Father of the Rain

PART ONE

Daley Armory's 11th summer beings as any other--on leave from her private school, lazy days are spent sunbathing by her pool or down at the shore, or with her friends playing spin-the-bottle and practicing sailing. She falls hard for the broody Neal, and even warms up to her current house guests, a group of underprivileged children brought to her home through her mother's charity program, Project Genesis. The tension between her parents is always hovering on the periphery--her father's quick temper, increased drinking, and childish antics; her mothers emphasis on appearances, flirtatious tenancies, and growing impatience. But things have been like this for some time, so it's a shock when Daley's mother confronts her one sunny afternoon and tells her that she's going to live with her parents for the rest of the summer, and that she'd like Daley to go with her.

Daley knows her father isn't perfect, but she cannot help but love and adore him. More than anyone else, he makes her feel special and important, he gives her the rush of childhood no one else can provide. She watches him play with his gaggle of puppies, remembers how he built their pool for her when she couldn't use the public one, and all of his faults shrink beyond relevance. At such a young age, it's hard for her to realize that he shouldn't be inviting her to streak with him, or to be reading her articles from Playboy, putting down black people, and subjugating women. Still, she agrees to follow her mother, and for the next couple of weeks is tortured by the secret.

When the big day arrives, Daley is ordered straight into the car. She cannot warn her father, cannot even say goodbye to him or her friends. Her mother simply cleans out the jewelery drawer, leaves her husband a note, and drives off to her family home. Daley barely remembers her grandparents, but is touched by how warmly they welcome her. She notices her mother's collapse into her grandfather's arms, her sobbing, her claims that she couldn't try any longer. None of it makes sense to Daley, who wishes that her older brother, Garvey, were there to help shoulder the grief and uncertainty.

Soon enough, Garvey does come for a visit, and brings along his girlfriend, Heidi. Garvey's been to visit their father and reports back to Daley that things are steadily getting stranger and more out of control back at the house. Their father's been drinking more, now refers to their mom as "your fucking mother," and has shacked up with Daley's friend Patrick's mom. Daley hasn't heard from her father since the day they left, but she's not shocked about Patrick's mom. She's received letters from her friends already and Patrick had mentioned that he'd been spending a lot of time with Daley's dad, working on the house, swimming in the pool, and Daley put two and two together.

Though Daley wishes her brother would be more of a comfort to her, he's too busy canoodling with Heidi, whom he claims he's going to marry. And just as Daley's celebrating Nixon's resignation with her mother, Garvey is gone and Daley is left to spend the rest of the summer nursing her anxiety.

When the end of August arrives, Daley and her mom pack their things, but do not head to their new apartment back in Ashing, where her father lives. Instead, Daley is dropped off in Boston with Garvey. Her mother claims that she wants to visit with her friend, Sylvie, that she needs a little venting session with her girlfriend. But Daley soon finds out that her mother's actually gone to visit with a man called Martin, someone Garvey claims is her mother's boyfriend.

Daley attempts to keep to herself for the weekend, but she cannot evade the drama saturating Garvey's apartment. His relationship with Heidi is unrecognizable--every moment brings a sharp change in emotion, from screaming matches to cuddling sessions to angry glares to soft kisses. Daley hears vague talk about abortion, but she cannot link it to what's happening between the couple. When she meets Garvey's other roommate, Dena, who bursts out of her room naked in search of her one-night stand, she's told that her brother is incredibly "fucked up." The next day she finds Dena and Garvey having sex in the living room while Heidi is asleep in bed. Daley's head spins, her world's come off its axis, nothing is as it seems, no one is honest, and she's utterly alone.

When her mother picks her up, Daley resists asking her about Martin. Instead, they simply drive to the new apartment: small, dingy, depressing, and her bedroom is a third the size of her mother's. Daley immediately asks to see her father. When she arrives at his house, she's struck by the changes. Her mother's rose garden is dead, the furniture is new, and Patrick's little sister is now sleeping in her bedroom. Though Patrick is thrilled to see her, his mother, Catherine, is annoyed and her own father distant. Already Patrick's family has moved into the house, already her father's begun to remove any trace of Daley and her mother.

Despite how betrayed and unloved she feels, Daley persists in her visits and soon her father begins to soften. Daley makes sure to never mention her mother, never even speak about people, places, or things that might remind her dad of the past. She watches as her father and Catherine drink, fight, and make up. Their fights scare her and secretly thrill her, their very public displays of affection make her skin crawl. Catherine never warms to Daley, constantly keeping her on the outside, and never missing the chance to put down her mother. But there's nothing Daley can do--they seem serious about each other, and soon enough they're married.

