Finding Dad

by Kara Sundlun

  Today was about Mom helping me buy the bedding, cute accessories, and plenty of plastic storage to set up my new abode in academia. As we strolled the aisles of the Bed Bath and Beyond on Orchard Lake Road in West Bloomfield, I could feel the eyes of other shoppers looking at Mom and me as we squeezed different pillows to see which would be most comfortable. Then came the whispers. In the midst of this very normal errand, I suddenly remembered that my life was anything but normal now. After spending an exhilarating summer with Dad in Newport, I was looking forward to some Joe Schmoe days back at home, and was quickly realizing there was no more normal.

  “Hi, are you Kara Hewes?” The questions came from a mom who was shopping with her daughter.

  I nodded. “Yes”

  “I thought so, I just want to say I am so proud of what you and your mom did. So brave.”

  “Thanks,” my mom said proudly. “I raised her to be a tough cookie.”

  “You did a great job,” the woman answered.

  Mom smiled, energized by the compliments, and I was happy she was getting the credit she deserved. But standing there in that store with strangers who came up to us, it hit me that the genie was out of the bottle and, like it or not, we were now famous, which meant people were going to be watching and judging us. The new level of distinction and the feeling that Mom could still crumble at any moment had me walking on eggshells. I was back in the world where I had to be the protector, and I sorely missed the safety I’d felt when my father ran the show and protected me.

  The problem was, Mom felt anything but safe, thanks to my father. It had only been about two months since he called her a golddigger, and I knew she was still hurting. I had inherited a thicker skin from my father, but Mom’s was paper thin, so she felt insults deeply, and it was hard for her to let go. While I had spent a summer healing my hurts with laughter and exciting moments, Mom stayed stuck on Pause. My father hadn’t done anything to heal her, and I wished there was some magic to make her better. I really wanted our last couple weeks together to be peaceful before I moved off to school, so I tried to tread carefully and avoid talking too much about my father, or how amazing my summer in Newport had been.

  When move-in day at the University of Michigan arrived, Mom helped me load up the car to drive to Ann Arbor for the big send off. We waited in long lines of traffic trying to get close to South Quad, the dorm I would move into on the 7th floor. My roommate, Ellie, was a friend from my high school, and we were so excited to discover that we’d gotten one of the coveted rooms with a sink—which meant we wouldn’t have to go down the hall to the communal bathroom every time we wanted to brush our teeth or get water. However, Mom was less than excited about hauling all of my things up seven flights of stairs to our coveted room. This was a job for a strong man, of which we saw plenty in the form of fathers lugging duffle bags into the dorm. But, once again, Mom was doing the heavy lifting on her own. With each box we lugged, she got more ticked off.

  “Kara this is just too much, I’m going to get some guys to help us.”

  “No, Mom, we can do it,” I said, feeling annoyed we couldn’t do this rite of passage alone, yet painfully aware of Ellie’s father helping with the heavy lifting.

  Mom insisted she didn’t want to do the job and was going to get us help. “I’m not strong enough. I’m going to pay some college boys to finish.” Then the elephant in the room reared its head. “If your father is so great, why isn’t he here to help move you in?”

  “Mom, come on, he’s seventy-three years old. He can’t be lugging all this. Besides, he has to be in Rhode Island to run the state.”

  “Why are you always defending him?” Mom shouted.

  “Stop yelling, everyone is looking at us!” I yelled back, only calling more attention to us. “Why can’t this just be a great day like it is for normal families?” I felt the heat of rage boil up inside of me. Normal. Normal was that elusive quality I was forever seeking.

  Outraged, she came back at me. “Do you yell at your father like this? Why, you treat him so much better than your own mother, who raised you alone!”

  There it was—all the hurt and ugliness unleashed itself from the well of fury and resentment that Mom had carried my whole life. How I wished she could snap out of it, but she just couldn’t jump over the crater in her soul. She’d loved him, and he’d hurt her. She’d had his child and he had ignored us. Her reality was different than mine, and there was nothing I could do about it except bear the brunt of her frustration.

