You Can't Buy Love Like That Read online

  He motioned me to follow. The click, click, click of my boot heels now sounded more ominous than friendly. When we reached his office, he gestured for me to sit down, folded his hands in front of him, and twisted his fingers back and forth across his knuckles. I stared at his face, waiting. “I am so sorry,” he began, “your mother just called. Your father died this afternoon.”

  A prickly feeling began rising from my feet up my legs. “This can’t be true. I just saw him four days ago at Sunday dinner, and he was fine.”

  David looked pale himself as he continued to fidget, glancing down at the desk and then briefly at me. “I’ve called Lorna to come and drive you to your mother’s house,” he said as he straightened the things on his desk and moved papers from one pile to the other. “I will follow in your car.”

  “What did she say?”

  He looked up at me and spoke softly. “She said that he was lying on the couch when she got home from work. She noticed he wasn’t moving, and as she looked closer, she could see that he was gone.”

  I stayed, frozen in the seat, as he went to see if Lorna had arrived—my eyes riveted on the overhang of the desk where I noticed the dust that had gathered since the cleaning crew had been there. Paper clips sat neatly in a clear glass bowl next to a tall black canister filled with pens engraved with Danbury School of Business. A gold-and-silver paperweight shaped in the form of a giraffe sat on a sheath of pink phone messages as though standing guard over them. The date was October 9, 1975. I was twenty-seven.

  It was my second year of grad school, and I lived in a studio apartment near the University of Michigan campus. It was an improvement over the single room I had rented the previous year. Just the day before, I’d received mail from my mother—a five-dollar bill paper clipped to a small scrap of paper with her handwriting:

  White lilacs for the soul.

  Love, Mom

  It was her way of saying, “Do something nice for yourself,” of acknowledging my hard work and tight budget. Later that evening, I had picked up the phone and dialed my parents’ home. I was about to hang up when my father answered. My dad didn’t like to talk on the phone, but that night he stayed on the line.

  “So tell me how you are,” he said.

  “Well, Dad, if you really want to know.”

  He chuckled and said of course he really wanted to know.

  I told him I got a C– on my test, which was a little depressing, given that I quit a great job to do this and that I was practically living in poverty. He was quiet for a moment as he gathered his thoughts.

  Then he spoke. “You are the most determined person I know,” he told me, and then he recounted the story of my resolute efforts in learning to ride a bike: how I had stayed out long after the sun had gone down, lining up against the curb and taking off repeatedly until I had mastered the art of balance. I could hear him chuckle as he spoke, and, with my mind’s eye, I could see the laugh lines that always formed around his beautiful eyes when he shared stories about me as a little girl.

  “You know, all of the challenges in life are just God’s way of building character, and you’ve got what it takes to tackle anything.”

  He also reminded me that the same intense fortitude he saw in me as a young child was still present and that I didn’t have to excel at everything, I just had to pass. I always felt relief sharing a problem with my dad because he never tried to fix me but would paint a larger picture of the situation and help me to focus my attention on what was really important.

  “You always make me feel better because you believe in me. No one else does that like you,” I told him.

  By now I had garnered a truer picture of my father, more aware of the pain he must have felt because of his illness and inability to support his family and how he managed that frustration with grace and dignity.

  “You know how much I love you, Carol. I wouldn’t trade you for anything. I know we have had some bumps along the way, but I think we both have learned from that.” I listened carefully, bolstered by his encouragement. “You know, you can do anything, be anything your heart desires.”

  I walked back and forth in my small apartment, feeling calmer as he spoke.

  “I believe in you, and I love you completely.”

  “You’re the best, Dad! I want you to know that I would choose you all over again if I had the chance. I hope you know how much I love you.”

  We talked a few more minutes about upcoming events and other mundane things. Then he said, “Goodbye, dear,” and hung up the phone. I didn’t know those would be the last words I would ever hear my father speak.

  Dennis returned with Lorna, who sat down next to me and said how sorry she was that my dad had passed away. We filed out of the office, and I got into Lorna’s car. We made the twenty-minute ride to my parent’s house in silence—Lorna driving and me reading the neon signs on storefronts we passed, numbness setting in.

  We arrived at about seven thirty, and I leapt up the steps. My mother greeted me at the door and flung her arms around me. “Oh, honey. You know your dad loved you so much.” Then, the tears.

  We sat in the living room with a few visiting friends, and she repeated what David had told me, how she found my dad on the couch. Everyone talked about what a great man he was, and after twenty minutes or so I got up to get a drink of water. Walking back to rejoin the group, I noticed a notepad on the half wall of the kitchen. Flipping the page over I saw the unique scrawl of my father’s handwriting in large, barely legible script. The words read, “I love Mom and I love my family.”

  I called Kathy, and she came at once. My mother didn’t know the extent of our involvement, but the circumstances easily lent themselves to a display of physical affection seen by outsiders as the genuine empathy any friend would offer another in this situation. We slept in the same bed in my mother’s house, and I was allowed the comfort of her softness, sleeping through the night held in her loving embrace as the sorrow seeped out through tears and regret that my father had died without ever knowing the truth about me. There were many times I thought about telling my dad about my feelings for women and my fears that I might be gay. It was only now, at twenty-seven, that I was able to honestly explore this part of myself without triggering internal shame and anxiety. The time I needed to settle into this truth was only months in the making, and now it was too late.

