Sneak Peek #22 "Dancing into Deliverance" There's No Knight in Shining Armor
...but I think the picture is hilarious and has almost nothing to do with the story.
Dating my second husband was a wonderful experience. He quickly became my best friend and I enjoyed the ease and comfort of this friendship and romance. He made me laugh and I think I did the same. Looking back at some of our emails, I sometimes cringe at myself. Quite often, I could sound pretty obnoxious and brash. At the time, I thought I was being funny, but in hindsight, I think I was subconsciously testing him to see how much he’d stick around for. This was a pattern that I can only now see looking back in time.
I would say shocking things and subconsciously wonder if he would stay or be appalled and walk away. I would say bold, prideful, bratty things. “Will he still stay?” I would crack crude and disrespectful jokes. “Will this be what drives him away?” It was never intentional, but the undertones were there. I will not deny that I was trying my best to see how far I could push anyone in a relationship with me. “How far before they go away, too?” “What is their threshold?”
My dad took off before I was born, was in and out for about six months before he permanently left, then wanted nothing to do with me. Throughout my life, the resulting question permeated all of my relationships. If my dad, who was, by nature, supposed to love me the way a parent is supposed to love their child, didn’t, then how would anyone else be able to love me?
I wanted to be loved, but without believing it could be possible, I had a sick way of trying to push people away to see if they’d stay. I think it came from this…
As a child, being terrified of my step-dad, David, I had created a super-hero version of my real dad, who I’d really never met. A fantasy evolved of a man who would fall in love with me when he met me and want to rescue me from my evil captor. I just KNEW my real dad would think I was beautiful, intelligent, funny, charming, adorable, wonderful, and lovable IF he met me. All the things my step-dad said I wasn’t.
I just KNEW that once he met me, he would not want to live without me and would fight for me…fight to have me with him, that he would fight to rescue me. That HE would be the one to save my life. He would be enamored with me, if given the chance. I just knew it!
When I was 14, my mom and David were supposed to go to the annual Shaklee convention, a business my mom had been involved in since I was 7. It was to be held in San Francisco that year and I almost always went with them. It was such a wonderful escape, as Shaklee took fantastic care of the kiddos, while the parents were doing their thing. It was my yearly chance to be free from David’s tyranny for a week.
I knew my dad lived in Carlsbad, California, at the time. I did not realize the distance between San Francisco and Carlsbad, but thought since we were “in the neighborhood,” it might be a good opportunity for me to meet him. Somehow, I talked my mom into this nonsense and got her permission to call him…but first, I had to find his number. So, I called my brother, Jimmy, to see if he would be willing to divulge this information.
Jimmy got a good chuckle out of my plan. “You have balls, kiddo. Big, huge balls.” They were meant as words of encouragement, as he gave me the number and told me he hoped it all worked out. I remember staring at the number for the longest time. This was it! I was finally going to get to talk to my dad, my potential hero. What would I say? Would he hang up on me? Would he be happy to hear from me? Should I really call? Should I just forget about it and not take a chance on the potential pain?
No. I had to call. It would be an eternal regret, if I didn’t.
I picked the phone up and put it back on the cradle several times before I could finally push all 10 numbers that would cause his phone to ring. I would push a few, then hang up. Then pick the phone back up again and start over, heart pounding, and palms sweaty. Pushing that final digit was the hardest, but eventually, I made it through and the phone at the other end rang.
Soon a female answered the phone and I asked if I could talk to Jim. She asked who I was and I told her. I vaguely remember her being kind, as she sort of put me at ease. She told me not to be scared, that my dad was just a big teddy bear, then handed me off to him.
I tried to keep my voice steady as I told him who I was and quickly and nervously told him I would be in California that August and would really like to meet him. It wasn’t the best call I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t the worst, either. He agreed to meet me but asked me a few questions first like, “Are you fat?”
“Ummmm, no.” I weighed about 80 pounds, at the time. I would be considered anorexic, before I’d be considered fat. In fact, my friends were force feeding me donuts to get me to gain weight, at the time.
My dad agreed to let me come visit after the Shaklee trip and I was so excited! Would he like me? Would he love me? Would the fantasy become a reality? Would he rescue me?
As the date of the trip approached, David began having prostate issues that would require surgery. Due to this, he was unable to join us on the trip. I was not upset about this at all.
After the convention in San Francisco, my mom and I traveled to San Diego, where she would stay with friends, while I visited my dad. I was picked up at the San Diego airport by my dad and his “wife,” Kathy, in a big, white Cadillac (I think it was a Cadillac) to whisk me away to their home in Carlsbad.
