I pedaled after Dad, each downward push of my legs drawing me closer to meeting his wacko friends.
Overhead a storm brewed. With my luck, I’d be soaked before I ever hit their house, much less swim practice later.
Mom said Dad wanted to show me off to his friends. That was about as ridiculous as the cheery smile she’d pasted on divorce. More likely he’d told his friends his loser daughter needed their influence to “straighten up and fly right”—according to Dad’s compass.
The needle on Dad’s compass had a lot of play in finding true North, but it always hovered near weird. One visit potatoes were Satan. The next, cabbage was tossed onto the do-not-eat pile and potatoes were back on the menu. Holy mold grew on casseroles. He showed me a snapshot of a pile of wheelchairs and crutches next to an Arkansas backyard pool where people who took a dip got healed. TV and soap, unfortunately, always landed on the evil list. Radio, particularly the shortwave variety that wasn’t monitored by Big Brother, got Dad’s gold star.
Regardless, I landed in a straight-backed chair in the living room of an airy bungalow.
The couple, late forties like Dad, looked pretty normal. The woman wore a bra. The man’s hair had been neatly clipped above his ears.
But I didn’t trust them. I spoke when spoken to, enough to be polite, but I knew they played for Dad’s team.
My mind drifted to the metal, wall-less “tee-pee” Dad had constructed and slept under in our back yard. I tried to peek out their kitchen windows to see if they snoozed behind their house to absorb the power of the universe like Dad did. But I couldn’t crane my neck far enough.
Tensions at home had risen to an all-time high during Dad’s visit. I could only hope he’d dismantle his campsite and bike back to Miami soon. It didn’t take a genius to figure out an ex-husband and a current husband couldn’t cohabitate, even if one slept in the yard.
Dad packed his bike, light on clothing and heavy on drama. Not that he could be credited with all the undercurrents slamming around our house. Divorce only separated people geographically. All the twisty, symbiotic emotional veins still linked Mom, me, and R.J. to Dad. The thirty-some years Mom was married to Ralph never changed that.
I managed to exit the bungalow, bike home, and pile into the Duster for the drive to Halifax Swim Association before the sky doused Daytona.
I drove forty-five down rain-slicked Nova Road. No time to drive five miles under the speed limit like my father and stepfather did on dry streets—funny to finally find something the two had in common. In fifteen minutes pool water would wash the awkward from the afternoon.
I motored toward the Beville Road intersection, grateful for the green light.
A lipstick-red Porsche ran the stoplight into the intersection directly in front of me.
I slammed on the brakes and skidded across wet street.
Like a slow motion take, my bumper plowed into the Porsche’s rear-end.
I spun out of the intersection and came to a stop straddling the corner.
Stunned, I watched the Porsche land kitty-corner at the convergence of six lanes, a matchbox car tossed away by its toddler. The driver climbed out, flipped up the hood of his windbreaker, and strode to the opposite corner.
Thinking about how cars crashed, then blew up, on TV, I turned off the lights and ignition on autopilot and scrambled out of the car.
Rain dribbled out of gray sky as the blue lights of a police car throbbed down Beville.
I stood under a seeping pine tree and buried my hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt.
The mangled front of the family Chrysler scowled at me as though the accident were my fault.
My thoughts jumbled. I’d miss swim practice. Even with insurance, accidents cost a lot. Maybe I wouldn’t be competing for a long time. I shivered, wishing I were swimming a 500 in the toasty pool instead of watching a policeman hike toward me.
I told him my version of the accident. But how could a sixteen-year-old kid’s word with a worn out Chrysler possibly win over a guy whose pant creases I could see from across the street?
The officer asked if I’d had my lights on.
Of course. Who drove in the rain without them? I was a good little Brownie, always doing what I was taught—like turning off the lights whenever I got out of the car.
Too bad I couldn’t shove my Brownie-ness in the same direction as Dad’s compass needle.
But something essential—intellect or self-will or whatever it was that made me Ann—refused to die. I’d never be Dad’s mini-me.
By spring our Duster’s wrinkles had been worked out and mostly paid for by insurance.
I sat in a Daytona Beach courtroom, jiggling my knee, waiting to tell the judge my version of the accident.
Three hot college boys lined up single file in front of the podium. Each had been arrested for indecent exposure when he got drunk and urinated off a hotel balcony during Spring Break.
My shoulders relaxed and I hid a grin behind my hand.
After the three-piece-suited Porsche driver told his tale—I repeated what I’d said to the policeman.
The judge thanked me and decided the Porsche driver had been at fault.
A couple days after my accident Dad had stowed his teepee. He stood on our front stoop, leveled his gaze on me, and declared, “You hate me, don’t you?”
The serrated steel of Dad’s words plowed through the doors and windows of my person.
Maybe I didn’t like Dad, but I loved him. I wasn’t mean to him, but he must have picked up on my dread of spending time with him.
Old hurts crunched with new ones in a pileup I couldn’t separate into then and now. This second crash in a few days came four years after the mashup of Mom and Dad’s marriage.
He got on his bike and pedaled for Miami, our wreckage strewn across the lawn.
For over forty years I believed I would have been crushed under Dad’s fathering during my teens if I hadn’t been delivered by divorce.
But what if my parents’ marriage and my relationship with Dad had been salvaged like the family Duster?
I’d extrapolated Dad’s parenting when I was in elementary school into what kind of father he would have been to a teen. But maybe he would have lightened up like most parents.
Maybe our mutual love of competitive swimming could have served as the body shop for our father-daughter relationship. Maybe we would have been forced to work the wrinkles out if we’d lived under the same roof.
Instead of regret for what might have been, I think about the Charlie Peacock lyric that says if I meet Dad again, we’ll only see what’s right.
If you’d like to leave a comment, share an insight you’ve had about your parent(s).
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Hair was a HUGE issue back then. My dad, on the few times he was home would want some father and son time from me. He seemed to always remember all of us kids as being under seven and he was in full control with crazy rules and expectations. One occasion, the father/son time was going flying. It was only after my dad failed to make the turn from US1 which would have taken us back to Saxon Drive that I realized the next few minutes would wipe away all the joy gained flying. I found myself sitting in a barber chair. Skagg was his name, butcher Skagg to me. Dad ordered a “flat top” for me. My long hair fell and I could feel the delight these men were having with my loss. How can I go surfing with a flat top? I was learning about controlled rage. Trust was broken.
Thanks for sharing your story. Hair was a big deal to me too, but in my case it was Dad who had the too-long hair. 🙂
Reading yet another slice of Ann’s life, I realize why I devoured all of your novels – they are infused with you! I write the same way. Just one more reason to get my first novel in fighting shape and out the gate!
I can’t wait to read your novel, Roberta! You go, girl. We are cut from the same cloth. 🙂
That was great Ann. It brought back the nasty wreck in the rain I had in Daytona one afternoon when I was 18. It changed my life. But back to your thoughts about your Dad parenting the teen you. I saw my dad on rare occasions, 2or maybe 3 times a year with his new family. One scene with my little half brother always stands out so clearly. We were having a big Sunday dinner at their 10 foot long table. My brother asked for some more to eat, and he was already overweight. Dad hit him so hard the chair over turned and he landed on the floor crying and bleeding. That day, I knew God had spared me from more grief. No one could live perfect enough for Dad!
Such a gut-wrenching snippet from your (and your brother’s) life. Good for you that you saw how you’d been protected. May your brother’s wounds heal too.