Ch 11: A New Life

After I ended my engagement, I started a new job in a new town, but the universe kept interfering with my plans to embrace my new life.

When three friends who had volunteered to help me move placed the last boxes into my new study, I couldn’t wait to close the door behind them. I thanked them for carrying what seemed like endless boxes of books, a limited collection of kitchenware and other household goods, and a hodgepodge of furniture up two flights of stairs. I then ushered them out the door. I had done it. All my stuff—what there was of it—was together again in one place—in a new apartment, in a new town. And it was all mine.

I felt like I could breathe for the first time since my friends' intervention that ultimately ended my ill-advised engagement six-months earlier. After Bill and I broke up, I focused on the one thing that promised a fresh start: a new job in a new town. And I found one. I was hired as the executive director of a mental health/substance abuse crisis center in a small town about an hour from Adrian. At only 22, this felt like quite an accomplishment, and I was proud of it. What it meant for Michelle and me, though, neither of us knew.

[If you feel called to read the entire article, you can do that here: Drop-in Center has new director]

Even during my engagement to Bill, Michelle and I continued to be on and off again, unable to let go of each other. With a new job in another town, we’d finally have a reason—an excuse—to stop living together.

“I won’t be commuting to Albion,” I informed her, with a confidence I didn’t feel. “I’m gonna move there. Get my own apartment. I guess that means you’ll probably need to get a new place too.”

It felt like a betrayal and at the same time, a much-needed reason to move on with my life. Even if I’d married Bill, Michelle and I could have continued the dance we’d been doing for decades. I didn’t know if I was still in love with her, but I knew what we had wasn’t working. I couldn’t stand seeing her with one more guy, and I’m sure she couldn’t stand the thought of me marrying someone else, even if it was a marriage of convenience. 

“Makes sense,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. Her voice flat as a stagnant pond with only the tiniest ripple to reveal any signs of life.

“You can come visit if you want,” I added, sounding less inviting than I intended.

With things left hanging between us, I rented an apartment and began the painstaking process of separating our stuff.

“Do you really want all the Barry Manilow albums?” I shouted to her in the other room.

“Yes,” she shouted back.

“Can’t I keep one of them?” I countered.

“OK, but not ‘Tryin’ to Get the Feeling.’” Every time she relented felt like another thread pulled from an old sweater.

Although we hadn’t officially ended what we had, we knew things were changing between us. Only time would tell what our relationship would look like moving forward.

I moved over the extended Fourth of July holiday weekend. The synchronicity of celebrating Independence Day as I crammed boxes with my meager belongings and secured their contents with heavy-duty packing tape wasn’t lost on me. On July 5^th, I started my new job, eager to immerse myself in my new community.

Two days later Mom called to tell me Dad was in the hospital. “Your dad had a heart attack” she said. “He’s in ICU. You better come.”

I winced at the news. I knew I had to go. That wasn’t a question. I loved him and wanted to be there. But the timing couldn’t have been worse. How could I tell my new employer I needed time off to fly to Arkansas? The interim director had kindly agreed to stay on for a month to orient me to the organization and the community. This would seriously cut into our time together. But when I said to her, “I have to go. I hope you understand.” She said she did.

“We’ll have enough time when you get back,” she assured me. I had to trust she meant it.

The first thing I noticed when I entered Dad’s hospital room was how pale he looked. I want to say gaunt, but Dad was a big man, so that’s not exactly right. Maybe vacant is a better word.

“Hello, Netty,” he whispered when he saw me, a smile not quite forming on his lips.

He often called me “Netty,” one of only two people who did (Michelle was the other), and I loved hearing it from him. I sniffed the air to catch a whiff of his signature Edgeworth pipe tobacco—a smell I associated with him more closely than his cologne or aftershave—but all I smelled was the antiseptic aroma of hospital.

“Hi, Dad. What’s all this about?” I gestured to the mass of IVs and cables hanging off his body. “Heck of a way to get to stay in bed all day.”

“Yeah, but they have so many things hooked up to me, I can’t even hold a book.” He moved his hands to show how the cables restricted him. “See?”

Dad was a big reader, and he did most of his reading in bed. Science fiction mostly. Not a genre I loved, but my brother did, so they had each other as reading buddies—something I was always a little jealous of.

“I hear ya,” I replied. “That’s no fun! We gotta get you out of here!” I raised my arm, formed a fist, and pointed my thumb backward toward the door.

He cracked a weak smile even though it lacked the Irish glint that usually accompanied it. I smiled back.

As I sat by his bedside in the days that followed, I told Dad about my new job, my apartment, and the town. I didn’t tell him about my love life or anything that might cause tension between us. Over the years, Dad and I had rarely talked about my sexual orientation—in fact I can only remember one conversation when I told him I was going out with Michelle’s brother. He told me that was just a ploy to stay connected to Michelle, and he was right. Now certainly didn’t seem the time to tell him I was finally single but still a lesbian. Nor did it seem the time to ask him whether he was my biological father. Maybe some would have taken advantage of the opportunity for a hospital confession, but with all that was going on, I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it.

Although I knew Dad loved me and I loved him, the truth was I didn’t really know him that well. I was five when went to live with him and twenty-two when I sat by his hospital bed. For the previous six years, I’d been away at school, and even when I was home, he was traveling for his job almost half the time. That meant that we probably only lived together the equivalent of five to seven years up to this point.

In what time we had, we talked about the news—he was an avid news follower and taught me a lot of what I know about politics. We talked about sports. Well, maybe I should say the family talked about sports—he especially loved football and hockey and spent a lot of time at my brother’s football practices and games. And we talked about travel—something he did a lot of and encouraged us to do. Every summer, he took me on a solo trip as a way to spend time together. I’ll never forget a trip to Memphis when Dad took me to a rock concert.

