Daddy’s Little Girl
Jessica Novak

I’ll never forget the night I saw my dad as a real person. Someone just like me in many ways. Someone who had struggled as I had to find his place in the world. So much hope, so much expectation and so much uncertainty. So much to look forward to.

The night that my father became more to me than just “my dad” was an extremely cold November night. The wind felt like it was burning tiny holes into my skin. I could no longer feel my hands or feet and I imagined they were blue anyway. We had just finished with a particularly grueling church service and despite the cold, I was glad to be outside rather than in the church building. I’d had enough “holy-rollin’” for one night. My dad and I hustled across the parking lot as quickly as possible, fighting against the wind that was blowing us back . I looked up at the stars. It was such a clear night and the stars shone like millions of little spotlights in the sky. I could hear my feet crunching on the gravel beneath me when a huge gust of wind quickly brought me back to reality. Twenty-three. Deer, Arkansas. Church. Nowhere to go.
When I finally reached the van, I flung open the door and threw myself inside. Dad already had the heat cranked up and the warmth was almost instantaneous. I was already chilled to the bone and wondered if I’d ever be warm again.

“ We’ll see how long it takes your mother to quit yackin’ tonight.” My dad grumbled. He gave me a small laugh. We both knew that my mom could talk to anyone about anything for any length of time. My mother has a true talent for communication. Even though she can drive me crazy, I love the woman to death. We’ve always been close.

My father and I were a different story. We were polite and pleasant to each other for the most part. We’d settled into some kind of arrangement. I didn’t really bother him and he didn’t really bother me. We rarely discussed anything more than general superficialities like, “How was your day?” “Good. Yours?” “Good.” I don’t mean to make him sound unconcerned or uncaring. He was always there if I needed any money or needed any help with changing a tire. He’d go out of his way to help me move or fix something I’d broken. For matters of emotions or feelings though, I always went to Mom. Dad and I just couldn’t relate to each other that way. For the most part we really did get along. Of course, during my teen years we hit a few bumps. I pushed any and all buttons that I could; tried to see how much I could get away with.

As I hit my late teens and early twenties, we seemed to grow even farther apart. I had gotten involved with a guy that every one had warned me against. Not just Mom and Dad but even my friends. But since I knew everything at the time, I thought I could handle it. When the inevitable struck and the relationship crashed around me, Mom and Dad rescued me. What had been a ravine between me and my father had become a canyon. I could give you all the typical stuff, “he just didn’t understand me” or “we were from two different generations and we just saw things differently.” The cold hard truth is that I never made any effort to get to know my father as a person or to try to build a strong relationship with him. I had gotten so wrapped up in the soap opera of my own life that I’d allowed us to become completely distant. The worst part about it was that it had become comfortable. I had always secretly longed to be “a daddy’s girl.” For him to protect me and be the one I ran to. Sure, he’d always been able to change a flat tire for me, but I would have driven around on the rim in exchange for a close relationship with him.

“ That woman could gab till the cows come home. Literally.” I was snapped quickly out of my reverie and became aware that my dad was still in the vehicle with me. The warmth radiating from the heaters and the sound of the wind outside lulled me into my thoughts. I turned to look at my father. Smooth, shiny black hair. He was so proud that at almost fifty, he had not a single grey hair. His wide glasses hid dark eyes, and his sharp jaw line and pointed nose gave him the appearance of hard man. I stared at him for several long seconds until I was no longer seeing the hardness of his features, but of the five o’clock shadow and the little lines around his eyes and on his forehead. His face became one I didn’t know, like I was staring at a complete stranger. I saw a man that had struggled with life and had experienced way more than I had; someone who was not the unapproachable man I had known all my life. Some one not my father, but just a tired man who had finally found some contentment in his simple life. A man who had been through many things, but had always found a way to keep going. I wanted to know him. I wanted his advice on how to pick the pieces of my life up and start again.

