My early life is charmed. I’m invulnerable. No such thing as tomorrow.  February 1952, I’m six months old, and a childless Air Force lieutenant and his wife receive me at the Catholic infant home in Rock Hill, South Carolina.  They love and care for me in their tiny Sumter apartment as best they can. Children want a forever happy story. In time, they learn more, but the worry-free child knows only now.

*

Mom vacuums the forest green wall-to-wall with her Eureka at the new home we share with Nana and Granddaddy; the secure place to which we’ll return between transfers. I’m four and follow her as she cleans. A sudden shock of pain makes me reel near the open basement door. She’s fired a chunky vacuum cleaner brush hard at my tailbone, and I wail. Why hurt me? What did I do? She later tells me the blow could have paralyzed me, but offers no apology or hug. Her cruel streak sticks with me a life-time. 

Dad returns, after a year in Iceland assisting a general, to find I deserve spankings, having misbehaved in church. He recalls the same treatment by his “spare the rod, spoil the child” parents, whom I’ll never know.

We move to Texas in 1957, and the Air Force assigns Dad to Tokyo for ten months. Before he leaves, Dad tells me a bedtime story. He stands near the top of my bed, Mom listens at the foot, and I kneel in comfort, busy with my Betsy-Wetsy doll.  I’m intrigued with the new, strange story that sounds like fantasy. I hear of a nameless mother, another father, that there might be brothers, maybe sisters. I learn that Mom and Dad aren’t my real parents. The family is dead in a car crash. I feel a small yank in my stomach, but can’t understand nor accept the story. It’s more than I can grasp, but I don’t ask questions. “We adopted you,” he said, “because we love you. Because you had nobody.”  Nobody.

The story ends, but is far from complete. I hold some kind of loss and sadness in my heart and mind as I grow; as I develop an internal life. I learn to question everything, even my identity. I’m an orphan, alone in the world, a survivor. Sometimes I feel sad; sometimes proud or special.  I begin to learn there’s another me, apart from the girl my parents picture. She’s different from a girl standing for portraits in a ballerina dress; a perfect girl beaming in long ringlets and hand sewn dresses. Who am I? The girl who plays piano, sings, is smart and talented asks herself.  And I learn they’ll accept nothing less than perfect from this child of their dreams. I learn to push back. To assert myself, whomever I am. I learn to fail, to give up, to argue and resist.  All my life I’ve struggled for the whole story, and sixty years later, I have it.

*

Mom sings “Return to Me,” a sad Dean Martin song that streams from the brown Stromberg-Carlson radio atop the fridge. I’ve pouted and she grabs a flyswatter from the fridge-top to take her frustrations out on my backside, using the metal handle.

It’s Christmas, and Dad is back from Tokyo. Training wheels slow me down, and I’m ready to fly.  He slow-trots alongside me. His right hand guides me at the rear rack of my blue 26 inch Sears J.C. Higgins bicycle. Dad gentles me into momentum, advances me through imbalance, and I stream forward, unafraid. It’s a feeling and moment imprinted, since so few like it are shared by father and daughter.

In Louisiana, I’m a cowgirl with a bike for a horse, free to ride the range and roads of air base housing, and southern grass between housing units. I ride like a ruffian with neighborhood boys at eight. I crash when I cut a curve too quick, hit a curb, or tangle with a tree.  Bruises and screaming scrapes can’t keep me off my bike.  Knees and elbows take the brunt of my falls. Oh, the abrasions! The stings! Gauze bandage for boldest and biggest cuts, where band aide won’t hold.  They last weeks, while I pick, torture and tease around raw raised edges, inviting infection.  Mom applies iridescent Mercurochrome. I’m back aboard my bike and a breeze dries my tears.

I’m free, until Dad fastens a heavy safety lamp with buzzer, wires and battery pack to my bike, to keep me safe.  Frustrated by the awkward contraption, I kick it in fury while parked astride my steed. I’m sorry for the damage, but glad the encumbrance is gone. “Ungrateful wretch!” he yells, as he will through the years. His belt flies–buckle and strap–at my legs, back and shoulders.  I remember displaying a raised welt to a school friend as she backs off frowning. I’ve told everyone I know that I’m adopted.  I want them to feel sorry for me, but it’s plain to see I’m not deprived.

