Last night I was really depressed. And yet, I had reason to celebrate. I needed a bottle of red wine and some comfort food.
So I stopped at Kroger and bought a cheap bottle of Rioja (imported de España), some frozen spinach, fake hot dogs, and Lipton Alfredo noodles. Many people, I realize, find comfort in mashed potatoes, or chicken noodle soup, or other things their parents made for them when they were sick. My comfort foods, on the other hand, are those meals my dad would make for me and my brother when we visited his house on the weekends. Compared to mom's food, which was natural, wholesome, and healthy, my dad's food was almost like a foreign cuisine. I'm not sure why we ate this particular combination so frequently; I doubt he was enjoying meals of Alfredo noodles, frozen spinach, and hot dogs during the weeks when we were at mom's. But when we got there, he would bake the hot dogs until the skin was crispy and black, just the way I loved them. I have loved spinach since I was very young, and my brother and I thought Alfredo noodles, next to ramen, were the greatest thing on earth.
He did many things differently than mom. Although he doesn't drink now, he used to. He gave my brother his first taste of beer. I remember Baxter was so young, he couldn't even hold the bottle. I was old enough to know it was wrong, but I assured myself that daddy knew what he was doing. He used to buy us cereal with sugary marshmallows and frosting. I begged him to buy Cheerios because I couldn't stand the sugar (unlike my other friends parents, my mom absolutely refused to add sugar to our cereal). He bought Honey Nut Cheerios, which I found disturbing and gross, but I appreciated the effort and didn't complain.
We used to spend all weekend glued in front of his television, where he would let us watch MTV. Mom never had cable, but I can assure you, even if she did, she would not have let us watch this.
Daddy lived in apartments, moving around year to year, until he married my stepmother in 1987. I loved this roving quality, and apartment complexes were like magical places to me. Daddy would always be so tan (he went to tanning beds before swimsuit season, but he only had to go a few times because he tans so easily), and we would go swimming in the apartment pools when the weather was nice. Baxter and I used to take turns holding on tightly around his neck while he swam the length of the pool underwater. It was thrilling, but felt safe because I knew I could always let go and kick off his back to get to the surface, which I admit I did a few times out of panic.
I used to relish riding around in his sporty, single-man cars. I loved sitting in the front seat beside him, watching in fascination while he spritzed on Jovan Musk for Men and shaved the few hairs on his head with his portable electric razor. He would talk on his radio ("W-A-4-R-U-Lucky!" he would call out, and turn to us and grin), and he taught us how to stick our hands out of the windows and sunroof, changing the angle and curvature of our hand to maximize the wind on our faces. When I sat in the back, he would always call out, "Is that too much wind on ya, Charity?" Pulling my long straight brown hair out of my mouth, I would always respond in my little girl yell, "No, Daddy," or "No, Daddy, it feels good!" depending on how long I could keep my hair in my little hands. It was always too much wind, but I never wanted to say so.
Baxter and I told everyone once that daddy was on the Greensboro Hornets, the local minor league baseball team. We got confused, because he took us to his softball games when it was the season. Baxter and I would run around the bleachers, hiding and chasing one another, waiting for daddy's turn at bat, or the next time he would catch the ball. I remember once, after a game and while he was making our Alfredo-spinach-hot dog meal, I picked up his glove and fingered the soft leather. "C-R-A-B," I read. "Daddy, why does it only say crab?" He laughed. "Everyone knows who Crab is," he responded. (When daddy is happy, he laughs. Not a loud laugh, but a knowing laugh. No matter why he's laughing, you always feel like maybe you're in on the joke, or maybe there's more you arent privy to.)
Daddy once gave Baxter an elaborate racetrack with electric magnetic cars and big loops and jumps, and he helped us set it up on the dining room table. We played with it, the three of us, for hours. Daddy did fun things, unlike mom, who did grown-up things. Once daddy had a Halloween party while we were at his house. I came down from bed to find him standing with a rainbow clown wig on, in a black cape, with a bumper sticker attached to his chest that read: "Beam Me Up Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here." He let me stay, after I begged, and I almost immediately gravitated to a woman dressed as a diner, with a short little waitress dress on and a circular table hanging around her waist. I was enthralled by the change glued to her portable workstation.
Sometimes he took us to work with him. I remember when he worked at a sign shop with a friend of his; they set up the machines to make big signs for businesses. (This was back when people actually made stuff using machines, not just computers making stuff using machines.) He showed us the welding hat he wore sometimes; we made him put it on and show us.
Once daddy was working with some friends at local college NC A & T, making a pod that would go up into space on the next space shuttle. They were going to put an ape in it and I remember being horrified, since after Challenger I figured that all spaceships were doomed. One of his friends on this project gave me a hamster, named Herbie. I loved him and took him home with me to mom's (daddy never had pets). He would sneak out all the time, though, and we would find him in the plush carpet on the stairs. Once I made mom sleep with me because he was gone and we couldn't find him. I was afraid his little ghost would come get me, but he ended up waking us up in the middle of the night, scratching at the side of the Barbie pool that had trapped him.
Adventures have always followed daddy around. We went to Hanging Rock State Park once and he made us sit on an overhang to get a picture. I remember being so terrified and certain I was going to die, repeating to myself the order not to grab for my brother when I fell, like a mantra. I saw the picture years later and I look perfectly calm and happy, basking in the glow of my daddy's presence.
Once he took us on a plane with his friend, who did loops in the air. I thought I was going to die, and almost threw up in the plane. There's a picture afterwards and I'm grinning uncertainly, glad to be on the ground but looking scared about something. My hair is long, blonde, and curly, and I'm wearing my favorite light blue dress with matching knee socks. I wore it the one day he took me to school that year, too. I was so proud, as if I needed to show to everyone in my class that I had a daddy, too. He didn't come inside.
Once I sat for hours on the front porch, certain he would come pick us up despite the fact that it was getting dark and even Baxter had already gone back in. My mom came out and sat beside me eventually, tenderly suggesting that perhaps daddy mixed up the weekends, and that I should come in. I refused at first, thinking surely he was on his way. I didn't want him to think I gave up on him when he got there. I sat with my new doll on my lap, wanting to show it to my daddy, wanting him to drive up in his sporty car and prove somehow to my mom that he did love me.
Actually, one of my first memories is of my dad driving away. I followed his Cadillac Eldorado down the driveway, confused. I asked my mom when he was coming back, but he wasn't. I was four. He did come back sometimes, to pick us up for the weekend, but every time he did, he and my mom would start fighting. I almost wished he wouldn't come by because when he did I had to face the fact that they weren't getting back together. I wrote in pen on my chest of drawers "CHARITY [heart] DADDY" and made my mom promise not to clean it until daddy saw it. He never did. I think it's still there, actually. My mom kept her promise.
An earlier memory is of waiting downstairs by the television on Saturday morning. We had to wait until daddy would come turn on the TV for us, and then we would squeeze in as many minutes of cartoon heaven as we could before church. When it was cold he would start up the woodstove, which was also in the living room. Then he would go back upstairs to my mom. I'm glad I have that memory.
It took me years to forgive my dad for all the times he abandoned me, and the family. It took a few more years for me to realize that he never really did. He just wasn't ready for all that life had handed him. I can understand that now. At some point, I had to realize that I could either pine over the daddy I never had, or enjoy the daddy I have. I chose the latter.
Forgiving him was one of the hardest and yet most worthwhile things I have ever done. But loving him was always easy.
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