April 1990
I started running because I was scared of sitting still any longer. One day, I got up and decided that I didn’t want to wear dark colors and never see daylight and poke through Mom’s old clothes and draw faces on the dusty mantelpiece. But I probably wouldn’t have made those decisions if it weren’t for the phone call.
One of my friends from university rang. I didn’t even know we’d swapped numbers. She was a mature student, a divorcée—wanted to know how I was doing, why I’d left. I thought it was an odd thing for her to do out of the blue, but then considered that maybe something had sparked things at her end too. Something small, exactly like what was happening to me.
Before she hung up, she said don’t let it define you, and I wrote that down. I didn’t know what it meant exactly, but it felt like the best piece of advice anyone had ever given me. We said we would stay in touch, knew we wouldn’t. We’d only known each other two weeks but that time had been so rich for me; I clung to her wise words as though they were the meaning of life.
The first thing I did after speaking to her was visit the sea, to forgive it, if I could. I didn’t that first time, or the second. But one day, while trying, I noticed a woman in a yellow shirt and red shorts and realized she was a lifeguard, that it was a new service on the beach.
I was curious, asked her what the job involved, and she told me how to get fit by running and different swim training styles to try. She must have found it hilarious, looking at the state of me, but didn’t say so. She talked to me like I was Cindy Crawford.
I never did become a lifeguard, but I did start running, all because she told me I looked strong, capable.
* * *
“So you’re thinking about becoming a lifeguard?” Frizzy said, spooning gunk into the baby’s mouth. It was a girl, Libby, shrivel-faced like a brussels sprout. There was no way we were related.
“Yeah, maybe. But I’m also applying for some other jobs.” Given that I obviously wasn’t going to run my Dad’s company anymore.
“Well, that’s great,” he said, smiling tightly. Things were still off between us, probably always would be. He hadn’t forgiven me for closing the door in his face and I hadn’t forgiven him for killing my mom. The two things weren’t equal, but somehow he couldn’t see that.
“So you have to be, like, fit and everything?” Frizzy said.
“Yeah and everything,” I said sarcastically, chasing a pea around my plate, floating in gravy. Dad gave me a dirty look in warning, but I was being an angel compared to what was going on inside my head. I was doing the math: Frizzy was twelve years older than me, so we could have been sisters. But no, that was the baby with orange food all over its chin, even though there were eighteen years between us. And at the head of the table, in charge of all this, was Robin Burton, Property Developer, fallen hero.
Except that he hadn’t fallen; not even a little bit. It seemed to be the women in his life who were aging prematurely, whereas he was in good shape, clearly using hair dye and doing some kind of resistance training.
I wondered then, not for the first time, why he had raised me to be strong when he didn’t seem to like strong women very much at all.
Maybe it was different because I was his daughter; or maybe he had liked me before I became a woman. Would the same thing apply to the little brussels sprout?
I watched as Frizzy set the spoon down for a moment as though exhausted by its weight, her arms looking scrawny, frail. I’d seen that look before. She was going the exact same way as Mom; anyone could see that. In fact, I was so wrapped up in seeing that, in being smug about how doomed they were, I didn’t see the guillotine falling onto my own head.
We were standing in the hallway, the place where most of the dramas in my life had taken place, when he said, “Sara wanted me to talk to you about something.”
“Oh?” I said, hoping I sounded as disinterested as I felt.
“Yep.” He rocked on his heels, looking up at the ceiling as though noticing a crack. “It’s…uh…about calling me Dad.”
I didn’t understand what he meant, but something was going on that was bigger than I was realizing. I could tell by the look on his face.
He put his hand lightly on my arm. “Sara doesn’t want you to call me that anymore.”
“Hey? Then what am I supposed to call you?”
He smiled, but it was tugging on his eyes. “Robin.”
My heart grew heavy and light at once. I felt it swell, sink.
“I know it’s difficult, what with your mom…” he said quietly, “but it’s for the best. Sara thinks Libby will find it too confusing and it’s best that we stamp it out now.”
Stamp it out, like fire, disease.
“It doesn’t change anything,” he said even more quietly, glancing over his shoulder. “We’ll still—”
“It changes everything. That name was all we had left to connect us—the only proof that we’re actually family,” I said, trying to control the emotion in my voice. “Are you just going to do whatever Frizzy says and—?”
“Frizzy?” He frowned. “Who’s—?”
“So, where does this leave me?” I started crying, big bubbly tears that I was caught out by because I’d never intended to let my guard down here, ever. Frizzy had seen to it that I couldn’t—was never given enough rope. Just enough to hang myself with.
“I’m sorry,” he said, patting my arm. “Don’t cry, Gabby. I promise I’ll make this right by you. Just give me some time, eh?”
“No!” I said, pushing him away. “You have to decide now. If you do this, if you make me do this, I will never come here again. I swear I’ll never see you again.” I stared up at him, awaiting his reaction.
Did I mean it? I didn’t know.
“You don’t mean that,” he decided for me.
“Yes, I do. Say I can still call you Dad. Say it!” I stamped my foot.
There was a movement in the doorway and Frizzy appeared, jigging the baby on her hip. “Everything all right?” she said, as though I were the paperboy.
I lifted my chin defiantly, still looking at Dad, waiting.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But Sara’s my wife.”
My throat swelled so painfully, I couldn’t breathe. I blinked back my tears, too proud to cry in front of her. “Dad,” I whimpered.
He bowed his head, pinching the top of his nose. I knew that sign—knew what it meant.
I let myself out, cried all the way home, walking in the rain, and then running. As I ran, gasping for breath, my unfit legs buckling, a plan formed in my mind, a scratchy patchy plan, but it made sense the more it grew, the more I wheezed.
He raised me to be strong, so that was what I’d be. I’d start with that. I wouldn’t wither away, feeling sorry for myself, hiding indoors, but I’d go running and be as fit as I could manage and one day I’d rule the world, just like he said I was going to, before he betrayed me and abandoned me.
And some day, if I ever had a daughter, I would call her Alice and would never ever tell her not to call me Mom.