He said he wasn’t a patriot, but he always covered his heart for The Star Spangled Banner. He left his native land years ago, yet still he covered his heart when the anthem played. Then he would snort, "Land of the Free? Home of the Brave?" and shake his head.
Daisy promised herself that she would never be a patriot either.
When Daisy was small, he towered over her. She was just the right height for him to cover her head with his hand when they stood side by side. And his legs were made of denim. She knew they were his jeans, really, but close up the jeans and his legs seemed to be all of a piece. If she hugged his legs and looked up he was a distant smile, like the sun in the sky, and his glasses flashed like sunspots.
Daisy loved him completely. She loved the smell of his denim legs when he came in from the cold outdoors to collect her from school. She loved the rise and fall of his breathing and the lub-dub of his heart when she curled up beside him on the sofa. She loved the smell of his minty-breath kiss when he dropped her off on the way to work. She loved everything about him unconditionally.
She loved it best when they went for long winter walks, along the old railway line, across the footbridge over the by-pass, to the back of the park and the cemetery. She loved to hold his hand, thick with glove, to feel his strong grip around her mittened fingers. She loved the sparkle of frost on the plants and bushes making them seem like they had come from the moon. She loved breathing out and seeing her breath condense in the frosty air. She loved the way, when they ran, the cold made her lungs hurt and they would both have to gasp.
When she was really small, but not too small, they would go into the cemetery and stand in front of a black marble gravestone that said it was in memory of Julie, wife of Mark and mother of Daisy, with two numbers at the bottom. The last number was the same as the year she was born.
When she was bigger, they stopped going into the cemetery. They would just walk straight past, as though it were not there. She would peek at the gravestones through the fence as they walked past, but she could not remember which was Julie's stone. She never questioned him about why they stopped. The barrier of sorrow was too dense.
By the time she was 15 they had stopped going for winter walks together. He started to bring students home - girls not much older than she was. At least, she believed at the time that he had started to bring them home. Later she wondered if he hadn't just become less discreet. Her childhood vow never to be a patriot hardened into a resolve. Loyalty to nothing and no-one but herself.
She knew he was lonely. She knew logically that her love for him could never be enough. But she did not wish to know how he tried to overcome his loneliness, or how he supplemented her love. Most of all she did not wish to know that he was washing away the memory of Julie, wife of Mark and mother of Daisy.
She was as tall as him now. "Product of your generation, Daisy," he would say. "All those nutrients. All that lack of disease." His glasses still flashed, but no longer like sunspots. Now they were blindspots that prevented her seeing into his soul. He still covered his heart for The Star Spangled Banner and denied his patriotism. Now she no longer vowed that she would never be a patriot. Now she wondered if the heart that he covered still beat lub-dub like her own.
When she left home for university he saw her off at the station. "Humans have feet of clay, Daisy," he told her. "They depend on forgiveness from the ones that they love." She had kissed him on the cheek and boarded the train. He stood on the platform in his tan suede jacket and his jeans, hands in his pockets, looking American. Looking like a middle-aged lecturer. Looking like himself. He did not wave and neither did she. As the train pulled out of the station she was sure her heart broke.
When Julie died, he had not known what to do. Daisy was so small and helpless. He loved her completely. He had been dependent on Julie's mother for help for the first couple of years. Then when Daisy had been old enough to go to a playgroup, he went back to his house, back to work, back to something like normality.
He noticed that the women students on his course, when they heard that his wife had died, gazed at him during lectures and tutorials as though he were an example of terrible courage. At first, when they offered to come over and cook him dinner, offer him comfort, he had accepted. When he saw their attempts to pretend that his daughter was a charming distraction he knew that he had to stop. He loved her unconditionally. He did not want to damage her like that.
He loved to take her out for walks in winter. It was almost like winter back home in Vermont. Crisp icy air. Silver frost like lace on the leaves of plants and bushes, making them look like something glimpsed through an electron microscope. When she was still small, he took her to the cemetery. He did not know if she understood who Julie was. He could not tell her without falling apart and he could not fall apart. It was enough for them to stand before the black marble gravestone, for him to remember her, for Daisy to read the words.
Later, as Daisy grew older and his students grew younger, his loneliness made him welcome the comforts these girls could bring him. He did not want to forget Julie, but he could not live his life as though he were dead too. The one concession he made to her memory was to make sure none of his students came to the house while Daisy was awake.
It was not love. He did not love any of them. He loved Daisy. He had loved Julie. This was sex, a way to lose himself, to cover over the hollow that Julie had left behind. He despised himself for it, but not enough to stop.
They were strangers when the time came for her to go away to university. He took her to the station. She had not asked for him to take her to the campus and he had not offered. Before she boarded the train he tried to apologise for how life had been. "Humans have feet of clay, Daisy," he had said. "They depend on forgiveness from the ones that they love." She had not answered. Without even looking at him she had simply kissed him on the cheek and got on board the train. He watched the train pull out from the station, hands in his pockets, hoping she would wave. Hoping she would acknowledge his existence. But she did not.
He rarely saw her during the vacations. Those were the worst times. He rattled around the house on his own, the campus where he taught as empty as the one she left at the end of each term. He was grateful that she at least came home for Christmas.
Her final year came quickly, Christmas even quicker. It was cold that winter. Colder than he could remember it being before. Daisy went back to university. He went back to work. The short winter days were still too long. He came home to his empty house and took out the old photograph albums.
A cold January night. He decided to go out to the cemetery. He had not been for so long, and that was unforgivable of him, even if only for Daisy's sake. He had no flowers to take, so he took a picture from the album, of him and Julie at a party, not long after they had met.
The ground was slippy under foot and it took him a while to get to the cemetery. It was deserted. He found Julie's black marble gravestone. Someone had been taking care of it. Her family, no doubt. He sat beside it on the frozen grass. It was so cold. He sat there a long time, thinking about his wife, thinking about their short time together, and all the mistakes he had made since. He sat there too long, for he slowly drifted to sleep, slowly drifted out of consciousness, slowly drifted away. He was not even aware of his own passing.
After the inquest, the police returned to Daisy the photograph they had prised from her father's hand. The corner had been torn, because his frozen grip had been so tight. It was a picture of her dad with a woman. She looked a little like Daisy did now. Julie. Her mother.
© J R Hargreaves 2001
