Aunt Lilly and I were standing at her kitchen sink washing the dinner dishes when she whispered to me “My heavens, you look just like your father”.

Although we had talked non-stop ever since I stepped off the greyhound bus that afternoon, I think that was the first time she really looked at me.  I felt uneasy, like I was a ghost.  I looked out the window and thought about the last time we were all here together, as a family.  I had fond memories of that time, but I suspect that was when Lilly found out about Daddy’s drinking.

“He wasn’t always like that,” she said, as if reading my mind.  “No matter what your mother says… “.

Don’t talk about my mother, I wanted to scream.  She’s not the one who left us, I wanted to say.  But I didn’t, because Daddy is Aunt Lilly’s brother, and she loves him, flaws and all.  And I guess I do too.  After all, that’s why I made the 2000 mile trip to visit Aunt Lilly.

“He was such a fancy dresser.  A good cook too.  And boy, could he sew”.

Oh, shut up!  Daddy never dressed up for us.  He didn’t cook or sew either.  Mama did those things.  He was the one who left us.

In the beginning there were good times.  Before the drinking.  After Daddy left, I heard Mama yelling into the telephone “I don’t want your stinkin’ money.  If you don’t wanna be a husband and father, then leave us alone.”  He left us alone.

Aunt Lilly is talking on and on about Daddy.  I don’t want to listen, I want to listen.  I know the alcoholism is a disease, an addiction that he can’t, or won’t quit.  I know it doesn’t have anything to do with me, or with Mama.  I didn’t always know that.  When he started drinking, I prayed that he would move away.  When he left, I prayed that he would come home.

I tried to think about the good times, like the time he took us skiing, neighbors and all.  He drove us up to Mt Hood in a ’56 Chevy Impala, with no seat belts.  We couldn’t afford ski bindings, so Daddy attached our boots to the skis with leather belts.  My brother, Gary and I each had one ski and one ski pole.  Gary skied right into a snow drift, screaming “I’m drowning, I’m drowning!” We didn’t know this wasn’t how you were supposed to ski.  I thought of the summer evenings when Daddy sat on the front porch, playing his accordion, and all the neighbors gathered around, singing and dancing.

I looked at Aunt Lilly and asked “Do you know where he is?”

“He’s in Seattle, taking care of Onnie”.

Uncle Onnie.  Our favorite uncle.  Uncle Onnie is 10 years older than Daddy, but they look so much alike, they are easily mistaken.  Uncle Onnie used to give us and the neighbor kids a quarter each time we mistook him for daddy.  We made a lot of money the summer he stayed with us.  Onnie’s the one who taught me how to stand on my head and how to ride my bicycle with no hands.

“Where in Seattle?” I asked.

“Onnie’s in a nursing home.  Your dad lives close by and visits him every day.”

Oh, hmmmm.  I looked at the field outside Lilly’s window and remembered the hay ride we took all those years ago.  Afterwards, Daddy and Mama sang and danced, and Daddy made everyone laugh.  Then he left, I suppose to go to a tavern, because he was gone for the rest of the night. 

“Would you like his address?” Lilly asked me.

I clutched Onnie’s and Daddy’s addresses to my chest as I boarded the greyhound bus two days later.  When I got home I called my sister. “Doris, how would you like to go see daddy?”

First, I wrote a letter to Onnie.  Doris and I were going to be in Seattle in a couple of weeks and would like to visit him.  The nurses at the nursing home called to tell us, yes, he would love to see us.

Next, I told Mama.  “Why do you want to see him?” she asked.  Then when she walked away, I watched as she observed herself in the mirror, running a comb through her hair and touching up her lipstick.  If Mama can forgive Daddy, I guess I can too.

Two weeks later Doris and I drove 3 hours up I-5 to the Summerplace Nursing Home in Seattle.  We found Uncle Onnie flirting with one of the nurses, ‘Madge’ her name tag said.  We were told he had the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s and might not remember us.  But he did, because when we started to leave, he handed me a quarter and said “Give this to your dad”.

Twenty minutes later Doris and I walked past a ‘Men Only’ sign at the entrance of the Mission Hotel.  Our hearts pounded as we stood in front of room 303 and knocked.   A small, thin man opened the door.  He was fresh shaven and wore a clean, though slightly wrinkled red flannel shirt and brown khaki pants.  The three of us stood there for a moment, staring at each other, and then embraced.  I felt all three heartbeats beating together, felt his bony shoulders, smelled his cheap aftershave, and wept. 

He led us into his room, decorated with a bed, table, two chairs, a TV and a small desk.  On the desk were photos of his 5 children and 4 grandchildren.   Where did he get those, I wondered.  From Aunt Lilly?  He saw me looking at the Oregon, California, and Missouri phone books on the table.  “I wanted to always know where you kids lived” he said, with tears in his eyes.  

He wanted to show us the city, so he took us to some of his favorite places.  At the library he showed us how he found his daughter’s wedding announcements and grandchildren’s birth announcements.  At the Soup Kitchen, he introduced us to some of his friends.  “This is my daughter, Doris, she’s a professor and her husband runs the city of Portland.  And this is my daughter, Sandra; she’s a Vice President at a big bank.”  The details were a little off, but we didn’t correct him. Somehow he knew what we did for a living, so we didn’t care.  Let him brag.

We went to a coffee shop and he bought us each a cup of coffee and a maple bar.  “I quit drinking”, he said.  “I quit after Onnie went to the nursing home.  Stopped smoking, too.”  I stifled my urge to say – you stopped for Onnie, but not for Mama and us.  There was no need to say anything; it’s all in the past.

We walked him back to the Mission Hotel and made arrangements for him to visit us in a couple of months.

“Sandra”, he called to me as I walked away.

“Yeah?”

“Tell Mama I’m sorry”.