Our Father Read Online Free PDF

myself. He graduated from high school last year, he’s in college now,” she beamed, “at Lehigh, to be an engineer, his father’s a chemist, David, my husband, he works for Du Pont, has all his life, well, since he’s worked,” she giggled nervously.
    Three pairs of eyes stared at her fascinated.
    Damn them, she thought and plunged on. “My daughter Amelia, we call her Melly, she’s named after my mother, it was so confusing because Mom was around so much and David calls her Amelia, so we just started calling Amelia, my daughter Amelia, Melly. She’s seventeen, she’ll be eighteen three days after Christmas, she’s in college too, they’re both in college!”
    She searched their faces for the confirmation she was used to receiving from women, smiles and nods, yes the children are adorable and we love them, yours must be especially darling since you’re so lovely, and how wonderful they are good children, safe in college where they should be, where we want them to be, the messages women send, little sighs and murmurs, smiles, a hand reached out. Nothing. Ronnie’s impassive Indian face was turned toward her; Elizabeth and Mary stared at her as if they were observing a foreign species.
    Still she couldn’t stop. “My children were born exactly a year apart, we didn’t plan that, it just happened, you know in those days birth control wasn’t so reliable, I was using one of those vaginal creams, but …” She blushed, stopped, then jump-started again. “I named Stephen for Father and of course for David’s grandfather Schmiel, but he was dead and Father was never around so there was no confusion, he didn’t need a nickname, I mean, he never visited or anything. Father. But he was so cute we just fell into calling him Stevie, not Stephen. Did anyone ever call you by a nickname?”
    Now they were looking at her as if she came from another planet. She burst out, “I named him for Father because I thought it might please him!”
    The eyes of both Elizabeth and Mary flickered simultaneously, as if a puppeteer controlled their heads. A little smile tipped Elizabeth’s thin mouth. “But it didn’t did it?”
    “Not really,” Alex admitted, flushing. So now some little kike has my name. That visit, the only visit she had ever made after Momma took her away, eighteen years ago, bearing in her arms her offering to him, her seven-month-old rosebud baby son. With David, who did not hear that—fortunately. Who therefore did not understand when she announced they were leaving immediately, although they had just arrived. Long trip up from Delaware by car and she wanted to turn right around and go back? He was fascinated by Father, the great man, famous father, you mean your father is Stephen Upton?! The Stephen Upton? What do you mean you don’t know him? You haven’t seen your own father since you were nine ?! Unthinkable to someone from so tight a family as David’s. A little embarrassing, his reaction to the house, my god what is this place, it’s not a house, it’s a mansion! Must have thirty forty rooms, set in a park! Geez, Alex, every bedroom has its own bath! Too bad she hadn’t grown up here instead of that little Baltimore row house! All the advantages. On the other hand, he was glad she hadn’t, she never would have married him ! Laughing, full of pleasure. So naive. So am I, I guess.
    She hadn’t told him, but still he repacked the car, silent, puzzled, knowing that if she demanded it, there had to be a good reason. And never asked why again after that day. David. Who let it alone and didn’t complain when Stevie cried all the long trip back. And never again asked why they never visited her father or asked him to visit them. He must have wondered. Her heart oozed again, love for David, the dear, the good, her husband, the father of her children. My husband, she repeated mentally, my dear husband. Why can’t I feel that?
    She caught herself up, breathed deeply, turned toward Mary. “You have