M<\/span>y cellphone rang one evening and it jolted me, perhaps because I don\u2019t receive a lot of calls at that time. I looked at the ID and it was my daughter. She seems to always call my cellphone because she knows my wife Mindy doesn\u2019t answer it. Characteristically, she never leaves a message.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi Dad. It\u2019s Emily.\u201d In the past, she wouldn\u2019t identify herself, assuming I would know my own daughter. That\u2019s not an unreasonable expectation for fathers who hear their daughters\u2019 voices regularly. Sadly, I don\u2019t. I admit I don\u2019t call her regularly either, in part because more often than not, my calls usually go directly to voicemail.<\/p>\n

Emily\u2019s Mom and I divorced, with maximum acrimony, when she was fifteen and our son Greg was thirteen. They\u2019re in their late thirties now. The parental side of me feels like it was just a couple of years ago, but that\u2019s just part of the aging process that leads us to compress time, events receding from memory like hairlines receding from foreheads. After all, she was my first child, my only daughter and I\u2019ve missed her since that day I moved out of what had been our marital home. Father\u2019s don\u2019t forget, but the flipside of that is ex-wives, at least mine, don\u2019t forgive. My ex defines me filing for divorce as scornful. I don\u2019t believe divorce is necessarily scornful, but then I\u2019m the father who filed. Divorce by this Dad was simply a husband throwing in the towel on a marriage that wasn\u2019t working. The eighteen-year match was over.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s jealousy that drives ex-wives\u2019 rage. If pressed, most ex-wives will also admit that the relationship isn\u2019t working. But why did he have to take up with that other woman and how long has he been seeing her?<\/em> Those are the usual complaints when ex-husbands move on. Emily took her Mom\u2019s point of view when it came to me. She never really had a chance to follow her own feelings because her Mom\u2019s rage forced her to shower Emily with an anti-Dad and anti-male diatribe. Our son Greg couldn\u2019t wait to escape that environment.<\/p>\n

When Greg graduated high school four years after our divorce, I was living on Philadelphia\u2019s Mainline and working at a pharmaceutical company. I drove to New Jersey for his graduation and stayed at my parents\u2019 house five or six miles away. The morning after his graduation, he called me and said, \u201cDad, can you pick me up?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure son, but I\u2019m headed back to Philly this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I arrived at his Mom\u2019s house, he was standing outside at the front door. He had his usual suitcase and his television. He was leaving his Mom. Did I mention that my ex-wife didn\u2019t talk to me, nor did I speak to her for almost fifteen years? She attended my Dad\u2019s funeral in 2004 and that was the first time we were in each other\u2019s company in all that time. In fact, the only time we discussed anything in nearly twenty-five years was last year when Greg was hospitalized for an illness and I ran into her at the hospital. It was strange talking to her, albeit by cell phone, openly, almost glibly, in contrast to our behaviors during our marriage. I guess I\u2019ve learned something.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi Emily, What\u2019s up?\u201d I asked, trying to keep my built-in skepticism from sneaking into my voice, replacing the excitement that was fleeting and unsustainable. What does she need<\/em>? crept into my thinking.<\/p>\n

She wanted to know if I would like to go to the theater with her before she left for a European vacation. Her treat.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of another time she requested I visit her. My wife Mindy and I had traveled to Portland, OR a decade ago to attend her boss\u2019s son\u2019s wedding. Emily is a physician and she was in the Army Medical Corps back then, stationed in Tacoma, WA. I asked her to drive down to Portland to visit me. She refused and intimated that if I didn\u2019t drive up, I wouldn\u2019t see her. She was simply too busy. So I drove up.<\/p>\n

I felt like a sucker because, I grumbled, I had traveled a few thousand miles, couldn\u2019t she travel the last hundred? We had a lovely lunch notwithstanding my resentment. She drove me around Puget Sound to a restaurant on the water. I had just begun writing and I was trying to write spy fiction so I picked her brain about infectious diseases. It was a lovely setting, a postcard image that I\u2019ll always remember. I am also proud of her educational accomplishments.<\/p>\n

When I was sure of the tenor of my voice, I explained that the train ride from my hometown to New York\u2019s Grand Central Station was about an hour and twenty minutes, so although I\u2019d love to go to the theater, it would have to be for a weekend matinee. I left unspoken that I had no desire to get home after midnight and then try to get up at six-thirty the next morning to take our four-year-old son Richard to school. Mindy told me later I should have accepted.<\/p>\n

Mindy and I have been married thirteen years yet for all that time, Mindy made, and now Richard makes Emily uncomfortable. Whenever we speak, it\u2019s as though neither Mindy nor Richard exist. She\u2019s seen Richard but a few times and doesn\u2019t acknowledge any relation to him. She also \u201cunfriended\u201d her brother Greg on Facebook because she didn\u2019t like what he posted. Richard is only her half brother so he really doesn\u2019t stand a chance. What did I expect? My getting up at six-thirty to take our son to school is incongruous to her. I suppose the separation between their ages is what\u2019s incongruous, well-over thirty years. But there is more to it.<\/p>\n

