Tidings. William Wharton

funny. Nicole gives me a daughterly kiss on the nose, a child-love equivalent to ‘Good boy, Rover, well done.’

      ‘Dad, you wouldn’t believe it. We were talking about this on the way down in the car. It’s so weird having an old maid for a father. We were in hysterics about how you were always sweeping here at the mill or vacuuming up in Paris or even helping old Frau Berger scrub on Saturdays in Bavaria. Remember how you’d lock us out of our rooms if we didn’t make our beds or hang up our clothes?’

      She’s having a hard time talking, between laughing and giggling. I have a strange feeling the laughing isn’t real, only some kind of cover-up for deep feeling. Maybe neatness isn’t something daughters want in fathers. The other kids are quiet; I sneak a quick look at them, they seem as uncomfortable as I feel. Lor is frozen. Here it is, just inside the door, Christmas Eve and we’re already on the edge of a scene.

      ‘I don’t know, Nickie, maybe I’m just a garden-variety anal compulsive. You know the story of how my mother trained me. Every time I dirtied my diapers she wouldn’t breast-feed me. Then, I was strapped onto a training potty before I could sit up straight; used to keep slipping through the hole. I was seven years old before I managed a turd that didn’t look like rabbit pellets.’

      Maggie puts her fingers in her ears.

      ‘Come on, Dad. Don’t start grossing me out in the first five minutes. I thought you’d at least wait till we were eating. Between you and Mike; him with his burps, belches and farts, and you with your gross stories I’ll swear I almost starved to death as a kid.’

      ‘I’m sorry Maggie. I was only trying to explain. I’ll shut up.’

      The interesting thing is I’m only neat, not clean, and I’m definitely not a classy dresser, distinctly sloppy. But I’m not comfortable in a disordered environment. I feel insecure and I’ve never been quite sure if my mother did it to me, or the U.S. Army, or it’s some deep personal fault. I tend to live my life as if there’s a Saturday inspection always just around the corner. It must be a drag for others to live with but I don’t think it is for me. Some of my most pleasant, joy-filled, anxiety-free hours are after I’ve cleaned the apartment, everybody’s off somewhere and I have it alone to myself, neat and quiet. It could be part of the ‘Vanishing Man’ thing again. Maybe I’m trying to make everything around me vanish into nothingness.

      Mike breaks the spell.

      ‘You’re right, Dad. That’s a dumb place for us to drop the bags. We were just so glad to be here, to see it all clean and beautiful, so much like home should be, we didn’t think. Let me give you a hand with that stuff. You go halfway up and I’ll pass them to you.’

      I go up four steps so I can push the bags onto the floor. Mike and Nicole hand them up to me. I’m glad my head’s out of sight. Lately, the smallest things can make me fill up. I guess if daughters don’t want an ‘old maid father’ they sure as hell don’t want a ‘crybaby’. Maybe it’s only the strain of waiting, wondering, preparing things, preparing myself. The strain of not knowing what’s going to happen.