Are You My Father?

by Margo Walter

  ***

  Sometimes the wind blew just enough to help the sea oats dance. They would sway back and forth and seem to have their own individual beat. There was something extraordinary about drawing in the sand, making little sandcastles and small houses and tearing them down and building new ones. Sitting in my secret spot under the old cypress trees was not only a great hiding place, but it was also a place of refuge. I would go there to get away, but waiting to be found was my chief motive. No one ever came looking.

  Instead of running to the dunes after the attic discovery, I was waiting in the upstairs hallway for my mother to come home from work. I kept staring at the photo, on the wall, of my cute little brother and sister on some playground, laughing and having fun. The more I studied that photo, the angrier I got. Why are they so happy and I am so miserable? I followed her into her clothes closet and did not even pause until she had changed from her work clothes before I blurted out the question: “Why didn’t you tell me I was adopted? Why have you been celebrating my birthday on a wrong day?” My mother’s “What are you talking about?” was not the answer I wanted to hear, and it did not go down very well. I was distraught and did not care about getting in trouble about being in the attic. I just wanted answers before my fake father, or whoever he was, came home. My mother did not mince words and told me that it was true, meaning that it was one big lie. I was adopted when I was five. In a business-like tone, my mother told me that my real father died in a plane crash when I was two. He was the man in the military uniform, named Bruce King. And, by the way, she told me, she did not know why I was upset, as she was my real mother. I listened, sort of, and wondered about that word, “real.” What is a “real” mother? She offered no explanation, and I sat there crying and confused. About my birthday, she said she had just made a little mistake. A little mistake? I could not believe that she thought that was a little mistake. But more important! Now, I knew who my father was not. I knew for sure that it was not this man who had been calling himself my father. It was not this violent, drunk man who did not love me. My father was the man in that picture. He was all dressed up in some kind of military uniform and looked kind of scary. But he was also good-looking. Why did my mother lie to me? The answer is extremely complicated and would not be understood for many, many years.

  After the face-off with my mother, I headed for my fort. No one, not even Jane, knew about my hideaway. It did not matter how cold or dark it was, that’s where I went. Usually, Duke was by my side. At times, it could be terrifying, but this time, I was sure that someone would come find me and bring me home. I had cried after all. No one showed up. Again. I sat for a long time, more minutes than an hour. I know because I was counting. No one came to find me.

  I had questions that needed answers. Essential situations, like Father’s Day posed new problems for me. Should I still give this father a Father’s Day card when he was not even my father? Why didn’t he tell me the truth? Did he never go to the beach because he did not like me? Or was he embarrassed to be around me because I was not his real daughter? While I hid, I wove the sea oats together in a braid and then let the sand run through my hands. I could see the seagulls glide over the tops of the dunes, and it looked like they never had to use their wings. They made it look so fun. It really was the first time that I really looked at a bird. They seemed to have it so easy just soaring over the dunes, going up and down with the air currents, always watching to see what was below. And by choice, the seagulls would often land on the sand and beg beachcombers for treats. They could not run fast on the beach and would suddenly take off and cruise over the ocean. What a great thing to be able to do! The gulls distracted me for a few minutes, but I was still despondent. My mother told me that “big girls don’t cry.”

  I did begin to cry and felt very guilty when the tears came cascading down my cheeks. In fact, that day the floodgates opened, and I sobbed. I was not entirely sure why. Duke rolled over on his side and provided much-needed warmth and comfort to the sad little girl under the trees.

  After confronting my mother and having so many questions go unanswered, I needed to run away, far away. It would take me a long time to sort out the other relationships, like who was my biological brother, who are halves?

  Fourth grade was significant. How do you go to school and admit to your friends, to your classmates, that your mother messed up your birth date? I had to do it. I started on the playground and just let a few kids know at a time to see what their reaction would be. They laughed. My best friend, Jane, went to a different school, so she was already spreading the rumors there. “Did you know that Janet is adopted and her birthday is on the wrong day?” It turned out not to be a massive deal in elementary school, but many, many years later it still bothered me a lot.

  ***

  I continued to spend every waking moment I could at the Pierces’, and if I was not in their home, I was across the street in the shrubs, looking in, and wishing I were in their family room. During those lonely times, I spent a great deal of time with Duke, running away. I did not go far because it was too cold or I was too afraid. It would not be long before family roles in the Williams’ house would change, but right now I was the scapegoat and took a lot of scolding and punishments that should not have come my way. I could not even tell Jane about these. After all, I had to protect those family secrets and make sure everyone thought that we had the perfect loving family. And then, there were the “things” with Johnny. That is what I called them. They were getting worse. He didn’t even care if his wife, Carrie, was around or not.

  ***

  It was an unusually sunny day and not too hot. Since it was Saturday, we were off from school, but no one was on the beach in late October. Looking back on the entire episode, I do not think I meant to cause anyone any harm. It really was child’s play. It had only been two weeks since the accident. Our neighbor, Mr. Hambrough, the father of the nerdy girls, had died. Jane and I were on the Hambroughs’ front lawn reenacting his demise. Unfortunately, Mrs. Hambrough was the audience, and her husband’s death was a suicide by hanging (knocking a chair out from under himself). We acted out all the ugly details. It was quite a performance. Mrs. Hambrough went screaming into her home. I learned that people do feel and react, especially at a time of crisis like the death of a loved one. It was a life lesson that I would not forget.

