The Fence My Father Built
I’ve been a fan of Linda Clare's writing for many years
and am so thrilled to see this book finally in print!
Linda has an amazing voice that takes you straight to the heart
of her carefully crafted characters. Her artful descriptions
and clever wit will capture you into a story that you’ll remember
long after you close the book—I know I did.
And I hope this is just the beginning of many more novels to come.
Way to go, Linda!
~ Melody Carlson, Bestselling Author
Father Built
The Fence My Father Built
Copyright © 2009 by Linda S. Clare
ISBN-13: 978-1-4267-0073-6
Published by Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, Nashville, TN 37202
www.abingdonpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any form, stored in any retrieval system, posted on any website,
or transmitted in any form or by any means—digital, electronic,
scanning, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without written
permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations in
printed reviews and articles.
The persons and events portrayed in this work of fiction are the
creations of the author, and any resemblance to persons living or
dead is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Anderson Design Group, Nashville, TN
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clare, Linda S.
The fence my father built / Linda S. Clare.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4267-0073-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Librarians— Fiction. 2. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 3. Fathers—Death— Psychological aspects—Fiction. 4. Oregon—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.L354F46 2009
813’.6—dc22
2009014618
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / 14 13 12 11 10 09
For my brave husband, Brad, and our children,
Nathan, Christian, Alyssa, and Tim.
And for Nova Wilkinson, who became a real angel too soon.
This story has reinvented itself many times, but it arose out of the need to know my biological father and to find a place to belong. From discovering my own Native American heritage to facing the addiction and alcoholism so pervasive in my family, this journey has helped me grow. I extend sincerest thanks to both my biological and adoptive families; to my Sisters-In-Ink, Kris Ingram, Kathy Ruckman, Debbie Page, Heather Kopp, and Melody Carlson; to writing buddies Bobbie, Ann, Linda, Sally, John, Jodi, Jennifer, Tamsin, and Deb. My deepest gratitude to wonderful editor Barbara Scott, who said this story deserved a chance.
Joseph's Journal December 2005
JOSEPH's JOURNAL
JUNE 1977
S
prawled across the bed, you slept facedown, wearing that red cowgirl shirt and the velvet skirt you love. I stood by and watched your breathing. Your hair, so straight and black, reminded me of my people, our people, and I wondered what you dreamed. Years ago, the Nez Perce surrendered to broken treaties, broken dreams. I’m sorry, daughter, but I’m surrendering too.
You’re only five, Muri, but you learn fast. In this Oregon desert, the sun beats down hot, and today our tan faces shone with sweat. We walked across the sagebrush and you held the corn snake we found. You held it gently, without fear. I felt as proud as I ever have.
After sunset, we sat on the hill and looked up at the stars. When you got cold I draped my old coat around you and told you all about angels. On the way home, you didn’t ask for your mother, not once. It's wrong, I know, but I was pleased.
I had big plans to be your daddy. I was going to read to you every day, teach you the names of all the Civil War battles. I’d teach you how to fish. You’d learn how to listen to the wind and how to skip a stone. Most of all, I’d teach you how to pray.
None of that will happen now.
After your mom called, I broke down and cried, and I couldn’t stop. I’ve lost. Your mother doesn’t know our ways but she has the white man's courts on her side. They call it full custody. I cry because I won’t see you on your first day of school or when you get your driver's license. My ears won’t hear your laughter. You’ll learn to climb trees and hold snakes without me. I won’t even be able to tell you why I wasn’t there.
Maybe when you’re grown you’ll understand. Or maybe you won’t care about the secrets we could have shared, secrets of land and water, secrets of fixing refrigerators. I pray that God, who made all of this for us, will reach your heart in time.
Tonight, I hugged you close, but you held your nose and said, “Daddy, I hate smoking!” I can’t seem to get that cigarette smell out
of my clothes. All I smelled right then was the pain of your mother's victory.
Her car pulled into the driveway, and she leaned on the horn. I waved out the window. She could wait. I shrugged into my suede jacket.
Before I handed you over, I picked up the framed picture I like: the one where you’re standing on that wicker chair, holding your ragged blanket. I took the photo out of its frame, careful to hold it by the edges and slipped it into my wallet. When you got sleepy we hunted all over for that grimy blanket.
Your old man has the magic touch with broken appliances too. Just this week I fixed the neighbor lady's old stove. The bottle? Now that's a different story that I’ve tried to change a hundred times. If you only knew.
