep your love life off base!

  Instead, we became good friends, and I loved being around him. I kept true to keeping it five hundred yards from the flagpole, but Mom helped change the course of our relationship when she came to visit me. Dennis and I had gone to the gym together and were doing a little grocery shopping when we bumped into her. She had heard about Dennis, but when she saw us sharing a cart, her Hungarian vibes kicked in, and she pulled Dennis aside and whispered something in his ear.

  “Mom! What are you doing?” I was more than a little annoyed and embarrassed.

  “Nothing�
��just being your mother,” she answered cryptically, while Dennis had a broad smile splashed across his face.

  That night Dennis decided to go for it and kissed me for the first time, confessing what my mother had told him: “Hang in there, you’re the one for her.”

  The kiss was great, but I was still worried that we both worked together. Mom was never one for being practical, and encouraged me to follow my heart on this one. She loved to be nosy, and insisted she knew Dennis would be the man I would marry, after just taking one look at him. She must have been clairvoyant, because it wouldn’t take me long to forget about the fact that our paychecks came from the same place.

  Despite Mom’s eagerness about Dennis, I refrained from telling my father about him, assuming he wouldn’t like that I broke the flagpole rule. Then one night fellow reporter Kim Fettig and I stopped by Dennis’s Newport cottage for a drink. I told him we couldn’t stay long since Kim and I were having dinner with my father at the Skybar in Newport. Little did I know that Dennis took that morsel of information as invitation to meet my father. When I left him, he was wearing shorts and a baseball cap, and still grimy from a day at the beach. Thirty minutes later, Kim spotted him first at the top of the stairs walking into the exclusive restaurant dressed like Gatsby himself in a summer khaki suit and blue and white striped tie.

  Kim leaned over and whispered to me. “Kara, I think that’s Dennis over there.”

  “What….oh my God, it is. What’s he doing here?”

  With an air of confidence, Dennis walked up to our table and went straight to my father, without even glancing at me. “Governor, I’m Dennis House.”

  Dad looked at him incredulously. “You’re the anchorman?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “Among other things,” Dennis answered somewhat cryptically.

  “It’s the other things I’m worried about!” Dad shot back, cracking us up.