Daley's mom has found romance of her own, with Paul, a child advocacy lawyer and also her mother's boss. Their relationship is much steadier than her father's and Catherine's, and one Daley will take comfort in for the rest of her life. Catherine and her father have never been gentle with each other, in fact their fights have only grown more violent, leaking into public and becoming physical, even during their trip to St. Croix, an attempt at normal family vacation.

PART TWO

Nearly two decades have passed. Daley is now twenty-nine and on the eve of beginning a professorship at Berkley. Her mother is dead, killed by a drunk driver, and her father has fallen deeper into alcoholism and further away from being a father and husband. Daley hasn't spoken to her dad in a long time, and she's adjusted to life without him, convinced it's better without him in it. She's begun to date a brilliant and gentle man called Jonathan, who loves her beyond her past, beyond the black-white racial barriers that threaten to divide them, beyond her faults. Everything has finally settled, and then she receives a call from her brother.

Garvey is panicked. Catherine has left their dad and he's in terrible shape--he's claiming he's going to kill his dogs and then himself, he's stopped going to work, and he's hitting the bottle harder than ever. Garvey is scared and begs Daley to help him. Though she's tries to resist, she cannot bear to leave her brother alone with this. Jonathan does all he can to talk her out of it, but the next morning, instead of driving to California, she heads back to Massachusetts.

When she arrives, Garvey is kneeling over their gray-skinned dad, who's bleeding badly from his head. At first Daley thinks he's dead, but then she realizes that Garvey's just knocked him unconscious. He claims it was in self-defense. He says it's worse than he thought, and not worth saving him. He apologizes for calling Daley and tells her to leave, that she doesn't want and shouldn't have anything to do with her father's poisonous life. But Daley cannot leave him injured and drunk. So Garvey leaves instead, abandons her without hesitation.

She takes her dad to the hospital, hopeful that the doctors will notice the liquor on his breath and recommend a treatment center, tell him he's hit rock bottom and it's time to shape up. But his doctor is an old friend who denies his alcoholism and tells Daley to just take him home and make sure he rests. She has no choice other than to do exactly that.

When she stumbles across Catherine at the market one afternoon, Daley is torn between leaving her be and trying to convince her to return to her father. She tries to approach her, but is intercepted by Neal's (her old crush) mother, who wants her to drop by Neal's bookshop and say hello. She claims that Neal never meets any good women in town, but that the two of them will certainly hit it off. Daley's stunned to hear that Neal's stuck in their hometown, and toys with the idea of going to see him, but getting to Catherine is most important. Only when she reaches Catherine's car, she sees a bumper sticker that reads, "I'd rather be divorced" and stops dead in her tracks.

Though her father is protected by his doctor, he comes to realize on his own that he's in bad shape. When Daley tells him that she's leaving in just a few days, he tells her that he can't shape up on his own. He asks her to stay longer, and though it might jeopardize her position at Berkeley, something makes her believe that for the first time he is actually ready to get his life in order. She promises that she'll stay to the end of the week as long as he promises to attend AA meetings every day and not drink a sip of liquor. When she tells Jonathan, he is rightfully worried and offended---he feels that Daley is trying to make her dad into the father she never had, which to Jonathan is impossible. He tries to remind her of all the terrible things her father's done through the years, that she doesn't need him and doesn't owe him anything, but her daughterly obligation and hopeful desperation outweigh the sins of the past. Though she understands that she's risking her relationship with Jonathan too, she stays with her dad.

He makes it the week without a drink, but nerves are raw and tempers are hot. Daley is more and more assuming her mother's role, and after a particularly bad fight, her father writes a suicide note and swallows some aspirin. When she finds him, Daley calls the paramedics, who have to pump his stomach. She realizes one week of trying will never overcome 60 years worth of self-destructive habits. She calls her boss and asks for a deferment until January, but is denied. She then calls Jonathan, who's meant to meet her in California where they've bought a cottage together, where they're meant to begin a life. He tells her that she's going to lose him too, but she cannot abandon her dad. And when Jonathan comes to visit some weeks later, Daley still clings to her filial responsibilities. She cannot make Jonathan understand and he cannot accept her devolution. He leaves, taking every single one of Daley's hopes for a family and stable life with him.

(continued in Market section)