The Wish

by Barbara J. Dimmick

I move as if in a dream, a bad dream. He looks worse than I have ever seen him. The last five years have taken a toll that even the most skillful mortician cannot hide. In his knotted hands he holds a single red rose and an old black and white photo. Those hands… big and hairy, joined to arms that could caress or crush … 

A little girl’s fingers trace the US Marine Corps tattoo. “Did it hurt to get this?” she asks innocently.

Uncle Harry is behind me, saying something I don’t hear.

“Here.” He takes the picture from my father’s hands and presses it in my palm. “He wanted you to have this.” His eyes search mine. “It was sort of his … you know, sort of his last wish.” 

I look at the picture, wrinkled and torn at one corner. A proud father holding his baby daughter looks back at me. I feel my legs suddenly get weak.

“Your father was sure proud of you – first artist in the family and all.”

“Let’s go sit down.” 

“It happened so suddenly … sorry we couldn’t do any better than this.”

The organ is playing an eternally long song, after which the minister speaks.

Someone I haven’t seen in twenty years hands me a tissue.

 

*******************************

 

We are finally at the cemetery. The rain is coming fitfully, a sad counterpoint.

“And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

The lid closes with ominous finality.

Goddammit, girl. Can’t you do anything right? I am six, maybe seven and I have spilled my drink again. Dad is furious and I shrink back from his club-like hand.

The casket is lowered into the ground. Two men shovel dirt on top as matter-of-factly as if their business was not about death at all. 

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

So this is it.

We are in a motel pool and Dad is playing with me. I smell the beer on his breath. Everything is okay. Dad is in a good mood.

“Rest in Peace.”

“Daddy?”

“Yeah.”

“What was it like when you were growing up?” Strong, hairy hands encircle me.

His face grows suddenly dark and I am afraid. “You don’t want to know,” he says quietly.

The rain lashes out in full fury now.

It is over. Thank God it is over. Uncle Harry squeezes my hand before we scatter. 

“You’ll call me if you need anything?”

“Yeah,” I manage through the lump in my throat. “I’ve got to go to his place and pack some of his things up tonight.”

 

*******************************

 

Except for the weeds that choke the bushes and the driveway strewn with early-autumn leaves, the old place looks pretty much the same. The porch light has been left on. Strange. 

I walk in the house, close the door. The light has been left on in here too. It is sparsely furnished in that predictable military style of his. The only clue that anyone has lived here recently is the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the kitchen table. I pick it up and throw it as hard as I can. Glass shatters everywhere as whiskey streaks down the wall.

“Damn you! Why’d you have to go and drink your life away?”

The kitchen clock ticks away drearily in sad response.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

“You had a daughter…You had a daughter…!” 

I pull the picture out of my pocket. The man stares back obliquely, revealing nothing.

Then I sink down on the worn-out old sofa and stare at the neat stack of boxes in the corner.

“You packed these when you knew you were dying. Didn’t you?” 

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

“Why the hell couldn’t you have called?”

The man in the picture surveys me sadly now.

“Be good for your mama, darlin.’ ” It is late and he has just had another fight with Mama. “I’ll only be gone for a little while.” I smile as he bends down to kiss me goodnight, his stubble tickling my cheek

“I love you daddy.”

“Me too, baby.”

“No, Dad,” I say angrily. “What you’re supposed to say is: ‘I love you too.’

I look at the picture again and know what I must do.

I run out to my car and yank out my briefcase with all of my drawing materials.

Then, I sit down at the kitchen table and put the old picture on my clipboard.

I begin to draw. 

“This is the proudest moment in my life,” Dad says, hugging me. “My girl. A full scholarship!”

I pull away, hoping he won’t smile for the picture.

I have the outline now and I’m working fast. The faces are filling out, but there’s something not right with Dad’s eyes … I put my pencil down in frustration.

“The problem with you is you’re so damn uppity.” He has come to visit me at college. I feel merely annoyed when I look at him, the shell of a once-powerful man.

“Dad, for one thing, you didn’t raise me. For another -- I’m sorry – Can we, can you just – ”

“Just leave? Well, you got it, girl. I’m going.”

I take the picture down and turn it over, hoping to see a date. Instead, I find carefully printed:

To my daughter with love

 

One day in May you made me the happiest man on earth

I bragged to everyone about your birth

As you grew we grew apart

Though you were never far from my heart.

And then, the last two lines written in newer ink, in a shaky hand:

If I had it all over to say and do

I would tell you baby that I love you.

I feel suddenly cold and my mouth turns to cotton. 

That’s it. A young man with a daughter he loves but cannot reach …The eyes are coming alive now as my hand dances skillfully across the paper.

“I always had a talent for drawing,” he confides shyly. “I couldn’t spend no time on it, though.”

“Why?”

“Well, I had to quit school to help my daddy. Then the war came. Then you came along …”

“Draw me a picture daddy.”

“Later, baby.”

My eyes are riveted back to the picture. The young man looks out with eyes yet to glimpse the horrors of a war neither won nor lost. The clear gaze knows nothing of what a nip here and there can do to a man over the course of thirty years or of work which sucks a man dry and spits him out. The handsome man in this picture cannot imagine calling someone else “sir” for the rest of his life, or having his own daughter be ashamed to call him her father.

There. A few more lines, some shadows and I’ve captured the essence behind his eyes. I put my pencil down and my whole body relaxes. The young man looks back at me, gratified. The little girl’s smile is perfectly content.

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, Darlin,’” he says, and our eyes lock.

I sign my name at the bottom.

Daddy would be proud.