Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog (7 page)

You know that Mother Mary is extraordinary. Father Frank is, too, though he has passed away. The fact that he is gone seems simply beside the point. I’m still a daddy’s girl.

Let me tell you why.

Oddly, I’ll start by telling you what Father Frank was not. He couldn’t fix everything; he didn’t have all the answers. He wasn’t one of these all-knowing, omnipotent fathers who solve all problems, handle all situations, and generally stand in for God or, at least, Santa Claus.

He wasn’t a tough guy, either. He couldn’t even bargain for a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. Once we ended up paying $50 for the Charlie Browniest tree on the lot. The asking price was $35 but he gave the tree guy a tip for lashing it to the car.

Nor was he a sugar-daddy kind of father, granting all the requests of his adored, and only, daughter. In fact, though I was always adored, I found out at midlife that I wasn’t even his only daughter.

I learned I had a half-sister, whom he had fathered while in college at Berkeley. She had been put up for adoption in California and eventually came to find him. He opened his arms to
her, even though my meeting her was like a bad episode of
The Patty Duke Show,
which may be redundant.

So he made mistakes, some with blue eyes. By the way, before you feel sorry for my half-sister, she got a wonderful adoptive family. I got The Flying Scottolines. At least I wrote a novel about it—in fact, several.

My family is a miniseries.

Above all, my father loved life. He liked everybody and he ate anything. I cannot remember him not smiling. When he found out my brother was gay, he went down to South Beach to help him open a gay bar. I’m not sure who got the first dance.

He was agreeable and easy. I remember once he told me he’d seen a certain movie, and I asked him why, because it had been badly reviewed. He said, “That’s where the line was going.”

He was a reliable man, too. An architect, he never missed a day of work for sickness or any other reason. He loved his job, always. Any trip in the car would take us somehow past a construction site, and he’d get out and explain how the building was being constructed. He was always home at 6:15 for dinner and he always fell asleep on the living room floor, afterwards.

Sleeping on the floor is a big thing in my family.

Of course, he was most reliable about me. We talked all the time, about everything. He always asked what I learned in school that day and listened carefully to my answer. He helped me with my trig homework; he taught me to read a map. He drove me and my friends everywhere, both ways—no trading off with other parents for him.

He clapped at every high school play, whether I had a big or
little part. When I was older, he beamed through every book signing. At one of my signings, someone said to him, “You must be very proud that your daughter is an author.”

He replied, “I was proud of her the day she came out of the egg.”

And he was.

I felt his love and pride all the time, no matter how I screwed up. When my first marriage foundered, about the time daughter Francesca was born, I quit my job and went completely broke. He didn’t have much money, but what he had, he offered to me. When I found a job part-time, he babysat for Francesca every morning, made her breakfast, and took her to school. From him, she learned that it was possible to toast a bagel with the cream cheese already on top.

She will never forget that.

Nor will I.

Sometimes I feel sorry for fathers. And I wonder if they feel sorry for themselves. It’s as if they’re the supporting actor of parents, or second-best. It’s like we have a Father’s Day only because we don’t want them to feel left out after Mother’s Day. In a Dick-and-Jane world, it’s moms who get top billing, and fathers who are simply, at best, there.

But may I suggest something?

There’s a lot to be said for simply being there.

My father was always there. And whenever he was with me, I knew it was exactly where he wanted to be. There.

And I feel absolutely certain that, even in this day of cell phones and BlackBerrys, he wouldn’t be checking either of them when he was there. In all my adult life, I have never met anyone who was so completely there.

There is underrated. There is a sleeper. There doesn’t get
much hype, but there is about love and devotion. About constancy and sacrifice.

Here is my wish for you:

On Father’s Day, may you be lucky enough to have your father there.

I am a woman who likes routines, but now that daughter Francesca is home from college for the summer, the times they are a-changing.

By way of background, she is my only child and I’m a single parent, so it’s just the two of us. Even so, I had gotten used to the empty-nest thing. I liked everything being in order, or at least in my favorite form of disarray. I had my own hours and habits. I walked in the morning with the dogs. Worked all day. Cooked something simple and light during the evening news. Worked at night or read, guilt-free. Showered as necessary.

But my baby bird is back, and she’s wrenched my life out of shape. For example, I had to move all of my winter clothes, boxes, and books out of her room, as she insisted on having a bed.

Annoying.

Also, she thought it would be fun if we got a kitten, and I went along. But somehow we couldn’t leave with only one kitten, so we got two. When we took them home, I learned that one plus one doesn’t equal two, when it comes to kittens. Looking at my house now, you would think I hired a kitten wrecking crew. Their names are Mimi and Vivi, and they’re conspiring as we speak. They shred toilet paper. They climb table lamps.
They surf throw pillows. By the way, we already had four pets—three golden retrievers and a bossy Welsh corgi—and you can imagine their happiness at the new arrivals. The goldens think the kittens are delicious. The corgi thinks she gave birth.

My schedule is a mess, too. Francesca’s become a vegetarian, so we go food-shopping all the time. We’re in the market, squinting at labels and scanning for magic words like cruelty-free. What’s the alternative? Pro-cruelty? Obviously she’s right, but all of a sudden, I’m spending too much of my life around produce. Plus, I’m carb-free, which means that we agree only on celery.

I don’t recognize my own shopping cart. I buy Bocaburgers and tempeh like they’re going out of style. This is food you couldn’t pick out of a lineup. Bocaburgers look like coasters, and tempeh looks like fiberglass. I’ve eaten Bocaburgers, so I know they’re good with ketchup, because everything is good with ketchup. As for tempeh, I have no idea what it tastes like or how to prepare it. I’m thinking sautéed. With ketchup.

Worse yet, Francesca likes clean clothes, which I regard as picky. Living alone, I have gone months without doing laundry. I work at home, and the UPS man doesn’t care if I wear the same T-shirt and shorts all week. So does he.

But now dirty clothes make a high and aromatic pile on the floor. Francesca and I play Laundry Chicken, to see which one of us breaks down first and washes the clothes. I suspect that at the middle of the pile is a kitten. Two kittens.

Still, no matter what, I refuse to iron. Nor do I want her to iron. In fact, I don’t own an iron and will not buy one. Women shouldn’t iron, ever. It’s our wrinkles that make us interesting.

And there’s a drastic difference in Francesca’s and my hours. I keep Normal Hours, and she keeps Vampire Hours. I used to wait up for her and worry. Now I go to sleep and hope for the
best. Even when she stays home, she’s up late watching TV or talking on the cell phone. Did you know that at any given hour of the night, three billion sleepless young people are updating their Facebook profile, friending each other, or announcing their newly single status? If only we could harness their energy, we’d be less dependent on foreign oil.

Our entertainment choices differ, too. I don’t go out much, but last weekend, I suggested that we go see a movie at seven thirty. She talked me into seeing the ten-thirty show. I fell asleep in the movie, twice, and she had the gall to wake me up. What does it mean if even Brad Pitt puts me to sleep?

Don’t answer.

Plus she bought a box of fresh Raisinets and a bag of popcorn, which reminded me that carbs practically demand to be eaten, so now I’ve fallen off the wagon.

You get the idea. My daughter has disturbed my empty nest and she’ll be home all summer.

And you know what?

I wouldn’t have it any other way.