“I’m done,” I said, leaning into the office. “Have you seen the sheets, so I can make the bed?”
“I don’t know. You must have packed them all.”
“I didn’t. I’m sure of it.”
We were both tired and sad, and the tension ratcheted up between us. I turned and went back into the bedroom, feeling icky and awful. I hated to make anyone upset, especially Scott, and I was incredibly sensitive to anything that felt like a rebuke, particularly on the night before we were going to be apart for so long. I dug up a sheet in the closet we had shared, but it was covered in the strange blue mold that sometimes grew in the house. I brought the sheet to my nose. It smelled earthy, not entirely clean. But it was fine, and I was too tired to care. I made up the bed and lay down alone, feeling like I was being punished for my ambition and my hunger to see the world, like it was costing me the love that felt like a home of my own. I was wide awake when Scott lay down. He didn’t touch me. I started to cry, needing my favorite part of the day, but knowing I’d been the one to give up this ritual, even just temporarily.
I knew if I went away without us having sex, it would feel like a wedge had come between us, especially because in the past, Scott and I hadn’t been able to get enough of each other: in his car, and my car; on the couch and in the stairway of our house, even though our roommates were home; in the stairwell under the Morrison Bridge on our way back from a party; once in the middle of the Hawthorne Bridge when it was closed for construction. And now, we weren’t even letting one centimeter of our skin brush up against each other.
Too soon, it was time to get up. The friend who was taking me to the airport waited downstairs, with a bottle of orange juice and a bottle of vodka. I held the vodka in my hand, too sick with sleeplessness, and too hungry for success, to take a drink. I sobbed as she pulled away from my home. As I had told Scott again and again as my departure date approached, I still loved him and wanted my future with him as much as ever, but I also needed more than Portland could give me. I knew there was no turning back. I had outgrown that time in my life, as good as it had been, just as I’d outgrown paradises before: Simon’s Rock, and before that, the land. There was nothing to be done but to move forward and hope the deep, true love I felt for Scott would help him to come with me somehow.
At school, I missed Scott terribly. I missed his bratty sense of humor and the nonchalant care he took of me. I missed the routines of our life together. I threw myself into school. At least I liked the challenge of conquering a new way to write. Seven years into my decision to become a writer, I remained obsessed. But sometimes journalism felt like working in a factory. Luckily my inner perfectionist was always eager for the A, and so I forced down my unhappiness and worked as hard as I possibly could.
I was very aware that I was once more in my father’s city. It had been eight years since I’d seen him, and we had long ago given up the pretext of planning visits. I had no expectations left for him to disappoint. I had certainly never anticipated any financial help when I’d taken up my plan for graduate school, and I wasn’t expecting him to treat me to cups of coffee. Still, I was drawn to him as with almost no one else. After I’d been living in Boston for a few weeks, I sent him a postcard telling him I was there. It was impossible not to want him to surprise me, but I didn’t let myself hope. I wasn’t even sure I’d get an answer. He did eventually write me back, and we began a sporadic correspondence, but any mention of visiting was vague. By Christmas, we had lived nine miles apart for four months. He hadn’t made any effort to see me, and was clearly not going to see me for the holidays. It was the closest we’d been to each other, geographically, since I was two. Clearly, this didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me.
During our time apart, Scott relented. He would be willing to come to Boston and try it out for one year, after which I would agree to move somewhere else if he really didn’t like it. I was so happy I was high. I was getting everything I wanted. I had that deep feeling of peace that comes at the end of a very hard time. After the past twelve months of scrimping and studying and counting the days, I was ready to be happy, my career and my love both moving forward.
I flew to Portland to spend Scott’s last days there with him before we drove cross-country together. I had loved driving the northern route with Claire five years earlier, and I was ready for the cute his-and-her scenes pictured in so many romantic comedies. But Scott didn’t seem to be enjoying himself, and I had no idea why. We were together. This was our adventure. This was our new life.
We made it to Cambridge, where we rendezvoused with Beth at our apartment. I saw it through Scott’s eyes. It was small. It was rough around the edges. We bought a cheap futon and frame and put it on the floor, which was a far cry from the beautiful, comfortable, antique bed we’d had in Portland. I got defensive, but as usual, I hid anything other than a completely positive reaction, except for when my insecurity flared up in the form of a cutting remark; beware of the passive-aggressive perfectionist.
I threw myself into my work. Instead of lingering in bed with Scott in the mornings, as I’d fantasized about doing during grad school, I sprung up to make calls, tackle my assignments, and take long runs through the streets of our neighborhood, always propelled forward, always on the move.
Scott had gotten trained in IT and basic computer tech and was trying to make a career leap in conjunction with his move. But it began to seem like he might not find a job. He was worried about money. He missed his band. He missed his friends. I was full of good ideas for how he could apply for more jobs, put an ad in the local punk magazine for people to play with, and when he didn’t immediately jump to make things better, I was convinced he wasn’t trying hard enough. But I believed if we weren’t fighting, there was no problem, and if we loved each other, everything would work itself out.