When her Mom and I first separated, Emily stopped speaking to me from the day I moved out of our marital home despite \u201cnormal\u201d visitation privileges granted me by the court. I used to pick up Greg on the weekends he was scheduled to be with me, although by his choice he also spent many additional weekends with me. Fridays, I\u2019d pull into my ex-wife\u2019s driveway, by then she\u2019d moved into a new townhouse, beep the horn and wait for him. I\u2019d see a curtain part on the second floor and see Emily peeking out at me. If she saw that I\u2019d noticed her, or if I waved, she would back away from the window and close the curtain. Greg tells me she was watching me from his room when she was peeking out. Her bedroom was downstairs. That went on for years.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

When she was sixteen and they were still in what had been our marital home, I drove by and saw her walking home from school. I pulled over, got out of my car, sat on a curb so I would be unthreatening and asked her if I could take her out for ice cream. She ignored me and went into her house and I got back into my car. I didn\u2019t know she had called the police and the next thing I knew, an angry cop blocked my car and yelled, \u201cKeep your hands on the wheel where I can see them! Don\u2019t move.\u201d She\u2019d told them she was afraid of me. He conferred with another cop, one I knew, who then stuck his head into my car and said, \u201cListen, maybe you shouldn\u2019t come around here for a while. Momma fills their heads with garbage. I\u2019ve been there. So get the hell out of here.\u201d I did as suggested and left. I spent the afternoon furious and humiliated. I stomped around, mumbling, \u201cwho the hell does she think she is,\u201d to anyone within earshot.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t speak to me again until she was leaving for college three years later. In the interim, her Mom made her testify against me during one of Mom\u2019s six requests for more child support. That broke my heart and insulted me and was clearly timed to ensure I would participate in paying college expenses. All Emily really had to do was ask, but that\u2019s hindsight, and easy to claim but difficult to prove. It also left me feeling my ex-wife was still manipulating her.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, Mindy, Richard and I drove to New Jersey to visit my mother and celebrate her 90th birthday. Emily and Greg met us at my Mom\u2019s apartment. Emily and I took a ride to pick up a birthday cake. During that ride, I confronted her about some of the issues that bothered me, including that time she called the cops and told them she was afraid of me.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a mistake, Dad. I called the cops because someone else rang our doorbell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bullshit! It didn\u2019t explain why the cops stopped me, especially that they knew my name! I didn\u2019t pursue it. We talked for half an hour and I felt a lot better. At least I had aired my thoughts. Two weeks later, she drove up to our home in upstate New York for Father\u2019s Day. It was the first and last time I saw her on Father\u2019s Day in twenty-five years.<\/p>\n

Emily and I spoke again a week after her theater invitation and she explained that she couldn\u2019t get matinee tickets for reasons I didn\u2019t, wouldn\u2019t or couldn\u2019t understand, only an evening performance and only during the week. I said, thanks but no thanks but I tried to avoid sounding like Dr. Seuss\u2019s Grinch so I countered with, \u201cHow about dinner,\u201d on an evening I was scheduled to be in New York. I gave her a few alternate days but she explained that because she had scheduled that European trip with her Mom her availability was constrained. They were going on a Mediterranean Cruise, Emily\u2019s treat \u2013 as a way to say \u201cThank you\u201d to Mom for all she\u2019s done. \u201cPlease don\u2019t tell Greg,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t tell Greg indeed.<\/p>\n

She said she\u2019d get back to me because she doesn\u2019t plan decisively, at least with me. It\u2019s always seemed to me that everything else in her life seems to take precedence over anything in my life. I\u2019m sure most absentee dads feel the same way. A few days later we scheduled it.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks later, and it was the day of our scheduled dinner. I went into New York City earlier than usual so I could run some errands and leave time for dinner with her. We were to meet at the Fairway market on Broadway so I could introduce her to one of my favorite non-tourist landmarks. As usual, she couldn\u2019t make it at our agreed upon time. It occurred to me that she\u2019s rarely been on time for any activity with me. I\u2019ll grant that it\u2019s not personal, probably just a bad habit. I texted that she simply meet me at the restaurant I\u2019d recommended because I had but one hour until my next appointment. She showed up twenty minutes later. It left us only forty minutes. I said nothing although I\u2019d already ordered my own meal and I was halfway through it when she sat down.<\/p>\n

I used to drive to New Jersey every couple weeks to see my folks. During my visits, Emily used to join us. I live an hour and twenty minutes north of Emily and my late parents home. She visits with the same frequency she has for the last twenty years. She\u2019s been to my home a half-dozen times in as many years. By contrast, Greg visits regularly and for him I\u2019m two and a half hours away. I find myself changing; maybe it\u2019s another side of that aging process, the side that tolerates less and less aberrant behavior. Or maybe I just can\u2019t be bothered any longer because my time is devoted to Richard as it was devoted to Emily and Greg when they were Richard\u2019s age. Either way, I miss her less and less and on a good day, I think the idea of \u201cmissing her\u201d is an emotion I haven\u2019t resolved from our initial separation during which Emily withdrew from me. In other words, it\u2019s my problem and can\u2019t really be resolved, my war wound from the divorce. Mmmm, and I always thought I was normal and my ex was crazy.<\/p>\n