  The days before the funeral sped by. What I most remember was driving around in my little green Datsun listening to the Carpenters sing “The End of the World.” Every time I turned on the radio, that song was playing. I didn’t know how people could go to the bank or stop for gas or shop for groceries as though nothing had happened, when my life was being swept across an unfamiliar landscape like a hot-air balloon in a ferocious wind no longer tethered to the ground. My brother, in his attempt to make me face facts, insisted I look at my father in the casket. “You won’t accept the reality that Dad is dead if you don’t look,” Jim kept saying.

  His hand on my shoulder felt more like a vice than a comforting touch. Though he meant well, I was adamant to discard his advice. I didn’t need to see my father lying in a wooden box to know he was gone. In my last memory of him, he was alive, standing on the front porch with my mother as they waved goodbye. That was the memory I wanted to keep, and I did. Despite my brother’s insistence, I never viewed my father in his coffin.

  Only family members were invited to the final viewing before the funeral service, leaving me without Kathy by my side. In addition to the visible pain of losing my father was the invisible pain of being alone in these moments. On the ride to the cemetery, I watched my sister-in-law slip her arm around my brother in a gesture of comfort as I stared ahead and clenched my teeth. At the chapel, family members sat in the front row in straight-backed chairs—my mother on my left and my brother on the right, his wife next to him. I stared straight ahead through the vast curved stained glass window. The music played, the minister spoke, the tears flowed. In the middle of the service I felt Kathy�
�s hand lightly touch my back as she leaned forward from the seat behind.

  Later that night, Kathy, Pat, and I convened at my apartment and smoked some weed. Lying on the floor beneath the ten-foot ceilings, a pillow under my head, I allowed my body to sink into the floor and my mind to surrender to the loss of control my father’s death had created. Looking up, I felt the trace of his spirit present in the room and wondered if he could see the truth about me now—know my love for women, and if, wherever he was beyond the physical world, he loved me still, as he had every day of his life.

  The day after his funeral, Kathy and I walked on the trails around the Botanical Gardens, mostly in silence—occasionally arm in arm, when no one else was in view. Leaves fell around us by the dozens, littering our trail with a carpet of gold, brown, and burgundy. I could see and feel the beauty of death in nature—how letting go was a part of life. The sky was a blue color you see only in travel brochures for Sedona, and the beauty of the day brought fleeting moments of acceptance of this natural cycle, only to be lost minutes later.

  It was still hard to grasp that my dad was gone, that all I had left of him was in the past, and that he would never see me grow into the person he always felt I would become. I feared I would forget how his voice sounded, how his fingers felt when he ran them through my hair, my head in his lap, and how his face looked when he smiled at me.

  My father’s death hung over me like sheets atop furniture in a house no longer occupied. At night, I would hold his favorite shirts up to my face and breathe in his smell, nuzzle into the flannel ones, and clutch them to my chest as I fell asleep. Instead of taking notes in class, I carried on a review of my father’s life, starting at the beginning of my first memory: the day he drove home in the brand-new 1951 blue Ford, walked by me on the driveway, and patted my head as he said, “Stay out of the sun so you don’t get polio, pudding-head duffy.”

  At the age of four, I had witnessed the tragedy that caused his disability to unfold in the middle of the night. When he came home from the hospital, he was different, unable to care for himself or for me. I became his eyes and steered him around end tables, the couch, and the rocking chair like an ant guiding an elephant.

  I recalled all the ways he was my champion at home. If I returned from school with As, he was elated. If I came home with Bs, he was delighted. If I showed up with Cs, he assumed something was wrong with the teacher. Even when we disagreed—about Nixon and Watergate, about Vietnam—he would respond to my fury by simply saying, “You know I don’t agree with you, but I really admire your spunk.”

  He was on my side whatever the challenge, like the time, during my teens, that my friends and I got into a squirt-gun fight with some boys on Plymouth Road as we walked by the local shops. One of the boys picked up a rock and threw it, missing me but breaking the storefront window of the cleaners. The old woman at the counter called the police on me, who then came to our house and confronted my dad.

  I remembered him telling off the police, shouting at them, “My daughter would never do something like that. You had better get your facts straight before you come around here saying things that aren’t true.” And later that day, I saw him on Plymouth Road looking for the person who called the cops. He could find his way, after years of practice, around the eight square blocks we called our neighborhood, but he could still be easily confused when looking for a particular store. He had been given a white cane by an organization that serviced the blind, and that, at least, warned others that he couldn’t see well. I watched him walk up and down the street taking long determined strides and slapping his cane against the sidewalk. He’d stop abruptly, then make an about-face and walk in the other direction, take a few more steps, and then turn back the other way. I could see that he was muddled, and his usually calm face was stretched in anger and frustration. As I watched, I felt a range of emotions from glee to sorrow—overjoyed at his zeal to defend me and sad he couldn’t execute that defense in a way that would protect me.