  Coincidentally, on the home front, my older half-brother, Edward, aged sixteen, had been hospitalized for something. I was told that it was not serious because he was just trying to get attention from our stepfather. The family went to Richmond to visit him in the psychiatric hospital, and that was a new experience. There were locked doors at the entrance, and you had to ring a bell to get someone to open the door. You had to leave car keys, pens, or any sharp objects in a plastic bin. Why would they ask my parents to do that? Identification was required, and the nurse reminded the family that visiting time was limited to half hour and children—myself, and my younger brother and sister—were not allowed. No one talked about the visit to see Edward, or how he was getting along. Apparently, he was also asking, “Are you really my father?” and dealing with his new road to life, which included a stepfather that did not like or love him. Feelings were mutual, and physically they were at different poles. Our stepfather was six feet, four inches and 240 pounds, had graying hair, and rarely smiled. Edward was five feet, nine inches, if he stood on his tiptoes, weighed 125 pounds, and usually had a plastic smirk on his face.

  I was never very close to Edward, and it could be the eight-year age difference. No, there was something else there. It would be a long time before I understood what Edward was going through and just how alone he felt at that time. No one ever called him Ed or Eddie, like at my school. In my family, we just seemed more formal, and using full names was the right thing to do. I never heard the word Dad or Daddy. In any case, Edward was my only biological brother, according to the adoption papers in the attic. That was also a lie and woul
d not be uncovered for many, many years.

  ***

  Activities in the neighborhood included butt-busting and boogie-boarding on the beach, volleyball, roller-skating, and doing what “normal” kids do. I guess. Kick the can was one game that happened on the street almost every evening. One person was “it,” and everyone else was supposed to go hide in the scratchy bushes, behind neighboring houses, or in the dunes, my dunes. If you ran to home base and successfully kicked the old coffee can before being tagged, you were safe. My strategy was to wait until all my friends had been caught or were safely at “home” and then sneak in amidst the chaos.

  It is interesting as that is precisely what I was doing in my dysfunctional home. If I stayed quiet and out of sight, I avoided the constant drama.

  About this time a bit of a miracle occurred. A trampoline appeared in my backyard. It was a special gift from my parents and became the favorite spot where my friends and I spent most of our time when we weren’t on the beach. There were trampoline shows for the parents, neighbors, and visiting tourists. My friends and I became amazingly professional in our flips, flops, twists, and turns. Having the trampoline made me popular. No one was allowed in the house, but the play yard brought my friends over to my property, and that was wonderful. It created a whole new activity, and we were outstanding.

  Who could have guessed that I would continue flipping and bouncing into my teens? In high school, I would have the privilege of learning and teaching trampoline with the famous “Flying Wallendas.” In fact, my high school in Florida was the home of “The Sailor Circus” which was sponsored by Ringling Brothers, Barnum, and Bailey. Students from my school performed in the circus. Little did I know that my “jumping” days in childhood would prepare me for such a fantastic and fun sport in the future.

  Stop! I am getting ahead of myself. Back to the elementary school years. Older brother, Edward, was home in the summer of 1960. He brought home a pole vault which he was using to compete in sports trials at his boarding school. I could not wait to try it and vaulted right over the front lawn shrubbery onto a huge log that was lying loosely on the ground. I did not see the sizable piling until I landed on it and broke my leg. This was very typical of “leaping before you look.” My compulsivity was becoming more and more apparent. So much for pole vaulting!

  To this day, I have no idea why, for that particular school year, I was sent to public school (with the Pierce kids) for fifth grade. Perhaps my whining and complaining finally made a difference. It was my dream come true. Arriving on crutches made me an instant center of attention. My new classmates took turns having races on my crutches down the hallway. My crutches! If you remember fifth grade, all of this was a big deal. I wanted to be liked by everyone. It was imperative to be chosen on the right team in physical education and not be the last to be selected, or not picked at all. Of course, this was in between the atomic bomb drills during the Cuban missile crisis in 1961. The same year Alan Shepard circumnavigated the earth in a space capsule. His daughter happened to be in my classroom. When my mother dropped me off at school, she brought our TV and carried it inside to lend to my teacher, Mrs. Washburn. The entire class watched my television to see Commander Shepard up in space. My TV! For the first time, in an awfully long time, I felt special, like a celebrity, and even made some friends. No one teased me about being adopted. This hiatus from the hard journey of life was very short-lived, but I made the most of it.

  ***

  The following summer, my stepfather was diagnosed with cancer, a brain tumor, and was given less than a year to live. By this time, I was exceptionally good at putting on different hats and performing different roles. I was becoming entirely independent of my family and beginning to look outside my home for comfort, for support, and for love.

  Falling out of the nest so young meant that the mother bird did not teach me how to fly and I had to learn on my own. This flight included finding a way to forgive my mother and knowing more about my deceased father in the military hat.

