Chapter 29: Forgiveness

            Father’s ghost came to speak to me three more times in the next months.  Each time the odor of his cigar alerted me to his presence, and each time he was harder to see, but easier to hear.  It was as if he had to choose to focus his energy on only one mode of manifestation.  The second appearance came only three days after the first.  He hovered faintly in the corner by the chair

            “You were a good sister, Teresa.  You took care of the twins.”

            Perhaps that took all the spirit energy he had, since he faded out before I could stop shivering and gather my wits.  When at last I did, I spoke angry words to the spot where he’d been, hurling my rage into the dark room.

            “Somebody had to take care of them!  You were off in Italy for weeks on end, with Angelina, I suppose.  And Mother was out with Cousin Alberto.  You were total losers as parents!  The girls could have become whores or heroin addicts, and you’d never have noticed!”

            The baby inside me moved, as if protesting the angry tone and the influx of adrenalin that my emotion transferred to him.  Even though I stopped lambasting Father aloud, I continued the diatribe in my mind, until I heard the clash of the trashcans announce the coming of the day.  I maintained a long litany of his failings that I fingered mentally, as if telling a rosary made of pain. 

            The third time Father came, four months later, I was awake with indigestion.  The clock in the hall had struck 1 a.m.  As I sipped my second cup of peppermint tea, I read the galleys of a book I was editing.  For several nights I had slept poorly.  My pregnant belly made it hard to find a comfortable position.  When I smelled the cigar smoke, I slapped the papers down on the quilt. 

            “Not again!” I growled.  “Haven’t you caused enough pain and trouble?  What do you want from me?”

            Father’s voice seemed to emanate from the walls.  “Forgive me,” he said.

            “Forgive you?  Is this some sort of celestial homework assignment?”

            “Forgive me, Teresa.  Let me go.”

            I was so stunned that I hardly noticed when he faded away.  I had never considered that my hurt and rage could be binding Father’s spirit to me.  No one else, not Debo, not Dolly, not Angelina, had mentioned a visit from Father’s ghost.  He kept coming to me.  All my life, the mere mention of him caused me to be swallowed in a wave of rage and hurt.  All the memories that I nurtured highlighted Father’s neglect, and his withdrawal of affection, attention, or approval.  It took effort to maintain this mountainous grudge I carried against my father.  Did I have any positive memories of Father?  Any at all?  In the lamp light of my bedroom, I made myself reconsider.

            In the years before Junior was born, I was wrapped in the warm blanket of Father’s love.  It seemed to end with my brother’s birth, but now, in the wee hours, with the scent of cigar smoke still drifting in my bedroom, I could recall other times.  Some small, sweet moments came back to me.  I remembered practicing a Chopin Etude on the piano while Father sat in his recliner.  When the piece came to an end, I glanced at him.  His eyes were closed, and he was smiling.

            “That was beautiful,” he said.  “Play it again, little bird.”

            I remembered one evening when I was doing my homework at the kitchen table, he came home with a velvet jewelry box that he put in my hands.  I looked at him, surprised, searching in my mind for the occasion that merited a gift, but I could think of none.  I was eleven years old, as awkward and funny-looking as I could be, with braces, a bad haircut, and an attitude. 

            Father smiled at my consternation.  “I saw these in the window at Saks.  I thought you’d like them.”

            In the box was a pair of pearl stud earrings.  The pearls were set in gold petals, making a delicate, luminous flower.  They were lovely.  I wore them for years, and I have them still.  Now other events came back to me.  There was the time he took me, just me, to the opera.  I was fourteen and the performance was La Boheme.  Junior sulked for days because he wasn’t invited. 

            Father said to him, “I’ll take you to the opera when I know you can behave yourself.”

            The evening was that much sweeter for me because Junior was excluded.  I wore my best navy suit and, of course, my pearl earrings.

            When I was working at the publishing company during the summer, Father came by occasionally to take me out to lunch.  Mostly we talked about the business and the twins, nothing personal or significant.  But it was time that he gave to me alone.

            As I sifted through my twenty-three years with my father, I was slowly filled with shame.  All along there were expressions of his caring, and I had blocked them out in order to feed my rage.  I cried a great deal that night, hot tears of regret.  I even called out to his spirit to come back, but he did not reappear.

            A week went by during which my heart felt like it was being reshaped.  The process involved an ocean of tears and much chest pain, like the organs between my ribs were imploding.  When finally Father swirled in on the scent of smoke, I wept as I said, “I’m so ashamed and sorry that I’ve stayed angry at you for so long.  I can forgive you, Father.  But can you forgive me?”

            “There is nothing to forgive,” he said.  “I did not love you well enough.  I will do better the next time, my little bird.”

            With that eerie promise, the smoky trail dispersed.  To this day, the odor of cigar smoke sends prickles up my spine, but Father’s ghost has never returned.