She has friends not far from us although she hasn\u2019t told me where. She\u2019s visited them twice that I know of. I don\u2019t track her, but each time she visited them, she called me to say, \u201cI\u2019ll stop by if I have time.\u201d She never had time. The cynical side of me concluded she was visiting someone up the street from us and I could have stood on my porch and waved at her as she drove by.<\/p>\n

I always thought I was a good father. She was born in Boston during my last year of graduate school. For six months I took care of her all day and wrote my dissertation at home in our apartment, between childcare responsibilities.\u00a0 Measured by progress, it was a good arrangement, because within six months we not only celebrated her first birthday, but I completed my degree requirements, wrote and defended my dissertation, and found and accepted a postdoctoral fellowship. I always thought we were close. Greg was born in New Haven, while I was a fellow at Yale. I remember taking them sledding during the long Connecticut winters, swimming in the summers and driving to visit Nana and Grandpa on weekends. We used to feed the geese at a local park until an angry goose bit my leg. I don\u2019t think he liked the food. The kids thought it was funny.<\/p>\n

My parenting skills were summoned anew in 2009 when our son Richard was born. Mindy and I shared parenting responsibilities during her maternal leave. We fell into a routine quickly and it didn\u2019t take very long at all for me to dismiss the feeling that Richard\u2019s friends have parents who are just about Emily and Greg\u2019s ages. Mindy took the feedings and changings one night and I\u2019d take them on the alternate nights. It left us both a little less exhausted. I tried to be productive on those nights I was up changing diapers and giving a bottle so I was inspired to write a memoir. I titled it, Renaissance Dad<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Several people suggested I structure the memoir by writing about my experiences with Richard and comparing or contrasting them with my parallel experiences raising Emily and Greg. That troubles me because I cannot remember any parallel experiences raising Emily and Greg.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve thought a lot about it. Wasn\u2019t I there? Of course I was. I already said I remember bonding with them. I took each of them for their first haircut and I drove them to school every morning on my way to work. But like other white-collar professionals, I also worked fifty or sixty hours a week. I remember teaching them to ride bicycles, catch a ball and bake a cake. They watched me mow our lawn, paint our house and repair our appliances. I took them to religious school on weekends and scouts, and I went to PTA meetings. I don\u2019t feel there\u2019s enough for a book, though. Maybe the problem is that I don\u2019t remember laughing whereas, I laugh a lot at home now. Maybe I\u2019ve learned most of all to laugh at myself and that\u2019s the point. I wasn\u2019t happy so I didn\u2019t laugh. Now I\u2019m happy and I do. My older kids were short-changed and my book is stalled.<\/p>\n

Emily and I said our goodbyes on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. I wished her bon voyage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll speak before I leave, Dad.\u201d She said as she left.<\/p>\n

Sure<\/em>, I thought.<\/p>\n

She never called. I saw a Facebook photo of her standing in front of one of Gaudi\u2019s masterpieces in Barcelona. She obviously enjoyed her trip. A week later she posted that she was home.<\/p>\n

She called a day later.<\/p>\n

We chatted for a minute or two as I pulled into my driveway with Richard in the car and a big load of groceries. I couldn\u2019t really talk. She managed to ask a question. Why hadn\u2019t I commented on her vacation pictures she\u2019d posted on Facebook? Who knows? Maybe because I knew her Mom took most of them. Or maybe because when I send Emily an email she rarely responds or answers with at most, one or two words, so why would I use Facebook to try to communicate?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would I say?\u201d I asked without thinking. Then I disconnected. Maybe I simply should have kept my mouth shut.<\/p>\n

The next day I called her back. My first call was lost to the cell phone switchboard in the sky so I tried again after I moved to an area with better reception.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi Emily, it\u2019s Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

We chatted for another minute and the phone went dead again. She didn\u2019t call back. Neither did I. Didn\u2019t hear from her for two weeks. Turned out she was at work.<\/p>\n

Dads tire of indifference but they don\u2019t forget, no matter how hard they try. I can\u2019t speak for Moms but I suspect they share Dads love of their children forever. Maybe a child\u2019s job is to drive us nuts our whole lives.<\/p>\n

This week I sent Emily an email that explained I would be visiting nearby her home and I\u2019d like to stop by. Her response was \u201cAwesome!\u201d We set a time and I just took a batch of my chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. Greg and Emily always helped me make them. Now Richard does too. I hope she still likes them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s jealousy that drives ex-wives\u2019 rage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3198"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3322,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions\/3322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}