In the afternoons, when I walk my bicycle down the street from Audrey’s house, I sometimes imagine Mom still sitting on the front stoop waiting for me to come home from school. She would have the newspaper held open in front of her, wearing her tinted circular sunglasses and a floral print dress, looking every bit the part of a Naval lieutenant’s wife on the outside.
Mom and Dad were in a loving relationship, but Mom had an aversion with the Navy’s lifestyle. Despite her desire to live differently and frustration toward specific military rules, she would always tell me: “When we love someone, we will move mountains with them and for them.”
I never asked if she felt like she loved Dad more than he loved her, but the thought crossed my mind from time to time. If she was unhappy living here on base, I don’t understand why he never considered changing careers. She was never quiet about her opinions within the confines of our home, but never spoke out of turn when in public. In fact, I recall spotting a certain flare in her eyes when we were around others, and she would agree with statements I know she didn’t want to comply with. There were times her right eyebrow would lift into the slightest arch, as if she wanted to argue a point but wouldn’t dare.
Dad tells me I’m just like her whenever I dispute his beliefs on a specific subject. Mom never backed down. Her determination was a force to bear, and her strength and courage were something I could only hope I too possessed. But, when Dad compares me to her, I know he’s suggesting that my powerful will and argumentative nature would be my downfall, resulting in a similar outcome like the one that befell Mom. On the contrary, some might say the same about him. Every man living on base spends their days preparing for the unthinkable, when so many countries are at war.
I gasp when entering through the front door of our house, not expecting to see Dad sitting upright on his favorite chair with a cold scowl. The sun’s glare leaking in through the bay window spears his left eye, but he refuses to blink. He’s angry. It’s obvious.
“You’re home early.” The less I say, the easier these conversations are, so I turn to hang my satchel on the coat hook.
“According to the hospital staff, you should have been here over two hours ago,” he says, peering down at his watch to highlight his statement.
I weave my fingers together and squeeze my knuckles through frustration. “Dad, I think we need to have a talk.”
“Pardon me?” His response doesn’t allow me enough time to complete my sentence.
I pull my heels off, one at a time, reveling in the desirable expansion of my toes after scrunching them into the narrow tips of my shoes all day. I’m stalling to recenter my thoughts. Nothing I say will go over well with him.
Dad cups a hand over each of his knees and waits for my response with a clear look of impatience.
“I am twenty years old, which means I’m at an age where I could consider marriage and living elsewhere. While you continue to treat me like a child, I think you should understand the facts. I choose to live here because I don’t have the heart to leave the three of you, knowing you have no one to take care of the house and prepare your meals while you’re at work all day.”
We have gone around in circles with this conversation in the past, but I never seem to get my point across. It’s a cycle of arguments without a solution. Dad tilts his head to the side and juts his chin out.
“I must have missed the part where you tell me you met a man who will take care of you and ask for your hand in marriage. Do you have the means to support yourself outside of this house?”
Our disagreements have no resolution. Until I finish school, we both know I don’t have the qualifications to earn an income. Therefore, I have nowhere to go. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Dad. I’m a young woman now, not the child you treat me as.”
“Elizabeth, you are my daughter, and I will care for you until the day I die. If you don’t understand this as a young woman, I am sure someday when you are a mother, you might feel the same, and only then agree with me on the matter.”
Sometimes I wish Dad would stand up and let out all his anger, yell, or even slam a door. His complacent responses are infuriating. It feels as though he doesn’t care to see life from my perspective. “I have never questioned your love for me, but you have to allow me to live and learn. I don’t want to be a piece of property owned by this family until I’m passed onto a man who will call me his wife and treat me the same way. Why can’t you understand this?”
Dad shifts his position, leaning from the left to right. “A piece of property? Is that what they call a daughter these days?”
“That is how I feel. Men look at women as if they deserve us—a housekeeper, a cook, a caretaker. I don’t want to live this way. I want more. In fact, I want to be unforgettable.”
Dad is silent for a moment. It’s as if he needs to review my remarks to figure out what I’m saying, but no matter how I explain my feelings, he often perceives my words as nothing more than gibberish. “I don’t know where this idealism is coming from, but I hope you are keeping these thoughts to yourself, Elizabeth. Women work hard to maintain a home for their families. Women are the ones we, as men, depend on to keep us fed and cared for when we aren’t working. Without women, we would be helpless souls. To see yourself as anything less than someone who will support a man in that way is disappointing to hear.”
Isn’t it obvious by the efforts I put forth that I am capable of more than cooking and cleaning? His mindset is set in a time that many women want to move away from.
“You haven’t had a wife in five years. You are still eating nicely prepared meals and living in a clean house. Am I wrong?”
He knows I have been filling Mom’s role. My life came to a halt after her death, and to make matters worse, I often feel unappreciated. For this reason, Dad should view me as a more mature woman than most others my age, but there is no incentive for him to see me as any more than a girl who lost her mother at fifteen and took over as the matriarch to ensure the care continues for our family every day.
“I know life hasn’t been easy for any of us, Elizabeth. You have done more than I could ask of you over the last five years, but regardless of how thankful I am for your strength and willingness to keep our family together, I will not stop worrying about you. You might as well ask me to stop breathing.”
Dad and I stare at each other for a long moment, both of us realize how his words came out. “I didn’t mean to say—”
“I understand.”
Dad’s focus drops to his lap, making sure I can’t read the look within his eyes. Yet, I know he’s disappointed in himself. “I heard you became ill at the hospital earlier. Are you feeling better now?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay then, I will handle dinner this evening. Why don’t you go rest?”
As usual, we are back to where we started when I walked through this door. I’m still a woman with no authority or say over my life, and he is still a man who doesn’t know his way around a kitchen which means we will eat Spam for supper if I don’t intervene.
It’s clear we both need a few minutes to cool down, but as I excuse myself from his pointed stare, he holds up his forefinger. “I heard you met Mr. Anderson today.”
“I don’t know what or who you are talking about.”
“Elizabeth Salzberg, he is a troubled man. Do not underestimate the power of the rich. There is a reason he left Hollywood to join the Army Air Corps.”
A fleeting moment of hostility fires through me as I wonder who has so little to do, they felt the need to inform Dad whose path I crossed at the commissary. “I wasn’t aware you were familiar with Everett Anderson.”
Dad stands from his chair and straightens his belt. “The captain briefed us regarding his arrival.”
“What for?” I press.
“Do you have any idea what kind of attention he will attract to this area? It’s the last thing this base needs. All we can hope for is that his presence here doesn’t become another unneeded tourist attraction.”
“You’re faulting a man for changing his career path?”
Dad stares down at me from eight inches above my head. He and the twins are all six feet tall and hover over me. “No man runs away from a money pit unless he has a good reason, Elizabeth. If he thinks the military is better suited for him than Hollywood, he is in for a shock. Just, stay away, do you understand?”
It doesn’t matter who I keep a distance from because there isn’t a single guy on this base who would come within ten feet of me, knowing who my father is. No one is that stupid. “I’m sure it’s nothing you need to worry about, Dad.”
“It’s nothing I should have to worry about, Elizabeth. You don’t know what’s going on out there right now. I can’t afford any trouble from you, so I hope I am making myself clear.”
I know not to ask questions about what may or may not be happening “out there” because anything Dad knows is confidential and he cannot discuss it with me. It’s an understanding I’ve grown up with and one I won’t tempt or question, but his hints and remarks make my thoughts run wild with wonder sometimes.