There was nothing remarkable about the meeting. He didn’t rush to greet me with the sweeping, twirling hug I’d imagined. He didn’t look at me and instantly regret all the years he’d lost. He didn’t even shake my hand. He just grabbed my bag, threw it in the trunk, then got in the driver’s seat to continue on with the day, as though he was a taxi driver and I was his latest fare. He wasn’t even wearing the shining armor I’d imagined.
I remember my dad was wearing blue pants and a white button-down, short-sleeved, shirt that covered, what I considered to be a large belly. “Why had he asked, on the phone, if I was fat, if he had a decent sized belly of his own?” I wondered. My mind quickly moved on to other things, though. I was taking everything in and there was no point getting stuck on his belly. Who was this Kathy person with him and this toddler, Molly?
I knew my dad had married Kathy at some point after I was born and I also knew he had never divorced the wife he married sometime in the 1940s.
This Molly person was their adopted child, but I would not find that out until later in life.
I sat in the back seat and quietly examined the scenery as we drove to his house. There wasn’t much conversation during the car ride. I was shy and felt super intimidated, so I remained silent unless I was asked anything. Kathy had a few questions for me and I felt like she was trying to make me feel comfortable and create a less awkward environment.
We soon arrived at a beautiful home with, with a beautiful pool overlooking a beautiful California valley. The house was exquisitely furnished with an art deco theme that was stylish, at the time.
I was shown to my room and began making myself at home. As I was unpacking, my dad stopped by to check in and really didn’t have much to say. He looked at my belongings and picked up one of the Sweet Valley High series of books I’d had in my carry-on. He turned it over and looked at it a little bit and put it back down, but said nothing about it.
I suddenly felt embarrassed by my choice of literature. “Does he think I’m ridiculous for reading a girly, teen book?” I wondered. I regretted not bringing a Nancy Drew book or something at least a bit more intellectual. Sweet Valley High it was, though, and I’d lost an opportunity to possibly impress him.
There was no real conversation. He said something about Kathy making dinner and that it would be ready soon, then left me to continue unpacking. We had a nice dinner of some kind of healthy bean salad Kathy made. I remember thinking it odd that she made a point to tell me how she made sure my dad ate super healthy after his colon cancer and bypass surgeries, yet there he was drinking straight vodka.
After dinner, we went for a walk around his upscale, golf-course neighborhood. It was my dad, Kathy, Molly in a stroller, and me meandering around the area. It wasn’t long before my dad ran into a neighbor he, apparently, hadn’t seen in a few years. The gentleman had never met Molly, so my dad introduced us all. “This is Andrea…” he said as he gestured my way. I don’t remember him introducing me as his daughter, but let’s just give him the benefit of the doubt and say he did. But then, he pointed at the stroller, and said, “…and this is Molly. She’s the reason I come straight home from work and don’t stop off at the bars.”
“She’s the reason I come straight home from work and don’t stop off at the bars??? DO YOU NOT SEE ME STANDING RIGHT HERE???” I screamed in my head, as I silently wilted. How could he say that right in front of me, I wondered. How could he not realize how desperately I needed to hear something similar. How desperately I wanted to be adored by my dad like she was. What did she have that I didn’t have? He had wanted nothing to do with me, but ‘she’s the reason he comes straight home from work?’ My spirit was crushed and so was my knight in shining armor fantasy. There was no one coming to my rescue. I was alone and unwanted and unseen.
Looking back, he was probably trying to be funny…but it wasn’t. It was a soul crushing blow for me. In fact, I don’t remember much else from the trip. At least, it was only for one night and my dad spent that night in front of the TV. I stared at the back of his recliner, while Kathy tried to make small talk with me to keep me from focusing too much on the reality that he was more interested in something on a screen that could be recorded for later, than his daughter he never knew, who would only be in his presence for a little over a day.
As I write this, I feel pretty irritated with the pity party I was throwing myself but, beyond the rejection I felt at the time, there was the realization of what was waiting for me at home. David, my step-dad, was still there and my hope, the little, teeny, tiny glimmer of hope that I had had of being rescued from him was destroyed. My dad didn’t want me and certainly wasn’t going to fight to save me. My hope was gone.
I returned home, hopeless.
Yet, four days after I met my dad, just four days after I had lost all hope was when David died.
When all hope is lost…it is not.
Sadly, the man I eventually married would end up having many run-ins with this 14- year-old, insecure version of me that would show up well into my 30s…
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