“ Where were you when you were my age?” The words were out of my mouth before I knew it. Too late to take them back even if I’d wanted to. And I didn’t. I needed to know. He gave me an odd look as if trying to figure out why I would even be interested. His face softened and he let out a long sigh.

“ Well, let’s see. I guess about your age or somewhere close I would have been in Vietnam.” I knew my father had served in Vietnam but that was all I knew. He never talked about it to us kids, and what little I did know was from overheard conversations. I listened in one day when some of Dad’s war buddies had come over and I could tell by their hushed tones that they were discussing what had happened to them. I could tell from the intensity in their voices that this was a conversation that I should not interrupt, so I sat quiet and unseen. At the time, I didn’t understand much of what I was hearing, but I knew enough to know that it had not been a pleasant experience. I remember words like “fire, bombs, and died.”

A few years later, I had stumbled across a photo album that had been shoved way into the back of a closet. When I flipped it open, I couldn’t believe the contents. It was an album of war filled with photoes that my father had taken while he was in Vietnam. There were pictures of mangled bodies in a heap, houses on fire and piles of dog tags lying on the ground. When I told my mother what I had seen in the album, she had told me that album was Dad’s way of remembering, and it was best if I left it alone. When I got brave enough to try to look at the album again, I went back to the spot in the closet. The book was gone and in its place was a family photo album. I never mentioned it again.
As I looked at my father, I thought back to those pictures. It was hard to imagine that my father had been in a place like that or had taken part in anything so gruesome.

“ How long were you there?” I asked quietly.

“ About eight months.” He turned and looked out the window. “Seemed like eight years” he whispered.

“ What was it like?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t pushed my luck. I wanted him to just keep talking. Again, he looked at me, but this time it was
as if he was looking through me. Looking out somewhere past the window of the van into the endless darkness. Very slowly he began to speak.

“ I don’t even know where to begin. I try so hard to forget, but it’s always there. Just waiting to pop up. I still see some things so clearly. It was the same thing, day in day out. Walk and shoot. We walked for miles through swamps and jungles. Our clothes were always soaked. Our socks would rot right off of our feet. I was always hungry. Our rations were tasteless and sometimes we had to eat while we were walking. Just eating enough to keep going. I don’t remember ever sleeping. We always had to keep our eyes open to every movement and our ears tuned into every little sound. At first all I heard was gunshots and the sound of bombs from planes over head. After awhile, I was able to tune those sounds out. I didn’t even hear them anymore. I never thought I’d be as used to gunfire as I was to the sound of a television.”

I watched him and listened silently. I was afraid to breath or move. Afraid he’d stop talking but afraid he’d continue. I don’t think he even realized I was still there. He was lost in a trance of remembering things he’d long ago tried to bury in his mind.

“ I never planned for the day ahead of me. I was never sure that I’d survive through the next hour let alone the day. I started every day knowing it could be my last. I never made any friends, and I never talked to too many people. I saw people die all around me every day. I suppose it was inevitable that I was eventually shot. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would and compared to most, I got off pretty easy. My wound was just in the leg. They sent me home a few weeks later. I was so glad to be home but it seemed like everything had changed. I had changed.” A loud bang on the window yanked us back to reality.

“ Let me in! It’s freezing out here!!” My mom yelled at us. Dad gave me a small smile and unlocked the door for my mother. In an instant he seemed to have forgotten our conversation. He’d shut it behind some small door in his memory. I wondered if I’d ever be able to open that door again.

“ Well it’s about time! So, what’s the latest gossip among the ladies tonight?” I heard my father ask my mother.

I didn’t hear the rest of their conversation. I was replaying what my father had told me over and over in my mind. I thought about how things could have been very different. My father could have been one of the thousands of young men who didn’t make it home from Vietnam. Even though he was forever emotionally scarred, he had been one of the lucky ones who’d been able to come home and start again. I thought about all that was taken from him, all that could have been taken from me. In that moment, I realized that I might never have had the opportunity to know this man who had been through so much but still had managed to keep going. My father took on a different role in my life that night. He became someone real. And I was one step closer to being “daddy’s little girl.”

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