Letters to my Daughter: July 19, 2020
The sun rises over the Lafayette River and makes our sun room glow. I watch it overtake the tree line across the water sitting in my papasan chair. It's something I do regularly with coffee before I wake you. A crumbling sidewalk forms a T below us, ending before the sandbar I take you to build sandcastles and continues over the bridge above the river.
Our neighbor's sun room caught stray bullets early in the morning, several pops and shattered glass before the sunrise and Old Dominion rowing teams could be seen gliding across the water. Before that, a car rammed into the corner streetlight, the only thing standing in between our friend's unit, a high speed police chase that ended in two people dragged out of the muddy distributary that separates us from our traditional home-owning neighbors. I stood in my sun room watching police officers walk along the sidewalk, between our garages, some with flashlights while most aggressively talked into their two-way strapped to their shoulders in the dark. Nothing came of either of those events, you slept through them, I watched along with my elderly neighbors with detached interest. I chose this place for how both remote and connected it was at the same time, hidden within an historic upper middle class neighborhood, but not even the affluent are safe from downtown Norfolk.
This is our home. It's been our safe haven during the global pandemic with a small beach adjacent to us when the tide is low enough for you to wade in. I tell you not to go too far because the oysters will bite your toes. I pointed to the thin jets of water shooting out of the sand at the edge of a patch of smooth cord grass, you reassure me it's just the sand being rude. You lie on your stomach in the water and dig your toes and fingers into the black bottom pulling yourself across the waterline. Our sandcastles crumble into half finished motes, I cover them in Periwinkle snails as you pull yourself through sea foam, appreciative denizens of your newly formed kingdom, and you tell me where they should go. Each one a small cone with delicate tendrils feeling their way across the expanse we created. We give them fresh stalks of grass to cling to and enough friends for it to feel like home. They need mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, the total extent of your understanding of the known world, and they are happy with what you've provided them. It's a game we play when it's warm and past noon, we sit under the shadow of a large willow oak tree and imagine what it would be like to make something bigger than ourselves.
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Our downstairs neighbor is an elderly woman with a dated haircut and loose fitting clothes embellished with rhinestones. She can be seen from time to time lumbering from her car extolling the power of prayer in a loud wavering voice that carries beyond her cell phone. She is an authority on many subjects and suffers greatly. She is a christianly woman who sends me poignant emails entitled "Running running running!" that go in-depth on what a menace you are and need to be corrected. She's offered me a foul smelling carpet to place in our home while advising me I need 80% of my floors covered, as per co-op guidelines, while I was in the middle of unpacking our home the first week we moved in. She's left print outs of specials on Amazon at my door with stale candy on top to disguise her selfishness as helpful. She strategically complained to the co-op board about how disruptive we were and it resulted in a meeting in the defunct communal laundry room, before a plastic card table and more gray haired people. My parenting was questioned and you were quizzed on your knowledge of letters, shapes and colors in front of me. I was furious, you were ambivalent, and nothing came of it. She pushed her way into our home once. I opened the door and she stumbled in as if invited, you were eating your late dinner and watching a movie on your tablet. She took stock of our home, three weeks into moving in, and commented about how we should be more settled. She called you autistic in her sing-song voice and went back downstairs.
That was how we were welcomed into the co-op.
Every night since then I tell you to be quiet or the mean old lady downstairs will come back. If I'm too loud when it's dark outside, you tell me to be quiet or the mean old lady downstairs will come back and bite me. She's turned into a cautionary tale to improve your manners and remind you not everyone we meet will be kind to us. Goslings have turned into family groupings of full-grown geese and the mean old lady hasn't returned. I still threaten you with the possibility of her appearance, a real-life boogie woman downstairs, who lies in wait for the day you misbehave badly enough. Her nature is mercurial, but the outcome of her impending visit is the same -- her voice will resonate unwelcomed in our home and she will burden us with her loneliness.
Your father isn't allowed inside our home. He needs to be reminded he's not welcome. I've drawn a line outside that begins at the sidewalk, where the guest parking meets the road. He hasn't gone further than that in months. He doesn't take you home anymore and your visits with him are infrequent. I imagine you playing with Gauss and Loki, your two favorite squeaks, and swimming in his pool. I smell the chemicals in your hair when I pick you up sometimes. He hands me your bags, compliments my dress by awkwardly calling it a skirt. I don't make eye contact. I buckle you into your car seat and you tell me he's so big and strong. I can't blame you for loving him. By the time I turn around he's walked back inside his house and shut the door. How long will it be before he sees you again? I've stopped telling you because he cancels last minute. On those days I tell you he has an important grownup chore to-do and promises to see you later. You become quiet and stare out the window strapped in your car seat. I take you to Cold Stone instead and distract you with too much ice cream.
It's been hard for us. Your father only knows how to live for himself. It's the reason he's never around and only sees you for 3-4 hour intervals. He lives by himself in a three-bedroom house and doesn't have a room made for you. I doubt he ever will. There was a time I was convinced he needed to be a part of your life. I've spent the better part of four years negotiating, screaming, bullying him into seeing how important he is to you. I wanted to shield you from the reality of his indifference and it left me feeling empty. His mediocrity is suffocating, it sucks the air out of the room and leaves me feeling overwhelmingly angry. I'm sorry I failed you, Charlotte, but sometimes the people you think you need the most are the ones who are meant to leave after their purpose has been served. The only genuinely good thing your father did was bless me with you. Maybe that's all he was meant to do.
