by Jennie Nimtz
Dad was a great teacher. He taught high school English for the majority of his career in an affluent Connecticut school district. Former students who contacted Dad years after they graduated sang his praises. “You made such a positive difference in our lives,” they gushed in their thank you letters. “We don’t think we’d be teachers, editors, writers, etc. if we hadn’t had you for English.”
I was proud people thought Dad was great but I also resented the positive impact he made on others’ lives. And such a negative impact on mine. Dad put so much effort into being a top-notch educator, very little effort was spent on trying to be a great father. In fact, for a good part of my childhood, it was easier to hate him than it was to love him. Dad didn’t encourage or ask for love from me. Instead, he demanded obedience, quiet in the house when he was home and allegiance to the Red Sox. But love….never when I was a child did he say, “I love you.” So in return, I never uttered those three powerful words to him.
“Why did you and Daddy have us girls?” I asked Mom more than once. “Daddy doesn’t like children.”
“Don’t say that,” my mother replied giving me a hug. “Your father is a very caring person. I wish you could see that. Believe me; he loves you very, very much. He just finds it difficult letting strong emotions show.”
I didn’t buy this excuse. Dad’s strong emotions were to be feared. Like when he let loose eruptions of anger when bedtime tickle fights with my sister Rebecca got out of control. Or the time I interrupted his grading essays with retching noises due to nausea. “Stop that Goddamn noise!” he roared. “You’re perfectly fine—your feeling sick is all in your head!”
“No, it is not!” I cried. “It’s all over my floor!”
I never said out loud that I hated Dad. But at times, when I felt I was unjustly punished, like having to stay in my room for crying loudly after a bee stung me, my dislike of him was so strong it had to be voiced somewhere or I would burst. That somewhere was in my diary. Between ages nine, when I got my first blank book, until I was nearly thirteen, there I devoted a great many pages spewing out heated words describing how much I disliked my father. I remember one evening when I was particularly angry, I took Rashly Red nail polish from my sister’s make-up kit and wrote “I HATE DAD” diagonally across the day’s lined page.
As I neared my teens, I envied my friends and the relationships they had with their dads. Most of them had fathers that ended their jobs at 5 p.m. and then gave their kids most of their attention when they walked in the door just before dinner. Or played catch or board games with them after supper. Dad’s job really never ended. After dinner on school nights he spent until bedtime holed up in his bedroom working on lesson plans for his Honors English class. Grading papers usually put him in a foul mood, especially if they were from the lower level classes he taught. Dad demanded the best from his students but the majority of the football team were content with just making the C requirement to stay on the team. That was a particularly rough year for my home life.
When I was twelve, I came to the conclusion I was never going to have a loving dad like Pa in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books. By then, I avoided behaviors that set Dad off, though once in a while I took the blame for things Rebecca did. I played my records using a high volume only when dad wasn’t home. Dinner and weekend breakfasts, the meals our family shared together, were contests with Rebecca to see who would be excused first. This backfired in a sense because Dad usually was the first one done. It was also the year that I finally began noticing some signs that I was more to him than a pesky housemate. This confused me. Like on the day after I had my tonsils out.
“Your father had to be escorted out of the hospital last night,” Mom told me. “He wanted to make sure your recovery is going smoothly. He feels badly he can’t be here with you today.” I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe this. I didn’t remember seeing Dad. But to my knowledge Mom never ever lied.
That summer when I rode down our street for the first time on my new Raleigh bicycle, Bruno, a new neighbor’s Doberman Pinscher, ran right out into the road and bit me on the leg. When I entered the house bloodied and crying, Mom cleaned me up and bandaged my limb. Dad came out of the bedroom to yell at me for the howling. But when he saw my leg and heard what happened, instead of hollering at me, he marched out of the house. I thought he left because I was making too much noise.
“Your Dad talked to the Hensons,” Mom later told me. “He said to tell you Bruno will be kept tied up from now on so you don’t have to worry about riding your bike by their place.”
My friend Lisle lived next door to the Hensons. Lisle reported, “My mother was home when your Dad was at the Hensons. She heard him tell Mr. Henson if their mutt ever harmed his daughter again he would sue them for all they had. Mom said she’d never seen a person as red in the face as your Dad. He meant business.” Bruno was heard but never seen after that.
The defining incident that convinced me that maybe I meant more to Dad than he let on happened on a Sunday at the end of that summer. Sunday mornings were one the time Dad did not do schoolwork. He drove us all to Danbury, stopped and picked up a New York Times, then parked on Deer Hill Avenue so we could walk down the sidewalk to the First Congregational Church. After the service, we went across the city to McDonald’s for a take-out lunch. If the weather was nice, Dad drove us to Roger’s Park to eat outside. If it rained, we ate in the car and then he drove us back to our Bethel home.
That August Sunday we all felt the weather was going to be bad before the visual confirmation appeared. An eerie stillness to the air made even Rebecca uneasy as we sat at McDonald’s. Greenish gray clouds claimed the sky by the time Dad brought our lunch order back to the car. We ate quickly, quietly praying the storm would bypass us so the trip home would not be difficult. “Drink up your milkshakes, girls,” Mom told me and Rebecca. “Fred, I think we should start home. I’ll hold your shake”
“I’m going to take the back roads–it’ll be quicker.” Dad started up the car. As we left the parking lot, the storm decided it was time to start up as well.
