A little girl stands at the window. I am uncertain of her age. Five? Six? Seven? That part of the memory has been worn away by time. All I can recall vividly is a little girl standing at the living room window. She leans over the radiator. It is hard, cold, and unpleasant to touch. It is a barrier between her and the pane, keeping her from pressing her forehead to the glass. The view she cranes uncomfortably to see is nothing spectacular. The window overlooks an empty driveway. Even so, the girl is fixated on the pavement below. She is looking for her daddy.
Her father is a cable repairman. He schedules his stops so he is nearby his house in the late afternoon. He likes to go home on his break. Every day he visits his family for a short while before he returns his bucket truck and punches out for the day.
In my memory, every afternoon looks the same as another, except for one. And even that afternoon starts off routinely. The girl’s father comes home on his break. He spends time with his wife and children. He picks up the keys to his truck. He heads to the door. But on this particular afternoon, he says, “I’ve got to hit the road.”
The phrase reminds the little girl of a song she’s heard on the radio, maybe earlier that day. As she sits on the floor playing, she begins to sing:
Hit the road, Jack. And don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.
Hit the road, Jack. And don’t you come back no more.
There is a lapse in my memory here. The girl is in her own world. She does not witness any reaction to her song. The tune means nothing to her. How could she anticipate what would transpire?
Something significant passes between her parents in those unnoticed moments. The door closes. The atmosphere shifts.
“Why did you do that?” her mother snaps.
The girl is startled. Although no hand is laid upon her, the urgency of her mother’s words grab her and shake her until her brain rattles.
“Why did you sing that? Do you know what you’ve done?”
Her mother’s voice is wild, angry, desperate.
“Now he may never come back!”
Her mother turns away and leaves her.
This is too much for the girl to understand. Why wouldn’t her daddy come back? It is inconceivable to her that anyone would take a few stupid song lyrics so personally. She would feel certain that her mother was overreacting, but something in the woman’s expression assures the girl that every word is true.
She may have driven her daddy away forever.
A little girl stands at the window making promises upon promises to God. She will be so good if He will just bring her daddy home. She stares at the driveway, crushed by guilt. She made a mistake. She made daddy leave. Mommy doesn’t love her anymore. It’s all her fault. She is a bad, bad girl.
She stands at that window for the twenty or so minutes it takes until her father returns home. She stands at that window until she is sure she sees her father’s face. And then the girl breathes again.
This is the first memory I have of learning about my father’s illness.
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