  But Mom had a point. I was being a brat and wouldn’t have acted like this to my father. I wouldn’t have yelled at him or talked to him in a disrespectful tone because he was too new. My relationship with Mom was older, more tested, and filled with the comforts that allowed fighting and criticism, because we knew the long-standing love would allow us to bounce back like rubber.

  Mom and I were durable, strengthened by the test of time. My father and I were more like the fragile fine china that’s only brought out on special occasions, always careful not to scratch or chip the porcelain. My father’s relationship had not been tested for everyday use yet—it hadn’t been toughened up by typical teenage fights because I’d always used my best manners around him. Heck, I was still at the point where I avoided calling him anything since I didn’t know how to refer to him. His first name sounded cold, and he hadn’t earned the title of Dad yet.

  None of this was fair to Mom—I knew that—but it was the way it had to be now. Even with my father in our lives, writing the checks for college, Mom would still be the one to do the dirty work of day to day parenting. My father wasn’t the type to wear overalls, and I was too scared to ask him to help me move since it wasn’t in our agreement.

  After the guys finished hoisting my last box up the cold industrial stairs, Mom and I sank down into the tiny couch she bought me and called it a day.

  “Thanks, Mom.” I reached out and touched her arm. “I’m sorry we fought.”

  She gave me a weary smile. “I’m sorry, too. I’m so proud of you. You’re going to do great here.”

  “Thanks. Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” she said, hugging me.

  I walked her downstairs and gave her a lingering hug before she got in her car. As I watched her drive away, I was struck that, for the first time since having me, she could finally focus on her own life. I was grown, and it was now my father’s job to cover my education. The burden of being a single mother was finally being lifted, but with that, she was also losing her exclusivity. Now she was forced to share me with the man who’d never shared any responsibility for me. I wanted Mom to be just as happy, but she was starting her next chapter of life all alone, and I considered the same fear that had become a running theme; I’d gained a father and lost my mother.

  My new identity was only three months old, and it felt like a borrowed sweater that didn’t exactly fit me right. When I had to talk about myself to new friends, I was never sure what to say about my family or background. I had grown up as an only child of a single mother, and now all of a sudden I was a Governor’s daughter with three older brothers. I was a Midwesterner, but if I said who my father was, one assumed I was from the East Coast. Rather than spending twenty minutes explaining my unique situation, it was easier not to say anything.

  As I tried to find my way around campus, my father let me know he was still thinking of me with frequent phone calls to my dorm room, usually at 6 a.m., when he knew we were fast asleep.

  “Kara, it’s your father, just want to say good morning and make sure you’re studying,” he would say with a chuckle.

  “No, actually we’re all sleeping,” I would answer in a groggy whisper.

  “Oh, so sorry, have a good day.” Click. Short and sweet—that was my father.

  It was adorable that he wanted to say hi and let me know I was on his mind before his day began, but there’s little doubt my roommate found this very annoying. This was also his way of letting me know he was already up and conquer
ing the world. He used to call the Lieutenant Governor, Robert Weygand, and wake him up every morning when he crossed into a section of Massachusetts because, according to an archaic state law, he wasn’t governor when he left the state.

  “Hello, I’m just calling to say you’re the governor, so wake up,” he would say, laughing before hanging up. Ten miles later, he’d call back and tell Weygand he could go back to bed since he was the governor again.

  Back at school, it was time for sorority rush, and though I didn’t want to engage in the catty, mindless activities that were sometimes associated with being in a sorority, I did want to find a way to make the campus of thirty-five thousand people feel smaller, and build a new community of friends. But I would have to ask my father for the dues to join a sorority.

  “Please, I think it will really help me with a great place to live and some wonderful connections.”

  “I don’t know…are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “I do! The Greek system is respected on this campus, I promise.”

  “Okay, but this better not turn into a big party that keeps you from studying.”