*

We spend three years in Tokyo military housing, and my bike is with me. Having endured many scrapes of its own, Dad says it’s time for a new finish, and he spray paints it a paler blue out on the grass, while I watch from the front step. He takes it for a playful spin in the summer sun, making tight turns in front of our court. He’s wearing plaid shorts and long white socks, and I smile to see him relaxed.  When did he learn to ride? Did he have a bike in New York City growing up? I wonder, but don’t ask him. We don’t converse much. His duty is to discipline me when he’s home, which seems less and less often. But this rare, brief bonding over my bicycle, six years after he trotted beside me in Texas, might be one of our last placid moments.

*

Our family returns to New Jersey in 1964, and Dad works in a non-uniformed position. Mom and Nana have dinner on the table at 4:30, but Dad gets home from New York City on the #21 bus about 5:30. He changes clothes and eats his dinner while reviewing the day with Mom.  Dad doesn’t ask about school or my day.  I only hear snippets about his work. He says it’s “Top Secret,” and he’s often in a bad mood, or has a migraine, so I retreat upstairs with my homework.

Eighth grade through early high school, we kids walk everywhere, or parents drive. It’s not cool to ride bikes, although we sometimes find summer adventure riding through Bergen County towns, or on the reservoir road, and steep curving hills of our town. By high school, three-gears, 5-speeds Raleighs, and 10-speed racers are getting popular, but we walk to “Two-Guys” for records, or take the bus to the mall.

Dad is preparing for another long overseas trip, and goes to Langley and to D.C. The summer before he leaves for Asia he hits me, the first time in several years. I’m in an all-girls Catholic high school, and he accuses me of drug use, and of sending clandestine notes with drug references. He claims I’m jeopardizing his security clearance. He shouts and seethes; rifles through my dresser drawers, my makeup. My self-defense doesn’t matter. I feel violated. He slaps me, and pulls his belt from the loops with flourish. We are both out of control: he with his voice and hand, I with my sobs. The injustice hurts as bad as the belt. He orders me to the bathroom to wash my face, and a tenuous bond dissolves down the drain.

His one-year assignment in Thailand begins in 1966. The Vietnam War is ablaze, and I’m in full-on crisis.  I start to work on Mom as soon as I enter junior year. I’m sure I’ll go crazy if I can’t transfer from Holy Angels to public high.  She relents, and I register at NMHS in January 1967, middle of junior year.  Dad always orchestrated our moves and my schools, but hadn’t authorized this one.

In Catholic high, I rebelled and misbehaved with my girl-tribe, but managed to hang on to my grades. NMHS 1969’s 500 student body overwhelms and confuses. I recognize a handful of kids from Catholic grammar school where I attended kindergarten, fourth and eighth grades, but I make few new good friends.  My self-esteem becomes shakier. I’m friendly, sweet and caring. I clown. I dress for acceptance. I struggle academically and socially.  An excellent chorus and drama club attract me, and I write lovelorn poetry.  But I can’t connect.  The popular crowd, those who excel in everything, most of whom are cheerleaders or jocks, are stand-offish. I’m not even a nerd. I’m a misfit. I‘m in college prep classes, but have no aspirations, and no guidance from home or school.  I come to identify with potheads and hippies; the anti-War movement.  Anxiety, worry, fear is my usual headspace.  I find I fit in loosely with an extended group that hangs out, wears fringed moccasins and vests, bellbottoms and balloon-sleeves, peace signs jewelry, there’s talk and temptation to “tune in, turn on and drop out.” When I turn the last corner in adolescence, I skid to a halt. New questions demand answers. And I have no idea who I am.

*

He’s broken when he returns from Thailand, summer of 1968. He’s debriefed pilots upon their return from bombing missions.  I see him weep when he tells my mother of the war’s horrors. He resigns his commission as Lieutenant Colonel, from what I understand, in protest of an unjust war, and after a short leave, he begins work in a New York City office. It might have been the same office he commuted to for a couple of years before leaving to Thailand. Central Intelligence Agency. Secrecy, and lack of time, conversation, and confidence has destroyed us.

Dad finds me behind the borough hall hanging out on the swings with friends, playing a radio and singing “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” He orders me into his Buick Wildcat. He chases me upstairs and beats me for all his frustrations, prejudices, suspicions, failures and guilt.  He doesn’t attend my graduation. I leave home after my 18^th birthday. “Lord have mercy on your soul,” he warns, as I leave with small suitcase and pillow.

Years later, I’m stunned to read his after-the-fact reply to Mom from Thailand, how little he trusts me; that I’m a huge disappointment to him. But he’s never known me. How could he?  He must have been aware the price of his absences on our relationship. And his adopted daughter succumbed to fear and loathing. I believe he tried to be my father. After all, he did give me that beautiful bicycle.

***

– Mary Ellen Gambutti