I am sixteen, standing in the kitchen with a tall gangly boy who has come to collect me for my first real date. I don’t remember his name. What I do recall is a face full of freckles and that I forgot to warn him about my father.
I watch him startle as Dad grips his extended hand. I watch him try to recover. Keep cool. I wonder: what’s wrong with this guy? Then it hits me. And something collapses. Something that was there a moment earlier is gone. I remember thinking: Oh my god how can I help him? Should I help him? If I help him how do I shield my dad from knowing what is happening? Does my dad know what is happening?
And then the thud of realization. My father knows. Of course he knows. He has always known — but I am seeing it for the first time. His condition is a barrier. People freeze and flinch when they meet him. They always have. And always, it’s been up to him to make them comfortable. Is it also up to me? I think. Should I have said something to prepare this boy? I should have, I realize — but that would have required knowing, in advance, that this could happen. That this would, inevitably, happen. And I didn’t know. But also, I always knew.
It was the ability to not know this that collapsed.
I ponder this on and off for the rest of my life. Though he calls, I never date that boy again.
—
Writing this, I’m remembering, a few years earlier, I was 11 maybe 12, walking back up the hill after visiting the camp museum. An old stone building where the counselors placed the animals they rescued from around the grounds and the road. That summer, there was a vulture with a broken wing and an enormous black snake. There was a duckling. I remember. I am walking toward our cabin when a flash of color catches my eye and I freeze, as a bright orange salamander skitters across my path and disappears into the forest.
I look up. And there, at the top of the hill, is Dad walking toward me.
I have seen this ten thousand times. The way his right foot caught, dragging slightly, the way he twisted toward the left to pull it along. But standing on that dirt road, watching him come down the hill backlit by the afternoon sun, the pebbles tripping him a little, his body pitching and catching itself — I saw it. As if for the first time. As if through someone else’s eyes. He walks funny. Differently than other dads. I saw it and then, he righted himself, as he always did, and walked toward me, and he was just Dad again.
—
Years later, after meeting my father, my future husband asked: Why didn’t you tell me?
I looked at him. Tell you what?
He looked back at me. Puzzled. About your dad, he said.
What about him? I asked.
Really? he said.
Oh, I realized. Oh, sorry. I should have told you I should have warned you I always forget. To me, he’s just Dad.
This week, I’m filling in scenes from earlier in the book. I’m remembering more. Finding more journal entries. Yesterday, I sent out two updates: Yes, your mother is crazy and Canoe. The full list of scenes is here.
It’s all from The End of Men, a memoir I started years ago. If you’re new to the project, read the first chapter here: Keys. The full list of scenes, in order, is here.
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