I didn’t like those back roads. I found the mountainous Danbury dump menacing enough on sunny days but with the storm letting loose as we drove past it, I was petrified. There was an old army wool blanket in the back seat of the car and, despite the heat in the closed-up vehicle, Rebecca and I pulled the blanket over our heads. We knew we were not, under any circumstances, to cry out. Being the more outwardly emotional daughter, I stuffed part of the blanket in my mouth to keep from making any sounds.
“Fred, watch out, you are close to the ditch along the side of the road! Is there somewhere you can pull off?”
“I can hardly see the road. The painted lines along the sides are so faded, I can’t see them with so much water on the surface. Dell’s Auto Wrecking is just ahead,” Dad’s voice tensed. “Keep an eye on your side until I can pull over in front of their gate.”
I wanted to tell Dad to keep going. Although I had never seen a really scary movie, Dell’s Auto Wrecking was, in my mind, the perfect setting for one. The high chain link fence with rolled barbed wire on the top gave it the appearance of keeping people out but my imagination told me it was actually for keeping things in. As we sat there with the storm raging all around us, I was sure I heard a dog barking and something or someone rattling the metal fence from the other side.
I jumped as something thick and wet ran down my arm. “I spilled my milkshake,” Rebecca whimpered.
“It’s OK.” I pulled the blanket out of my mouth to reply.
We kept the shake from getting on the car seat by wiping it up with the blanket. But this meant no more blanket cover for us.
“I think it’s slowing down,” Dad said and pulled the car back on the road. Seconds later there was a flash so bright the light blinded all of us.
“Fred, steer to the left!” Mom cried out. “Light pole!”
“I have to pee,” Rebecca started to cry as the car jerked toward the center of the road.
“Shhhhh! Don’t think about it!” I told her.
“I have to pee!” she kept repeating.
“Honey, we are almost half way there. I have to go too but we can’t get out of the car right now… Fred, watch out for that branch sticking out!”
Even squeezing my eyes tightly and putting my fingers in my ears, I couldn’t block out the flashes of light or the resounding booms of thunder. Somehow, Dad managed to get us safely back home. He pulled into the driveway and parked the car up onto the ramp close to the garage door.
Our garage was not attached to the house. Dad kept the engine going. “I should pull the car into the garage,” he told Mom. “And then I’ll get out and unlock the back door and return with an umbrella.”
BOOM! FLASH! FLASH! BOOM!
“You shouldn’t get your new suit wet,” I heard fear in my mother’s voice. “Maybe it would be best just to sit here until the storm passes.”
“I HAVE TO PEE!” Rebecca wailed.
“Jennie, Rebecca, climb into the front seat with your mother. Ernestine, can you fold my suit jacket?” Dad handed it off to her as we tumbled into the front of our roomy Impala.
Dad took off his dress shoes then managed to climb into the back seat. “Face forward,” he barked.
After a clap of thunder shook the vehicle, the back door of the car opened. And my father, stripped down to his undershirt and boxer shorts ran in the pummeling rain to open garage door. He hesitated in the garage as another flash of lightening lit the sky. “Stay in the garage, Daddy!” I found myself calling out. But he could not hear me. Then he was back in the driver’s seat and with all of us still in the front, he pulled the car in, out of the storm. We were all quiet for a few seconds after he shut the engine off. The storm lashed out at the building but we were safely inside. All together in the front seat.
Dad got out and pulled the overhead door down behind us. Then he disappeared out the back door to open up the house.
“What’s taking Daddy so long?” I worried.
My father was back in the garage with an umbrella by the time Mom had us out of the car. “Jennie,” he looked at me. “I only have room for your mother and sister under the umbrella. Do you think you can stay here until I come back and get you? You can wait in the car if you want.”
“Do you promise to come back and get me?” I trembled.
Dad held my gaze and said, “As fast as I can.”
I wanted to cry when my family went out the back door of the garage but I didn’t. Dad said he would come back and I knew Dad never lied. The garage was very dark. I could hear the rain and muffled thunder while sitting in the car. “Please, please, please don’t forget me,” I mumbled out loud over and over.
Dad didn’t forget me. Soon he was back in the garage with the large black umbrella. He helped me out of the car and we walked to the door.
“I’m scared,” I whispered. “I don’t want to go out there!”
Dad took my hand. “You can do this Pal. On the count of three, we are going to make a run for it. It’s not that far. Don’t look out at the storm, just look down at your feet. I think there are sixty steps to get to house. Ready to count? One…two…three…”
I clutched my dad’s hand tightly and we ran outside, over to and up the concrete porch steps and through the back door. Just after making it inside, there was a flash of lightning followed immediately by the loudest thunderclap yet. We stood on the mat and I realized I was still holding on tightly to Dad’s hand. And my dripping wet dad was still holding on tightly to mine.
“Are you OK, Pal? You were very brave.”
“So were you,” my voice warbled. “Thank you, Daddy.”
Awkwardly Dad gave my hand a squeeze then he let go. “You’d better see if the bathroom is free now so you can dry off,” he said.
As I walked out of the kitchen towards the bathroom my hand still felt warm. It was then that I knew Dad really cared for me. Deeply. And equally as important, I also realized I cared very much for him. And that, in that awful storm, not only did I see flashes of lightning; I also caught a flash of a very great man.
Copyright © 2020 by Jennie Nimtz
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