  “Thank you so much! And I promise I’ll keep my grades up.”

  Brooke and Dayna planned on rushing, too, but we all had agreed to go our own ways in order to branch out and meet new friends. Our friendship was cemented in granite, and we would always have each other. They would always be the witnesses to me before I’d gained a father.

  ~

  The first day of rush, I met Laura, a stunningly beautiful blonde girl from New Jersey who had curly hair like me. She was like a ball of light, and we sparked an instant friendship. Even though her blue-green eyes and curvy shape made the boys speechless, she was quick and bright. We discovered that we lived in the same dorm and ended up liking the same sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta. Not only was it the oldest sorority, founded by a young woman who thought girls should have fraternities, too, but we got to live in one the most beautiful old mansions in Ann Arbor, complete with antique furnishings, comfortable rooms, and a great meal plan.

  Laura and I got in and immediately bonded. After teaching her how to straighten her curly hair, it got to the point where people started to confuse us.

  As close as we were becoming, I hadn’t shared my story with Laura as yet. She knew my father was the governor of Rhode Island—I just left out the part where I’d only met him three months earlier. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, so I kept waiting for the right time.

  It was Heather, another new friend, who ended up helping me let the cat out of the bag. Laura had introduced me to Heather, who was from Philadelphia… and so tiny that she made me look like a giant. What she lacked in size, she made up for in her ability to make a big splash with her storytelling—which earned her the nickname Hollywood. Seemed like destiny that her ability to tell a big story would bump up against my tale that seemed made for the movies.

  The three of us had become a tight threesome, and I wondered when and how I would share my whole story. As usual, Fate stepped in. Heather’s grandfather called her up one day after reading the People magazine article and told her about the girl who sued the governor of Rhode Island and was going to the University of Michigan. Since it was such a big school, Heather naturally assumed she wouldn’t know the girl from the article until Pop Pop read her the name—Kara Hewes.

  “Holy cow, Pop Pop, she’s one of my closest friends!” Heather exclaimed, telling Laura and me the story.

  Phew, that took care of my problem about how to tell Laura. Now everyone knew, and I could finally relax, knowing the secret was out.

  As my new friends learned my story, my identity started to feel more real, and I was relieved that their reactions were positive.

  Another good friend, Lauren, who came from Cleveland, remembered watching my story on TV all summer long before leaving to college, and thought my life sounded like a novel, though there were times when I wondered if it didn’t more closely resemble a soap opera.

  My freshman year was going great. I was making new friends and happy to tell Mom and my father that I was doing well in my classes. I looked forward to sharing my stories about college life with my father and brothers at the Sundlun family Thanksgiving, though I felt guilty leaving Mom for the first time on a holiday. After promising I would drive home for a weekend soon, I packed my bags for what everyone called “the farm” in Middleburg, Virginia. To me, anything with the word “farm” in it meant jeans, Timberland boots, and warm sweaters, so I was alarmed to discover I had the wrong idea. This wasn’t a place of cows and chickens, but rather a 170 acre estate for fox hunting. Instead of a humble ranch house with a creaky screen door, I walked into an elegant stone home, complete with a carriage house that was grander than Dad’s Cliff Walk estate.

  “Welcome to my farm,” my father said taking my bags from me and giving me a hug hello. “I think you’ll love it here.”

  “Wow,” I said, looking at the shiny silver sitting on top the fine antiques, “it’s beautiful…um…so much fancier than I expected.”

  “Oh, we do okay,” he said with a small grin. “Mary Lou will help you get settled,” my father said.

  I liked Mary Lou, the housekeeper, right away—as much as Mrs. Schuster. “C’mon, I’ll show you to your room and get you some soup I just made.”

  Now this was the way to come home for the holidays!

  Mary Lou walked me down a long hallway filled with beautiful antiques and sliver, then up a long spiral staircase with shiny wooden spindles to my room. I couldn’t believe this was my father’s second home. When we arrived at my room, the crisp white linens reminded me of my old bed in the “Blue Room” back in Newport.