Scott got an IT job. He had been desperate enough to feel he had no choice but to overlook this position’s downsides, which were considerable: it was in a suburb outside the city, and it was graveyard shift. Still, Scott gamely put on a pair of black slacks and an ironed gray shirt and went into work. It took him a while to adjust to his new sleep schedule, and he was tired and drawn. But he found the sweet spots, bringing me stuffed French toast in bed when he got home from work at seven in the morning and convincing me not to get up for a few hours.
When Scott left for work at night, I was alone in the apartment, as Beth was working at a high-end restaurant, Number 9 Park. I dared to admit I was ready to begin writing my first novel. It started as a May-December love story between an older female writing professor and a young male student, inspired in part by one of my favorite movies at the time, the Tennessee Williams–penned Sweet Bird of Youth.
On Saturdays, I let Scott sleep late, sometimes until nearly eight o’clock at night, because he could be cranky when he first woke up. And because he always looked tired, with deep circles under his pretty blue eyes. And because, secretly, I relished my time alone. I could always write for another hour or two when given the chance.
As the fall progressed, our apartment became chilly, and then frigid. I sat at my desk all day long and shivered, wrapped in blankets. Wordlessly, Scott came home with a space heater he’d bought and plugged it in by my desk. It still made him happy to make me happy, and he did so in these small, lovely ways all the time.
But he was unable to pretend he was anything other than miserable. We went into the holidays on edge. I still loved Christmas like crazy. The one thing he had plenty of was the one thing he didn’t really care about: money. His job paid very well, and he had no chance to spend what he earned. He handed me a small wrapped package. I didn’t dare look at him, focused very intently on unwrapping the paper. Inside was a small black box. I was fluttery with excitement as I flipped back the lid.
Inside were two beautiful diamond studs. My heart sank, even as I was talking myself up. My love of glam rock–style bling was well documented; every outfit I wore was topped with a vintage rhinestone
necklace. I’d never owned diamonds before. I knew Scott well enough to be sure he’d done his research and bought me the best and biggest diamonds he could afford. I loved them. I was touched. But I had thought it was a ring. Although I never told him this out of a fear of hurting his feelings or making him feel bad, there had been a moment when I had said yes in my mind, but he had not asked me. I smiled at him and threw my arms around his neck, making up for my regret.
“They’re beautiful, Scott,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
“I thought about it, and I’m going to say something right up front,” he said.
“What?” I asked, still convinced there might be a proposal in there somewhere.
He paused. “It’s okay if you lose one,” he said. “I won’t be mad.”
I laughed, knowing this was a huge part of the gift. We’d never been able to afford anything nice, and I already didn’t trust myself with my new earrings. He knew just what to say.
I had now lived in Boston for more than a year, and my father had still not made any effort to see me. I was, however, having more regular contact with Betty again. In many ways, she was still the same as she’d always been: a ferocious correspondent who sent three or four cards each holiday and didn’t need to have any particular news as an excuse to write a letter. She remained incredibly generous, even though the picture frames and costume jewelry she sent as presents often appeared worn, as if they had been regifted.
She’d also begun calling me that fall. She was sometimes confused. But in a moment of clarity, she made a request.
“I want you to be the executor of my will,” she said. “I don’t trust Mimi or John to do it. I want you to be the one in charge.”
My instinct was to say: “No, that’s too much, I’m only twenty-four, and I can barely afford a bus ticket down to New York, let alone what else I might have to do if it comes down to it. You don’t trust your own children. I’m weak enough to be an easy mark for them and whatever they decide it’s their right to do with whatever little money and possessions you leave behind.” But I never said no.
“I don’t really know what that means, but I’ll do my best,” I said instead.
Of course, whenever Betty called, it was impossible for me not to think of my dad. I had pretended that not having him in my life was a nonissue, a simple, passive absence that prevented him from disappointing me or causing me pain. But it was an active, constant hurt. Every day that I lived nine miles from my father and he chose not to see me was a day that he rejected my presence in his life. And his rejection would always be more powerful, and tell me more about how much value I did or didn’t have, than all of the positive feedback from Scott and Beth, or my new friends, or the increasing number of editors who were giving me assignments.
Now there was also the matter of the nonengagement earrings. Scott hadn’t proposed that night, but we had talked about marriage and kids. As we looked forward to our five-year anniversary that August, I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. I was beginning to feel I’d found the foundation for my own family, but to start that family, I needed to make peace with my family of origin.
During the spring of 2001, at age twenty-five, I hadn’t seen my father in nearly ten years, but I found myself thinking about him more than ever. I was often distracted from my work as I sat at my desk on deadline. But now I didn’t just approach him with the narrow focus of the child’s constant, unrelenting want. I had gained the smallest amount of perspective, enough for me to recognize the damage he was doing to me. I realized that the fact that he was not physically present in my life did not lessen the profound presence he had, and would always have. I didn’t see how I could be a parent until I made peace with the absent parent he had been, whether he was a part of that process or not. I began writing letters to him in my mind while I was out running. We could reconcile, and we could have a relationship, whatever that might look like. Or if he did not respond to my efforts, I would be the one to put our relationship aside. In my father’s letters of the past nine years, he’d said he would see me when he quit gambling, his back healed, his court case settled. Having discovered what I truly wanted to say, I wrote him a letter inviting him back into my life. “Don’t wait until you’re perfect,” I wrote, “or it will be too late.”