Standing by the bed, I watched you sleeping. I stroked your flushed cheek and whispered your name. I carried you to your mother's car, and you opened your eyes and smiled. I saved my tears for later when I opened my wallet. I looked at your photo and weakness ambushed me.
There are days when I feel strong. Those times, nothing can stand between you and me. Most times, though, I’m broken. I’m nothing but an old sinner praying for another chance.
Someday, Muri, come looking for your old dad, will you? Maybe God will light a fire in you and our ancestors will fan the flames. I’ll put up a beacon so you’ll know where to look.
M
y father left my mother and me when I was five, but back then I didn’t hate him for it. He was an angel because he showed me things, told me things, made me see things for the very first time. How to hold a flat stone in order to skip it. The feel of water slipping through my fingers. How to tell the moon's phase.
The last night I saw him alive he took me to the top of a hill to look at the stars. Out where we lived, in Oregon's high desert, there were more stars than black sky. He draped his worn suede coat over my shoulders, and I kept tripping on the bottom, that's how little I was. We walked and walked, and once I fell over a sagebush. When I cried he said, “Sh, angels are watching.” Dad pointed to the Milky Way, which took my breath away, and then we shouted out with joy, singing right along with the whole heavenly host. That's how I thought of my father then—as an angel—alive and real and always with a flask of whiskey inside that suede jacket.
Before Mother died she always said he was just an old holy roller. His idea of religion was speaking in tongues while reaching for the bottle. When I was young she mocked him every day.
“Why don’t you just take your baby girl on down to the bar with you?” Mother would say. Her words dripped with her special brand of sarcasm. In those days her bitterness only made me feel closer to this father who prayed and this God who loved a sorry man like Joseph Pond.
But by the time I grew up I had come to hate him. Mom did a good job of encouraging my disgust, but I admit that most of my bile came of my own free will. I carefully tended doubts about God the Father, too, and I routinely blamed my troubles on one or both of them.
The day I drove to Murkee, where Joseph Pond had lived and died, I believed that angels didn’t exist, at least not on desert highways like this one. My ex-husband Chaz said he and I had simply “grown apart.” I tried to make it work for the kids’ sake, but after I caught him with that Victoria woman one time too many, I decided enough was enough. Anyway, Chaz admitted he wasn’t the daddy type. When he left, I let him go.
The kids and I were alone now, bound for the middle of nowhere. I wondered if angels took assignments out here on Mars.
Mars must be a lot like central Oregon, I decided. I didn’t see a drop of water anywhere, and the wind blew hard and constant. Gusts pressed down the grass, leaning it over like a wino who had fallen asleep. Sagebrush, the ugliest plant I’ve ever seen, was probably the only thing holding down the red dirt. With the way my life was headed, if I didn’t find something to hold onto soon, I might blow away too.
At times the kids dozed against the windows, their relaxed mouths jerking shut each time I hit a pothole. They must have been so tired to sleep through all the jouncing. We’d been on the road at least six hours, thanks to my lousy sense of direction and countless sibling quarrels. Nova started complaining as soon as we crossed the Cascade Mountains.
“We’re doomed,” Nova moaned. Then she argued with Truman over our bottled water supply and how many Milky Ways were left.
“What are you looking at?” I heard Tru yell at his sister. She was probably drilling him with the ultimate weapon—her famous stare. I could see her smoldering gaze in the rearview mirror.
“Everything looks dead.” Nova pointed out the window. “Water's probably poison. Acid rain or something.” She snapped her gum then, knowing I’d thrown many a student out of the high school library for that very infraction.
“Maybe that's why Grandpa died,” Truman volunteered. At nine, Tru, named after my favorite president, was still cheerful most of the time. His sister just groaned and made a face at Tru, then put her earbuds back in place.
I swear she didn’t hate everything and everyone last week. Her dyed orange hair, only two inches long on top this week, had been stiffened with Elmer's glue and stood in small peaks.
“Woolly worms,” I told her. “Your hair reminds me of fuzzy caterpillars.” She attributed her dark mood to my observations and said it was my fault that everything, including the landscape, had died. Sometimes she could be a stereotype of herself.
Maybe stereotypes were all anyone was, including my father. After years of thinking about how I could connect with my roots, Tru had found him on the Internet. He was doing a report for school about Oregon ranchers and accidentally bumped into his own grandfather's name in an article about ongoing feuds over water rights in the desert lands. An address popped up almost instantly, and decades of searching condensed into a few lines on a computer screen.