Fatherhood � � � Monday, Mar. 03, 2003 * 03:08

When I was in second grade, my mother decided to leave my father. One of the many times they separated. This was because he was a drunken fool, just out of jail and on his way back, so entangled in the throes of alcoholism that when he came up for air, he was angry, violent, sad, lost.

After the school year ended, she packed up our things and prepared to take me to Missouri to live there with my grandparents. I remember my last night in our townhouse in Chartley, in Reisterstown. I remember my father kneeling by the stairway, crying, smiling at his 8 year old daughter. I had one foot on the bottom step and the other on the floor. My mother was standing between him and me, chastising him as usual in her berating, endless manner. He was so drunk, hadn't been home for so many days, that he seemed not to see her at all. He asked me what I was doing, why I was going upstairs. Wouldn't I come give my daddy a hug, I wasn't going to see him for a long time, he said. I remember that, as an 8 year old, this was a remarkably difficult choice. I was terrified of my father. But he looked so pitiful, crouching on the floor there, smelling of whiskey, tears streaming down his cheeks smeared with motor oil, probably from one of the chain saws or lawn mowers he operated. I remember not looking to my mother for an answer as to whether I would go to him. I decided to go right up the steps past him, and I did.

When I reached the top, I looked down and saw him face-down on the floor.

Sometimes I forget my father, and memories like this. I like to pretend I never experienced these moments of weakness for him and me, the only kinds of memories we've ever shared. Until he calls me, and I let the answering machine pick up and I hear his slurred voice, saying always the same words...

"Hi Christine, this is your daddy."

Sometimes I wonder which of us is the better man.