As soon as I mailed my letter, I felt serene. Whatever happened, I had made my stand. I had done my absolute best to have a relationship with my father, and if he was absent from my life, it was not because I was the bad, unlovable girl I had always seen myself to be, but because he could not be the dad he was supposed to be.
chapter eleven
DECIDE WHO YOU LOVE
I tried not to have any expectations about how my dad would respond to my letter, or more accurately, how “John” would respond. As part of protecting myself, I’d begun calling him John instead of Dad. Even when I heard back from him in mid-March, and he suggested we meet for lunch on his fifty-fifth birthday, April 3, I didn’t let myself get too excited. I waited for him to write or call to cancel. When he didn’t, I still couldn’t quite believe I was going to see him that day. I sat at my desk, obsessing over an article I was writing, until I was about to be late to meet my dad. Now that was a turn of events.
As I rode the red line to South Station and walked to No Name Restaurant, his choice, I was queasy with nerves. I had seen my dad fewer than a dozen times between when my mom left him when I was two and when we had our falling-out when I was fifteen, and then I had not seen him at all for nine and a half years.
He was seated at a table by the window. I was surprised I recognized him so quickly. Of course I did. He was still my dad, even after nearly a decade. A plain cap framed his broad face, with its carved-wood cheekbones, and his dark eyes, which reminded me of Betty, and our family legacy of absent parents.
His skin was smooth and unlined, but when he smiled, he was no longer familiar. The intervening decade had been hard on him. His front teeth were stained and broken. When he stood and hugged me, he smelled familiar. But when he sat down again and removed his hat, he was nearly bald.
“Hi, Sarah,” he said, laughing nervously. It was all still there in the way he said my name, the sound of his voice.
“I think I need a beer to settle my stomach,” he said.
“I could drink a beer,” I said, trying to sound as if this were a novel concept.
“I don’t usually drink, but the bubbles help,” he said.
Grateful for the excuse, I ordered one, too. We both had the swordfish. When it was brought to the table, sizzling on metal plates, it was slick with hot grease. My father looked down, obviously disappointed. “It’s not as good as it used to be,” he said.
“Mine’s good,” I said, overbrightly. I wasn’t going to let him ruin this for me.
I felt something during that lunch I’d never experienced before in regard to John: doubt. It was obvious how much care he’d put into preparing to meet me: his new white sneakers, his flannel shirt under his carefully matched sweater. This showed nervousness on his part, which made me feel powerful. Also, he was clearly poor. This had never occurred to me. He had always promised me some wonderful future when he would have it together, and we would be reunited and happy. Suddenly I understood that he was old. Other dads were beginning to think about retirement, preparing for endings, not beginnings. His window for creating change was closing fast.
I still felt like a little girl around him, but I was trying to be a grown-up. There was so much between us, and yet we were strangers, which made it awkward and fraught. It also felt weirdly normal, and nice, a dad and his daughter having lunch on his birthday.
After we ate, we walked around the waterfront.
“That’s where Whitey Bulger and the mobsters used to bury their bodies,” he said, nodding toward a parking lot. “It used to be a totally different world down here, back when I was driving a cab. Across the water there, where Downtown Crossing is all department stores now, was the Combat Zone. That was what t
hey used to call the city’s adult entertainment district, you know, the red-light district, where the strip clubs and triple-X movie theaters were. Out in Jamaica Plain, where you lived last year, we never wanted to take any fares out there. I had someone pull a gun on me in JP once and take all of the money I’d earned for an entire shift. I went home with nothing.”
His stories about his years as a Boston cabbie fascinated me. They evoked a time I’d missed out on because of his choices. We came to the oversize milk bottle outside the Children’s Museum. Only, now I was big, and it was no longer giant.
“Do you remember when we came here when you were little?” he asked.
I nodded my head. I could remember being there, but I couldn’t distinctly remember that he’d been the adult there with me.
My dad insisted on walking me to my train, and I bristled. Maybe he just didn’t want the visit to end, but I was too insecure to think like that then, and all I could think was how nice it would have been if he’d been half as attentive when I was fifteen, or nine, or three. As he hugged me good-bye, I was unbelievably exhausted. He was intense, and something else—the phrase that came to mind was “emotionally crippled”—and now his intensity was turned on me. As much as I craved his attention, I was suddenly struck by how much responsibility it could be. Luckily, I had no expectations. I had no idea whether I would ever even see him again. I had sent him a letter, he’d responded, and we’d spent time together. After so many years of so little contact between us, that was enough to make me feel grateful.
My reunion with my father was a relief, but it didn’t solve everything. Scott’s unhappiness in Boston made me uncomfortable and resentful. I had no idea if Boston was my home, but I was defensive about having moved us there. And in many ways, I was thriving. My journalism career was taking off, and I was enjoying real mentorship from my editors at the Boston Globe. For the moment, it was good. Scott was making more money than he could spend, more than we’d ever had in our years together. For my birthday, he’d offered to buy us plane tickets to the country of my choice. I picked Italy.
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