  I recalled the surprise dinner I planned for my mother’s birthday with my first paycheck. I was sixteen and had saved my entire monthly earnings (working at $1.10 an hour for a clothing store) for this special evening. I chose Fox and Hounds, a swanky restaurant located in the lovely Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. My father’s usual congenial manner had started to unravel even before we reached the restaurant. He slouched on the passenger’s side but kept quiet. Once seated, he complained about the bad lighting, criticized the menu choices, and groused about the uncomfortable chair.

  Returning home after an agonizing dinner, I fled to my bedroom and slammed the door, certain I would never speak to him again. After several minutes, he knocked gently and asked if he could come in, his voice contrite. I can still see him as he sat on the bed, his eyes downcast. “Can you forgive your dad?” he said softly. Before waiting for an answer, he went on and told me how hard it was for him that he couldn’t do things like that for his family. He leaned over and put his hand on my knee. “What you did tonight was really special, and I know that I spoiled it. I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me.” With that he looked up, and so did I. It was then that I saw the pain in his face. He got up from the bed and left the room, not expecting me to understand or give an answer in the moment.

  My father gave me unconditional love while my mother offered continuous opportunities for improvement, yet he didn’t let me get away with things. If he thought I was on the wrong path, he would let me know. Once, when giving me feedback about my inability to hear constructive criticism (which of course I met with a defensive attitude), he blurted out in exasperation, “You don’t want anyone to talk to you unless they give you a compliment.”

  I laughed every time I remembered that line—it was so uncharacteristic of him.

  At the end of the day, I would pull out the file of letters he had written me during college. Reading his words and conjuring his voice allowed me to imagine he was still alive.

  My Dear Daughter Carol:

  It was such a thrill to talk with you for a few moments last night . . . I just don’t know how to find the words to express how much I love you, and what a joy it is to hear from you. I know life isn’t always easy . . . We are so happy that you are having fun as well as a few bumps along the way, but it seems it is how we meet the bumps that molds us. I couldn’t begin to tell you how proud we are to have a Daughter that has what it takes, to think straight and the courage to be a leader and follow through regardless of what others think or say.

  So nice to have this chat with you . . .

  Loads of Love, Dad

  Occasionally, I visualized a scene of coming out to my father, in which I would see the kindness in his eyes as I spoke and hear the comforting tone of his voice in acknowledgement of my words. I imagined his arms embracing me and squeezing me tightly, showing with his actions that no matter what I did, no matter who I thought I was, I could never lose his love. It was through his death that I learned the profound meaning of regret—not for something I had done, but for what I had failed to do.

  chapter

  13

  breakfast at big boys

  I tried to imagine what it was like for my mother to have lost my dad. New dimensions of the pain emerged, her grief coming in spurts of unexpected anger that careened off the nearest bystander, usually me. On rare occasions, her outbursts were followed by tears, her lower lip quivering as she struggled to regain control. In his absence, I saw plainly how the steadfast bounty of my dad’s love held us all together—my mother, brother, and me. Now we were all adrift floating in our individual pools of grief.

  My mother had always been the visible rock in our family— working all day, taking care of my brother and me, ferrying us to golf and bowling lessons on the weekends, taking us on expeditions to the Cranbrook planetarium. She led Jim’s Cub Scout and my Pioneer Girls troops. She borrowed money for vacations by the lake and managed to always celebrate my birthday in a special way. And she made it all look e
asy. After my father’s death, I came to see that he was the quiet source of her apparent strength.

  The only reaction to a death I had witnessed my mother exhibit before was when my grandmother died. Returning home from school one day, I found her standing in the kitchen, encircled in my father’s arms, leaning into his chest. Her eyes were red from crying, and her usually well-coifed hair was radically askew. In my twelve years of life, I had never seen her weep. Even in this obvious state of sadness, she calmly turned her head toward me and in a quiet voice said, “Hi, honey, Grandma died today.”

  She was like that—so matter of fact, as though she were reporting that Stan the butcher was out of chicken breasts. It was just a fact. No drama—just one of many truths in life; Grandma was dead. In spite of the equanimity with which this announcement was made, I remember being anxious about the real impact of the news on her. My grandmother was a source of familial connection, something my mother prized, even if it was only symbolic.

  I often wondered who this woman was, this loving presence who wrote heartfelt letters throughout my life, expressing a yearning for closeness, yet when I got too close, she skidded away. She reminded me of a snow globe after it has been shaken: You can see that through the haze of floating particles there is a beautiful scene inside, but you can’t touch it, and you can never really get close enough to discern the intimate details of the figures. The harder you shake it, the more obscured it becomes, until you can’t see anything.

  Marianna Williams, my mother, was born on August 14, 1908, in Paducah, Kentucky. At the time of her birth, women didn’t have the right to vote and, in many states, couldn’t serve on juries, make contracts, or control their own earnings. Also, federal courts had ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” did not apply to women. Life expectancy for a female then was less than fifty-three years.