Dad and me

We were sitting at breakfast in the hotel dining room with newspapers held up between us as we devoured the morning news along with our eggs and toast. “Dad!” I interrupted his reading. “There’s a really cool concert tonight here in Memphis. Gary Puckett and the Union Gap!”

He slowly lowered the paper, looked me right in the eyes, and much to my surprise, asked, “Do you want to go?”

I about lost it. “Could we?” I’d never been to a big concert before so had no idea what to expect, but yes, I wanted to go.

That evening, Dad and I sat on folding metal chairs on the floor of a huge arena with thousands of young girls screaming their lungs out. Dad tolerated the two opening acts, Joe South, whose hit song, “Games People Play” would eventually win Song of the Year at the Grammy’s, and Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, who had recently won fame with “Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was In.” But when Gary Puckett stepped on stage and started singing “Lady Willpower,” the crowd went wild. Within minutes, maybe seconds, Dad put his hand on my leg to get my attention. He motioned backwards and mouthed that he’d be in the lobby. “Too loud,” he exclaimed and with that got up and left me there.

I loved the concert, and I loved that Dad took me, but most of all I loved that he trusted me enough to stay there by myself. At 14, that trust meant a lot to me. And I loved Dad for it.  

I’d been in Rogers for a week, and Dad was still in ICU. No improvement but no decline either according to the nurses treating him. When I entered his room on the morning of the seventh day, I didn’t waste any time, “Dad, I have to get back to work. I’m sorry.” I hugged him goodbye, trying to push aside my gnawing worry. “I wish I could stay.” I didn’t know if this would be the last time I’d see him, but I hugged him as if it were and told him I loved him. 

I sat in my rental car in the hospital parking lot and cried, then took a deep breath and focused on getting home. That was my way. Push down my feelings and get on with it. I was anxious to return to work and settle into my new life. I prayed Dad would be OK.

After two good weeks in my new job, I returned to Adrian to help Michelle move into a small one-bedroom apartment. It was the least I could do, I thought. For what, I’m not sure. It had been a full day of packing and hauling, and despite the almost full moon, darkness had descended. We were both exhausted. I reached into the trunk of my car, hefted the last big box into my arms, and headed for the door, looking forward to the cold beer waiting for me on the other side. The next thing I knew I was sprawled on the ground, the box and its contents strewn across the lawn, and my left elbow caught underneath me. I screamed.

“Are you alright?” Michelle called out and then rushed over.

“Ouch,” I cried as she tried to get me up. “I tripped over that damn cement block!” pointing with my head. “My elbow’s really hurting. Ow. Ow” I cradled my left arm in my right hand and tried to get up without moving it. It didn’t work.

“Let’s get you inside,” Michelle said. “Do you think it’s broken?”

“Yes.”

“Damn! We’d better go to the ER. Go sit in the car,” she commanded. “Let me get everything else inside. I’ll be right back.” I could hear the resignation in her voice. This was certainly not how she wanted to spend her first night in her new home.

On the following Friday, a week after my fall, I’d had successful surgery to repair a shattered elbow but was still in the hospital. The plan was to release me on Saturday, so I could finally get back to work, in a full arm cast, on Monday.

I talked with Dad on the phone the night before I was discharged—from my hospital bed to his. They’d finally moved him out of ICU to a regular room, so he had access to a phone. We joked about both being in the hospital.

“We’re a mess,” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied, “We both gotta get out of here.” I could imagine his hand gesture mimicking mine from my earlier hospital visit.

He sounded better—a little perkier—and I hung up feeling hopeful he’d be OK.

Sunday morning, less than twenty-four hours after I’d been released from the hospital, my brother called me at Michelle’s. “Dad died this morning,” he said. “He had another heart attack.”

I collapsed into the chair, cradling my cast into my chest like it was a tiny infant. “Oh, no!”

When Michelle heard my cry, she rushed over and hugged me without having to ask what had happened. In that moment, the challenges of our relationship melted away, and I welcomed her comforting arms.

On Monday morning, instead of returning to my new job, I flew back to Arkansas, cast and all, to say my final goodbyes to the man who was my dad.

I arrived just in time to meet Mom and Jarrett at the funeral home. When the funeral director asked if I wanted to see his body, I said no. Mom didn’t want an open casket, so this was the only opportunity I’d have. I don’t know why I chose not to see him. I guess I followed Mom’s lead. I wish I had though. I now know that seeing him one last time would have provided me with a sense of finality that a closed casket doesn’t offer. Maybe if I had seen him, I could have let go of my nagging questions about whether he was my real dad and let things be. Or maybe not.

But at his funeral, I didn’t think much about whether he was my adopted father or my biological father. He was just, “Dad,” and I loved him.

By the time I returned to work, I’d been there a little over two weeks of the planned month-long orientation time and now it was two weeks past that. I’m surprised they didn’t fire me. The interim director couldn’t stay any longer. She had her own life to get on with, so I was left to my own devices to figure out my new job. And my new life. Now without a father.

As I finally settled into my routine in Albion, I grew more determined to embrace my true self as a lesbian and as a competent professional. I still didn’t know how to live into either of those things, but I felt driven to find out.

Within weeks after Dad’s death, I traded my beloved 1973 Pontiac Ventura hatchback, the car my dad had given me at my high school graduation and bought a sportier 1977 Pontiac Sunbird Coupe. Although I loved my Ventura, the car I named Vincent for Vincent van Gogh because I liked the alliteration, and I loved Don McLean’s song about him, it felt like letting go of it was part of moving on, establishing my own identity, creating my own life.

Though my parents’ secrets remained buried, I knew that the journey to uncover them would have to wait. It was my time now, and I looked forward to whatever might lie ahead.

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Ch 12: The Second Coming (Out)

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