  At this time sperm banks were making the news, along with artificial insemination and freezing embryos. I was not aware of all the hoopla, but many women and men saw these new methods as an opportunity to parent, and I heard kids talk about it at school. It seemed to be “cool” at the time, so I told several teachers and classmates that I was adopted. I even pretended that my mother was not my biological parent, but that she had also adopted me. It made me feel twice as “cool.” However, on the inside, I was beginning to feel terribly angry, fearful, and resentful that I had never met my real father in the old photo. I wanted to ask him what the military uniform was about. Did he run the country and shoot bad guys? Was he ever in a war? Since he had died when I was two, I could not remember ever meeting or seeing him. I just knew that he would have been better than what I got. He had a big smile on his face in the photo, was especially important looking in his naval uniform, and was attractive too. One big problem—he was dead and gone.

  September brought new changes that could not be explained and were equally difficult to accept. I was transferred to the local parochial school for sixth grade. I was only in public school for one year. I loved it and could not believe that I was being torn away from my new school to attend another one. In fact, the whole family was converted to Catholicism, and that meant lots of change. It was my stepfather’s idea, and I hated him for taking me away from my friends in public school. Once again, I was the odd man out, felt isolated, and missed riding the bus with the Pierce kids.

  It was about this time that my mother drove Hunter and Lynn to Florida for an unexpected visit to our grandmother’s. My Grandma Lee and my step-grandfather, Lynn, lived just outside of Tampa, Florida. I was left home alone with my stepfather. It could have been a disaster if it were not for the vast Ash Wednesday flood of 1962. Living in a home that was right on the oceanfront meant facing many hurricanes over the years. I remember these construction workers putting up big plywood boards to cover our enormous plate glass windows in the living room and upstairs in my parents’ bedroom. It made the house dark but supposedly safe from the winds and flying debris. However, we had not seen any hurricane like this advancing maelstrom. It was the perfect storm. There really were not big gusts of wind, but there were big surges of water. The ocean came over the dunes, and the bay flooded the inland waterways to completely engulf the town. The streets were covered with flood waters, and it kept rising. Houses were deluged, and mass evacuations were ordered. Oblivious to this turn of events, my stepfather decided that he would get me to school in his Bonneville convertible. My mother and younger brother and sister were still down south in Florida. So, my stepfather ordered me to the car, and we set out for my school. Even as the water began seeping under the car doors, he was reluctant to turn back. Being self-centered in the extreme, he did not care about evacuations. He was going to rise above the storm and do what he wanted to do. It was leaking through the windows, and we finally turned around to go back home, just in the nick of time.

  We hear every so often that good times, and great things can come out of adversity. It is true! My house was on a hill and the only home on the block that did not flood. Contrary to my stepfather’s typical reaction, he walked down the street and invited those afflicted by the flood to move into our house until the water subsided. The Pierces came to our house to live temporarily and wait out the tide. It was fantastic! My favorite family was living in my house. It was like a real home for the next six days. There were no alcoholic outbursts, and even the maid and her husband, Johnny, behaved. I had never had such a great pajama party and never wanted it to end.

  Unfortunately, the flood waters did subside. The Pierces moved back to their home, which had eight inches of mud throughout every room, and mother returned from Florida. Everyone could resume their unhappy, unhealthy family roles.

  ***

  There were so many house rules, “dos” and “don’ts,” and little communication. I
was not allowed to have my best friend, Jane, to spend the night. Every time my mother came home from work, she immediately sent Jane to her home. Jane did not understand, and neither did I. Years later, Jane finally asked: “Why couldn’t I ever spend the night at your house? Why was your mother so mean to me?” I did my best to describe alcoholism to her and all the secrets and odd behaviors that were part of my growing up. Twelve-year-olds do a poor job of explaining all this. Just like adults!

  It is said that the only thing constant in life is change. This was definitely true in the Williams family. My mother decided a geographical cure would fix everything and moved away from the beach, apart from the Pierces, and away from my secret place in the dunes. Moving to another neighborhood did not fix my mother’s unhappy marriage, pull our family closer together, or hide all our imperfections. Jane would be the last close female friend that I would ever have, and I had not even reached adolescence.

  One of the fallouts of catching my mother in so many lies is that I did not have any trust left. I had trusted Carrie, Johnny, my older brother, and look where that got me. It was inconceivable that a family could have lived so many lies, and I was only twelve years old.

  The move to a new neighborhood fixed some things. The sexual abuse stopped. Carrie was fired. The Pierces were now on the other side of town near the beach, and we moved to a small rental house fifteen miles away. We were not living in the biggest house, and the new one was ugly. It was a ranch house with white bricks and a ridiculously small yard. My mother tried to sell us all the benefits like a real estate agent. She said, “All of these changes are for you. We are moving so everything can be worked out. This change is for all of us to start over.” I did not know what she meant and was not asking for any explanations. I did know that moving from an awfully expensive, contemporary home on the oceanfront did not compare with this small rental home in the middle of some subdivision, somewhere.