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Show in my father's house/ 256 hysterical, but couldn't explain to anyone what was so funny. My father left before daybreak so that the neighbors would not see him. Each morning at eight he and Aunt Helga arrived with little Melissa between them. My mother tended Melissa while Aunt Helga ran my father's office, just as when Deanna and Isaac were small. My father toted Melissa from the car, bundling her against the snow and wind inside his new grey overcoat. He dropped her inside the back door with her little red vanity case, kissed my mother and was gone. On the weekend, when Jeanne stayed overnight, my father did not come at all. "Where's you dad this weekend?" Jeanne asked. 2"He's on another business trip," I sighed, hating the weight of the lie. ^"You've met everyone in my family," she reminded me. "When can I meet him?" "I don't know!" I rankled. "I never know when I'll see him myself." "I love my dad so much," Jeanne confided. "My mom yells at me sometimes - but he never does. When I have a cold he always comes up to my room and talks to me and rubs Vicks on my back." My eyes stung with the remembered odor of eucalyptus, and an image of tenderness between Jeanne and her father that dominated my mind for a moment, arousing sadness freighted with gratitude that at least this much was shown to me - how a father could behave with his daughter, how my father would treat me if he had the time and not so many children. One Saturday morning, my father slipped through the back door and appeared suddenly in the kitchen, although it was day- |