  Wow, life with my father is just full of surprises. Very lovely and fun surprises!

  When I came back downstairs, my father told me his plans. “I’m having a dinner party tonight, so why don’t you rest up and be ready by seven p.m.”

  Panic rose up in my throat, since I knew I had the wrong clothes. “Okay, but I have to tell you that when you said farm, I thought Old McDonald, so I only brought jeans and sweaters.” I hoped he wouldn’t be mad.

  He folded his arms and put on a thoughtful expression. “Hmm. Well, that’s not going to work. Come with me—we’re going to have to go to town and get you a dress.”

  We hopped in the car and sped off for our first father-daughter shopping trip. He squeezed his big white Jeep Grand Wagoneer with wooden side paneling into a street parking space, and led me into a beautiful boutique.

  “Do you have any black dresses in small sizes?”

  The sales lady quickly gathered up all she had and placed them in a fitting room, then escorted my father to a big comfy chair. Each time I tried on a dress, my father had me come out and model it for him, where he would quickly dismiss one he didn’t like with the shake of his head or a crinkle of his nose. I’ll say this for him; he had an eye for style, and wanted me to look a specific way to meet his foxhunting friends. I was worried about the price tags, since some of the dresses were several hundred dollars, but he never asked about the cost—he just wanted it to look good. Finally, we settled on a knee length black cocktail dress and a strand of large pearls to go with it.

  As he handed the lady his credit card, he said, “Let me tell you a lesson about packing that I learned from Jackie Kennedy: A woman should never leave home without a black dress, a strand of pearls and a houndstooth suit. If you have all that you will be fine for any social occasion.”

  “Ok, I’ll remember that next time,” wondering where I would ever need a houndstooth suit at the age of eighteen.

  That night, we sat with my father’s friends in the formal dining room while Mary Lou served homemade borscht soup in china bowls. I’d always thought I hated beets, but I was hooked after tasting Mary Lou’s.

  During dinner, Marjorie made a toast welcoming me to the family, then said something that caught us all off guard: “I always told Bruce that when his daughter came looking f
or him, he should open his heart, and I would, too.”

  Marjorie’s announcement clearly clashed with Dad’s position that he didn’t know I was his—but no one said anything.

  The next day was Thanksgiving, and we had a glorious turkey dinner on more beautiful china. I enjoyed relaxing with my brothers and meeting my sisters-in-law, Karen and Isabel, for the first time. They were both gracious and sweet, and it felt great to have some females around.

  Karen hugged me gently, saying how happy she was to meet me. Isabel was equally warm, but mindful of my baby niece, Felicity, crawling around her feet. Felicity was such a cute baby, I got down on the floor and bounced her on my stomach while everyone remarked over our strong resemblance. Cousin Fenton was there as well, and enjoyed telling everyone he was the first relative to meet me at the State House.

  Our first holiday together as a family could have been so awkward, but instead I felt so at ease. It had been such a wild journey since the first family dinner for the cameras. Back then we called each other family, but now we were becoming a real family.

  The Sundlun family Thanksgiving tradition continues to this day, only now that my father is gone, we celebrate at my house. The quarters are a bit more cramped than my father’s lavish farm, but we love overflowing on couches for one weekend a year to celebrate our family. We put my father’s picture out and repeat his favorite sayings, like “Lead, follow, or get out of the way,” when we’re trying to get everyone seated. I always serve my father’s favorite drink, hot apple cider—and we go through gallons of it.

  When we go around the table to give thanks, family is always first on our gratitude list. No one could have predicted twenty years ago that this story would end with dinner being served at my table. I am forever grateful I made the choice to follow that small voice deep inside that urged me to keep the faith—that my father would come around. If I hadn’t, just think of we all that we would have missed. Because of my choice to have faith and forgive, my children have the kind of family I so badly wanted growing up.