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her father, D.J. continued to call him every Sunday eveningand she'd continued to call him "Dad," though he probably would have preferred she call him Ed. The streak of mulish stubbornness within her refused to give him the satisfaction. He'd probably prefer she didn't call him either, but her father was the only family she had left, and she felt a responsibility to keep in touch. Their conversations usually lasted all of five minutes. She would tell him about her work, he would give her advice, then they would say good-bye. Often the machine would answer when she called. Since she always called on Sunday evenings, she'd know her father did not want to speak to her that week. She'd come to understand that during certain times of the year her father couldn't bear to hear her voicedays coinciding with important dates during his life and her mother'sanniversaries, birthdays, death days. When D.J. and her father had occupied the same house he would lock himself into his room on those days and drink himself into a stupor. She supposed she should be grateful he'd bothered to lock her away from his despair, though she'd absorbed it all the same. But she'd never been able to feel anything beyond anger over his selfishness. D.J. had lost her mother, and his refusal to utter the woman's name, or speak of his wife in any way, had robbed D.J. of the chance to know her mother. No pictures survived. He had torn every photo of his wife into shreds and cut up every negative the day after he'd lost her. D.J. had no earthly idea what her mother had looked like, though the way her father flinched whenever he looked into D.J.'s face made her think |
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