I swallow a bite of grilled cheese, processing Finn’s words. He’s right. I am in the driver’s seat here. This is one situation where Ishouldbe taking control. It’s unfair for me to expect Finn to just intuitively know that watching him sit here and be friendly to my dad is killing me.
“I don’t even know what to say to him,” I sigh. “But I thinkI need to try to connect with him about everything, you know? Not just chitchat.”
“I think you’re right.” Finn nods.
When my dad reenters the room, I say, “We need to head out to the tow yard to see what the damage is on the car. Dad, would you be able to drive me over to take a look?” I glance at Finn, hoping he’ll be okay with this plan for me and my dad to get some alone time.
“That’d be great,” Finn says, wiping his hands on a paper towel. “I’ve got some work I need to catch up on. I can just hang here.”
“Are you sure?” It’s funny to think that after two days of trying to keep me out of the driver’s seat, Finn is now going to let me be the one to take inventory of the damage.
“I trust you. Singer’s going to get it on a flatbed back to California. I just want to make sure we’ve logged all the damage in case something happens during the shipment.”
My dad gets in the BMW instead of the Wagoneer, and I breathe a sigh of relief. The drive to the mechanic is short. Dad flips through the radio channels, landing on a country station, and “Callin’ Baton Rouge” fills the coupe. I try to figure out how to start a conversation, but we’re pulling into the parking lot before I manage to find a way to break the silence.
The Porsche is front and center of the mechanic’s shop. I take a few pictures of the major damage and a short video as I circle the car.
“It’s really not that bad,” my dad says, giving the roof a couple of loving taps. “Just a little bit of body damage.” He circles to the other side of the car. “And obviously the tire.” He squats down to inspect it further. “You and I could fix itright up, Emmie Girl.” Warmth suffuses me, and I think back to all the times when I was a kid that I’d join him in the garage and watch him work on his Jeep.
“I don’t know that I’m up to a Singer-level restoration,” I say.
“You could be. I remember how nice that Bronco of yours ended up.”
The Bronco had been my college car; I’d fixed it up all on my own. Dad had seen it when he came to visit that one time junior year. I remember him kicking the tires and nodding approvingly. He’d asked me all about the engine, the body, where I’d taken it for the paint job. But all I wanted was for him to ask me about my classes, my junior design project, my friends, my senior year plans, and what I hoped to do after graduation. He didn’t seem to want to get into any of that. Cars were always the language that my father felt the most comfortable speaking, and as a kid, I’d always striven to gain my own fluency, proud that we had something in common. But as I got older, I realized that a shared love of sleek new rides and classic old engines wasn’t enough to sustain an entire father-daughter relationship. That more than anything, a father-daughter relationship is just based onbeing there.
“I could have used your help fixing up the Bronco,” I say to him now, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. “Could have used your help with a lot of things throughout the years, actually.” My tone is still even, but I’m trying to get my dad to see how much his absence affected me. To finally have this conversation that we’ve put off for two decades.
“Nah, you didn’t need your old man.” Dad waves me off with his hand. “Your mom had things handled.”
Yeah, well maybe she shouldn’t have had to, I think. Rage blazes to life inside me. I’ve learned to bottle up my own hurt, but for him to pretend like he didn’t royally screw Mom over is more than I can handle. Dad doesn’t seem to notice the shift in my mood.
We confirm with the mechanic that Singer is sending a flatbed to pick up the car tomorrow morning. After that, there’s really not much else for us to do.
We get back in the BMW, and I can’t help giving some oxygen to the anger I have banked inside me. “Is Kimberly driving the Wagoneer these days? I didn’t see another car.”
“Who?” Dad asks. Then recognition hits him. He scratches behind his right ear. “I, uh, no. Kim ended up moving back to Dallas years ago. She’s not really a desert girl. She never liked that I dragged her out here.”
This update leaves me with a cold realization. For years, I’d had the specter of “Kimberly from marketing” to blame for dragging my dad away, but apparently I had it all wrong.
I pick through all the other ways my childhood could have turned out. My father could have been with Kimberly, but still in Dallas, still in my life. People leave marriages all the time without leaving their kids. Liz and I could have shared a room at his house. We could have switched off Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sure, it would have sucked. We would have wished our parents were still together, but I still would’ve had a dad. He could’ve been there when I broke my arm on Willow’s trampoline, when I won state in debate, when I graduated from high school. My mom could have had a life outside of us. Maybe if she’d had a weekend free a month, shewould’ve found someone. Instead, she spent twenty years of her life working or taking care of us with no downtime and no help. Thinking again about everything my mom went through obliterates any of the tactfulness I have left.
“So then why did you leave?” It’s a straightforward question. I try to keep the anger out of my voice, but it creeps in.
“I always wanted to live out in the country. I couldn’t breathe in the city.” He’s answering my question as if I asked why he relocated to Arizona, not why he abandoned his family. “Your mom would always brush me off when I said I wanted to move to the desert. We didn’t quite see eye to eye on—well, on a lot of things.”
He’s almost fifty years old, and he’s still making excuses.
Scraps of memory from the “before” half of my childhood begin to flood my mind. I remember lying in bed, listening to the sounds of an argument drifting up the stairs. Mom shouting, Dad not saying much. I can hear the pleading in Mom’s voice—telling Dad they could work past this. That you didn’t just walk out when things got hard. That you didn’t do that to your children. Admiration at my mom’s strength washes over me now. She was determined to try to make her marriage work even after my father cheated, but it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t force him to stay.
As I look out the window, we pass a playground filled with kids, their parents clumped beneath whatever shade they can find. I realize that my dad already had both me and Liz when he was my age. I can’t imagine the responsibility of having a kid, much less two, but I know with every fiber of my being that I wouldn’t leave them. Especially when someone waswilling to forgive him for his infidelity. My mom was willing to look past a massive mistake. I can’t fathom giving someone that amount of grace.
My voice is low with anger. “Mom wanted to work it out, and you still left. What the fuck is wrong with you?” It’s a nuclear response, but I can’t believe he was so self-centered.
“I was never a good husband—” Dad starts to give another excuse.
“You were a gooddad!” The words leave my mouth in a hiss. “Your kids didn’t just disappear when you crossed the state line. We were still there. We still needed a father. You abandoned us.”
My tone finally seems to register with him, but he doesn’t look over at me. I don’t know what I expected from him. An apology? Some regrets? At the very least an acknowledgment of the pain he caused. But I’m getting none of those. He’s sitting there, just as silent as he was back in our kitchen all those years ago when Mom was pleading with him.
