My sister and I drove down to see my father. We both look forward to and dread these visits. Not because my sister and I don't get along, but because my father is both Jekyll and Hyde and we have to dance so carefully around him to survive. This is the way it goes: one of us is the Good One and one is the Bad One. We're never sure who is going to be which, because it changes according to the alignment of the stars or whether or not he woke up that morning.Now, I love my dad. I love him carefully and reservedly because, given our history, it's impossible to freely invest my heart in him and, given our history, I don't want to. But I love him, often despite myself. I love his sense of humor. He's my Daddy and I love him for that. I love him because he instilled such fear in me as a child. I love the garlicky, red wine and spaghetti sauce smell of him that I hate when I encounter it anywhere else. I love the lessons he taught me. You wouldn't think a man could do so much harm to their child and still have something good to teach them, but he does. I love him for the good memories I have of him that survived everything else.
So we go down there, knowing we will enjoy the first half hour or so of the visit and then all three of us will squirm miserably until we can escape each other without seeming so obviously to need to. It's a dance the three of us have perfected over the years. We step on each others toes as we move, and I never fail to wonder why we continue to do it, never fail to feel embarrassed for us. But it's the relationship we have, the only one we can have, so we all keep boogying.
As it turned out, I was Bad Girl this time around. I often am. Maybe that's because I am more in-your-face than my sister is and refuse to allow his crap to go unnoticed and unremarked upon the way she does. Maybe it's because I am stronger than she is that way - I can handle mommy and daddy hating me easier than she can. I've had a long time and a lot of practice. Maybe it really is just an unlucky alignment of the stars. Who knows?
Still, I remain my father's daughter, a reluctant and unrepentant Daddy's Girl. Maybe that's why he picks on me - he knows he can and I'll love him anyway. My sister has my mother. We chose sides a long time ago and the parents cultivated relationships and particulars accordingly. He dances lightly around the edges of my sister because he continues to court her. I think maybe he respects her because he's afraid of her - like us, he doesn't want to make her mad for fear she won't love him anymore.
He knows exactly why I feel the way I do. He knows and grants me that silently without acknowledging it. His respect for me is genuine and rooted, in no small part, in fear of me. Both parents fear my unblinking, relentless vision of our lives. My mother rejects me because I wasn't malleable as my sister was. She wants very much to convince us all of a different life than the one we lived, absolving her of responsibility for it all. My parents have a lot to forget about. I'm the one who remembers it all the way it really happened. I don't need my mother or father so I don't have to rewrite history in my head in order to justify needing them.
That was Father's Day. My sister and I going down to dance with our Dad.
