蘇珊·福塞特/Susan Fawcett
Reflexively I reached to turn on my car radio, preset to KGBX, the soft-rock station I always listen to on my early-morning drives to my job at the post office. Then I glanced at my 14-year-old daughter in the passenger seat and thought better of it. Liz wore a dress. That in itself bespoke the seriousness of the occasion. We were on our way to the Springfield, Missouri, district wide music competition, where Liz would be playing a flute solo, her very first. I knew from my own competition days back in Minnesota that it messed with your concentration to hear any music besides the piece you were planning to play.
“Dad said he might come,”Liz said. Her father hadn't been a big part of her life since our divorce 10 years earlier, and she sounded both excited and scared.
Boy, did I know that feeling-wanting to impress your father and at the same time, being terrified of letting him down?Suddenly I was 12 years old again, sitting onstage at the Minnesota state music competition, fingers poised on the keyboard of my shiny black Panltalia accordion. I looked out at the audience of proud parents. Then I saw him. My dad. He sat at the end of a row, arms folded, crew cut bristling. His piercing blue eyes narrowed behind his black-rimmed glasses and focused unwaveringly on me.
I completely choked. I'd practiced my contest piece for months until I knew it by heart, inside and out. But my fancy accordion might as well have been a cardboard box that afternoon. I forced out some semblance of a tune and fled the stage in tears.
No consolation came from my father, a World War II veteran who epitomized authority. He didn't say a thing to me. He just took the wheel of our station wagon, his mouth a grim line as we set off on the 150-mile drive back to Duluth. I didn't say anything either. What could I say, really, after what I'd done?I knew how hard Dad worked to scrape together enough money for my accordion and lessons. But the one time he was able to come to a competition, I let him down.