Not so long ago I gained 25 pounds. Actually, it was a long time ago. I don’t know where the time has gone. Do you ever feel like that? To be precise it was 1999. I remember the year so well because it was just a few months before my father got out of prison for killing my mother. Technically he went to jail on a plea bargain, Involuntary Manslaughter. The plea said my mother died from a gunshot wound when he recklessly caused his pistol to discharge directly into her head. To this day, I’m not quite sure how that isn’t called murder by our justice system.

 

I was living in this crappy one-bedroom in a fancy zip code in California. My place was cluttered with the belongings of the 4- bedroom home in Brooklyn that I grew up in and the one-bedroom condo my mother owned in the city. I wasn’t ready to let go of the black lacquered wall unit that now covered almost my entire small living room or the 1980’s big box television (fancy in its day) that took up most of the floor of my living room and measured about 4 feet high, 4 feet wide and 4 feet deep. I wasn’t ready to let go of the nicknacks  and the chatskis and my mom’s artwork (even the unfinished pieces) or the old diaries or my mom’s clothing that was 4 sizes too big for me or the boxes of stationary that my mother hoarded over the years. I wasn’t ready to release the full-length body pillow that I stuffed into an extra suitcase so I could bring it back from New York and keep my mother alive by smelling her scent as I fell off to sleep at night. I couldn’t cuddle her live body ever again, but I could cuddle her pillow.

 

            There really wasn’t much of me in this Beverly Hills apartment. I  moved out to Los Angeles only 3 1/2 years earlier with a suitcase of clothing, shoes, fabulous accessories and books. I also moved out to be with my man, my fiance. He was now long gone. I kicked him out along with the parts of my heart that once lived inside of me. I couldn’t possibly lose anyone else I loved so I preferred being alone. This is what I told myself over and over and over again. Everything here in my living space was of my mother and the life I once shared with her. A life where I had a home to return to should things not work out in LA, a home to escape to on vacation from my middle of the road middle management job, a stop off to reunite with my mom and then go abroad on some wonderful adventure together. All gone now…forever.

 

            The phone rang early one morning after yet another sleepless night, maybe a month’s worth? I wasn’t counting, except for the amount of years since my mother was taken from me. I answered groggily. “Hello.” There was a recording on the other side, “You have a collect call from an inmate at Fishkill Prison. Do you accept the charges?” I’m thinking that this can’t possibly be my life. But it is. I intimately know an inmate…my father, the big alpha auto parts business owner, mafia loving larger than life man that I adored growing up. He adored me. Heck, I admired him as only a daughter could until just before ‘it’ happened 3 ½ years ago, “Yes, yes, yes, I’ll take the collect call.”

 

            “How you doin Brenda. It’s daddy.”

 

            I am aghast, speechless, a bit in shock. Can’t really breath very well. I’m reminded of the bronchitis I developed as soon as I moved to LA. The polluted smoggy air never agreed with me and one night I thought I was going to die from the shooting pain in my heart. I didn’t then and I wouldn’t now, although I dreamed regularly at night of shuffling off my mortal coil and joining my mother. I took a breath and stuffed the clenching feeling in my throat that wouldn’t allow me to speak my Truth.

 

            “Dad, I..ah..this is a surprise. I’m so glad to hear from you.”

 

            He cuts in in his familiar sing songy rhythm, “Yeah, it’s been a long time. Too long.”

            I am shocked silent. The last time we connected was over a year ago when I wrote him and demanded that he not write me again unless he answered my specific plea to find out what exactly happened the night mom died. I didn’t understand how it could have happened, the way he told me, anyway. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t tell me what I was desperate to know. Maybe it was too gruesome and he was too guilty? He certainly never claimed that, although his silence and his darting eyes hinted at it as I stared him down years ago to try to get some answers. I deeply needed to know that he understood my anguish and how important it was for me to have the answers. After a year of shrinking into the role I always played as his beloved, respectful daughter I demanded he step up. So what did he do a year ago when I stood up to him by standing my ground? He stopped writing me.

To be continued