Epilogue

If love could live in times apart,

Show the quality of one’s heart.

Like the fires that temper steel

Time will tell if love is real.

~ Gemini Joe ~

fter hearing my father’s story, I realized that his volatile relationship with my mother wasn’t all his fault. He had valid reasons for his unhappiness. Although I didn’t agree on his methods, I now understood. Out of loyalty to my mother, I had turned him into a stranger and ignored his pain, but I could not cast him out of my life.

Talking on the phone every week, I took the time to know him. I tried to find the right words, avoiding the wrong subjects. We talked about Brooklyn and we talked about family. Here was my father, the source of so many tears, now making me laugh at his childhood experiences.

I went to visit him in New York. When I opened the front door of his trailer, the musty smell of mildew and urine hit me hard. Despite the odor, I sat on the couch next to his chair.

“Why don’t we open the window?” I suggested, and opened it just enough to get fresh air.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he said. “It’s been so long since we had a visit. That’s my fault I guess. I was afraid to contact you because I thought you might be mad at me for leaving your mom.”

“I was a little upset, Dad. Even though I was married and had two children of my own, it was a shock. You and Mom were always fighting, but I never thought it would end in divorce.”

“There is no excuse of course, but the doctor said I had manic-depression and put me on medicine. I was able to quit smoking and drinking at the same time.”

I stared at my father’s face and secretly wished he had done that when I was a child.

“That must have been hard, Dad. I’m proud of you.”

“It was, but you know me. I always loved a challenge. Since I had cleaned up my act, I thought it was a good time to reach out to my first-born daughter. That’s why I sent you a letter with one of my poems, For a Moment. At the time I wrote it, it seemed as though everything important and good in my life seemed to last but a moment.

“I loved it, Dad. I didn’t know you could write poetry.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about your father.”

“Did you find your invention sketches?”

“Yes. They’re in the cabinet under the television, there. I think they’re in a green folder.”

I rummaged through the cabinet. Along with the folder, there was a gray, metal box.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“That belonged to my father. I use it for my old pictures.”

Inside were the images of my father. There were pictures of him playing in the yard, posing in his communion suit, standing next to his parents, riding a horse, sitting on a motorcycle and working on his car. I studied each photo. “You were a handsome man, Dad.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I had all the ladies swooning.”

I opened the green folder and found all of his inventions. “Is this the diagram of the toothpaste tube?” I asked.

“Yeah, I designed that because you kids were always losing the cap. The toothpaste company seemed to like it, but….”

I let out an ironic laugh. “We should have been rich.”

A distant look filled his eyes and for a moment, he was untouchable.

“Hey, what do you think about the pet glove?” he asked, coming back to the present. “Not only could you give your dog or cat attention, you could eliminate the excess shedding.”

“I think someone stole this idea, too, Dad.”

“Yeah, someone always beat me to the punch.”

“You are a very talented man, Dad.”

“I could have done so much with my life,” he said. “I wanted my children to have everything, but your mother….”

“Let’s not talk about the past,” I said, detecting a hint of resentment in his voice. The conversation abruptly turned from pleasant to agonizing.

“Things should have been different, but your mother didn’t want a family,” he continued. She never loved me or my children. All she wanted was her sisters and I couldn’t live like that.”

“Stop it!” I warned. “You’ve done this all my life. That’s why I stopped talking to you. I thought you’d changed, but it’s plain to see you haven’t. You’re still trying to blame other people for your mistakes.”

“Let me tell you something,” he said, in that cynical voice I recalled from childhood.

I wanted the father who wrote poetry and painted pictures, the father who told his stories about Brooklyn, not the vindictive, bitter man now sitting in front of me.

“Someday you’re going to know the truth,” he said and hobbled into the kitchen. Taking a deep breath, he and bracing his hands on the counter, he coughed to expel the phlegm in his lungs into the sink, but nothing came up. He tried again. This time, he succeeded. I turned my head and pretended not to notice, but a familiar memory sent me back to my childhood.

“I have to leave soon, Dad,” I said, hoping for some way to escape. “

“Please, forgive me,” he cried, realizing that he had overstepped. “I don’t know what comes over me sometimes. I think the world would be better without me.”

The sadness in his voice touched a deep place within me and his childlike ignorance made it hard for me to be mad.

“I forgive you, Dad. I know you’re not a bad person, but you need to stop.” I handed him a tissue and he dried his eyes.

“You’re right. Sometimes I forget. I guess I’m just a product of my upbringing. That’s no excuse, I know. I have no one to blame except myself for my failures.”

“You haven’t failed. In fact, you’ve done a lot with your life.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want things to turn out the way they did,” he gasped. “I don’t have long to live.”

“Don’t talk like that, Dad.”

“No, I have to be realistic. It’s important! I don’t want my children to fight when I’m gone. I don’t have much, but I want you to share everything with your sisters and brother. All my paintings and the things I’ve made.”

“We’ll work it out.”

“You don’t understand. My father did a bad thing when he died. He didn’t leave everything equally and it split up my family. I don’t want that to happen with my children. I don’t want to be like my father.”

I looked at my watch. “I need to return my rental car before I go to the airport. I really need to leave soon.”

“Oh, please! Just a little longer,” he said.

“All right. I guess I can stay another few minutes.”

“Do you have a nail file?” he asked, holding up a jagged fingernail.

“Yes, I think so.” I looked through my purse.

He lifted his hand and closed his eyes. I filed the nail that caused him a problem, and then continued to the others. Not since I was small had I shared such intimacy with my father. When I finished, he was sleeping peacefully in the chair.

I moved the phone closer and brought a glass of water so he could take his medicine. Then I kissed his forehead.

There were two sides to my father. There was the man who was creative and sensitive and the man who was jealous and combative like his father. Maybe it was his fear of being like his father that saved him. But in the end, the good side of Gemini shone through.

That evening, I pictured him sitting alone in his trailer with no one to hear his cries and a chill ran up my spine. I felt a lump in my throat.

My father’s tapes had one repeating theme. He wanted to be loved. He just didn’t know how to achieve it. They allowed me to empathize with the feelings he had experienced during those turbulent times.

Not only was I able to forgive him, but his story awakened something in me that I had ignored for too long. It gave me the courage to change my own life.