Tweaking Mr. Right

TMR: Chapter 4

Four

Unfortunately, my father blackmailed me into having dinner with him that night. Alone. Damn you, Cora.

"Cassandra," my father said when he called later that afternoon. "I need you and Coraline to go through your mother's things before I send them off to Goodwill."

"Christ, Daddy! She's only been gone a few months. You in a hurry to erase her from your life already?"

"Cassandra, I don't need this from you right now. Dinner is at seven o'clock." He hung up and I glared down at the phone and its demeaning dial tone.

"Where's Coraline?" he asked before I even stepped through his front door at seven-fifteen.

"She has a date."

"On a Sunday?"

"Cora's dates are never conventional," I retorted. "But she keeps to a pattern. She only dates on days that end in 'y.'"

"I made dinner for three," he accused, like Cora's erratic social life was my fault.

"Then, you will have left-overs for tomorrow." I stomped past him into the colonial-style home. Good evening, Cassandra. It's nice to see you. How have you been? Mocking that to him would have made me feel better, but although I was always in the mood to fight with my father, I promised Cora I would be civil tonight. "Just listen to what he has to say," she told me. "He feels really bad about that necklace."

Civility. Politeness. Manners. Oh, the torture killed me. All through dinner, I bit back all the retorts and arguments that sweetened my tongue whenever he opened his mouth to complain about something or another.

"You're too thin," was met with, "I eat," whereas I really wanted to say, Bite me.

"You're mother never learned to cook, either."

Why cook for a husband who was never home? "I know, Daddy."

"I don't like that color on you."

Was the ground cold when you crawled out of it this morning? "Sorry."

"Your sister should be here. This was supposed to be a family dinner."

Cora is smarter than I am. "I'll tell her that."

"Eat your asparagus, Cassandra. It's good for you."

It makes your pee smell funny. "I never liked asparagus."

"You and your sister live on junk food. It's not healthy."

It's better than gagging on your pee smell. No response.

"Your mother would have never worn that color."

Actually, she had a nightgown this color, but you never noticed.

And so on and so on. After dinner, I obediently did the dishes. Daddy's rule: the cook never does the clean up. Mother always did the dishes. She would play Ethel Waters and Mamie Smith on the record player as she cleaned, sashaying across the tiled floor and singing off-key. It was one of the happiest memories that I had of my childhood and she introduced me to the love of female blues singers.

If Daddy threw out her old records...

I marched up the stairs to the guest bedroom where he stowed all her things. And stopped dead in my tracks. Cardboard boxes filled the room. There must have been over thirty of them. Some were even taped and labeled, Goodwill.

That bastard!

He was giving everything away. Everything! Her clothes, her shoes, her paintings, her snow globes...all of it. I rushed out of the room, into their bedroom. Mother's side of the closet was bare. Her dresser and vanity was empty. I ran downstairs, searching the rest of the house.