These days, parents try harder. Then, everybody did the best they could and hoped it was enough. Sometimes, it was. Depends what they’d learned.

My father, like his own father: patient, even tempered, funny, and able to understand a child’s point of view. For instance, he taught me the folksong, “Rock My Soul (in the Bosom of Abraham)” and explained that it didn’t mean that Abraham “was a man who had bosoms.”

Didn’t talk down. Or loudly. Didn’t hit, or drink. Looked after my needs and safety.

I remember him standing over my crib, saying, “I adore you,” before I knew what that meant. Remember visiting his Village apartment, Herald Square; ice cream bars from the truck, a push on the swings, warnings about the staple remover in his home office and the attractive squirrels in the park. (“They have very sharp teeth.”) Funny faces: Press nose, tongue comes out; pull ear, tongue goes left or right.

My father did adore me. Where he loses points is after his remarriage. To a woman who hated me, a five-year-old child.  (And later, a 15-year-old child; later still, an adult.)

To the man’s credit, he no longer denies. At the time, though, he couldn’t see it. At eight, with much prodding and the promise of confidence, I finally told my mother I was mistreated on visiting weekends. She told my father. (Who told his wife, which didn’t make her want to treat me any better.) “Stepmother stories,” he said.

Of course, Elaine couldn’t hide her behavior completely. While she waited til he wasn’t around to slap her children and me, she couldn’t keep from screeching at us and devising (and then changing) insane rules pretty much 24/7.  (For complicated reasons, I joined their family fulltime from ages 11-15.) My father knew, at least a little. And decided it was best to keep the family together. So he’s said.

How can you love a woman who mistreats your child, badly?

Not just shrieking and slapping. Banging my head against the floor. Handing me my lunch, such as it was, and whispering into my ear—in response to nothing; I haven’t said a word—“choke on it.” Savage mimicry; sharp pinches for not being asleep after bedtime, insulting remarks about my appearance, for chrissake. Cruelty, plain and simple.

Life can hold surprises, though. Mine is, I got “over it.” I didn’t require years of therapy so much as years of self-pity. Until I remembered that, while there was only one Elaine, there were probably half a dozen family members and teachers who cared. Encouraged. Praised. Remembered. So instead of thinking my life might have been so much better, I realized it could have been worse.

Well. Today, I’ll call, wish my dad a happy. We’ll chat; keep it light. This may sound like more denial, but we’ve gone over the past before. He knows what it was. And I know what it is: over.  

He gave me a gift: resolving to keep me in his life no matter what; whoever didn’t like me. In short: our relationship. I gave him a gift, too: the same.