My daughter
died today. Or maybe yesterday. It is difficult to tell, since I found her in
the morning. She could have died the night before today and her body’s reality
only realized today. She could have died right before I walked into her room to
try to wake her up, thinking she had slept in, missing her alarm, and in any
case was late for our weekly breakfast routine.
I knew
something was wrong when I finished two cups off coffee and the entire opinion
page of the local newspaper without her coming down, slightly ragged and still
sleepy, for waffles and the Arts and Entertainment section.
I never
allowed her coffee. And now I wish her all the coffee in the house just to wake
her up.
She was
sixteen today, about to turn seventeen. She had told me the night before that
she had plans to go to the movies and hang out with friends until our mutually
agreed upon curfew. She had told me “I won’t do anything stupid, Dad…So don’t
worry!” over dinner, but dying seems to be an incredibly stupid thing to do.
I didn’t
know what to do upon finding her there, a body barely covered by the off-white sheets
that would make her a ghost in the hallways of the house.
I called my
ex-wife, thinking she should be the first to know, who subsequently cried,
cursed, and hung up the phone.
Needless to
say, she was of no help at all.
I called
911 next, knowing that, her being dead, it wasn’t technically an emergency.
There were still other people out there in need who were still capable of life,
if given the chance.
I felt a
certain weight of the 1 while pressing it twice.
It felt
entirely self-centered, as if my concern was the number one priority in the
world.
My daughter
hated me, and I always felt it.
She had let
me know that the mutual custody her mother and I had of her was by no means her
own choice – she would have preferred sole custody, but was far too young at
the time of our divorce to voice such an opinion – that each and every
interaction with her was fraught with hatred and withering glances throughout
the house.
The older
she got, the more I tried to interact with her as an adult. She relented, albeit
with a certain degree of dismissal, and found that the best way to connect with
her was over the morning breakfast-newspaper routine.
We would
routinely disagree over the Opinion pages, but found that our aesthetic
similarities were enough to tentatively bond over.
Surprisingly
or not, we both adored Edward Albee.
I had tried
to move her in the direction of similar aesthetics, the history of where his
work came from, the philosophy and politics for which he was known. She hated
that fact, thinking, I think, that I was being condescending to her own
interests.
I quickly
gave up, knowing that knowledge is entirely lost on teenagers.
The last
time that she arrived, or will arrive, at my place she declared:
“What a
dump.”
I hate to
think that is where she thought her body belonged.
