I cannot address you as Father really because your only contribution to my upbringing was a small amount of bodily fluid. I will call you Rodney. Apparently I knew you until I was six years old, and then intermittently after that. Six years we spent together in the same household. That's long enough to have an effect, don't you think? Since I have no memory of that time, I can only wonder what our relationship was like. My mother tells me you loved me very much and took care of me during the day while she worked. You were a painter and worked nights at a newspaper, I think. Six years we spent together and then you were gone. I think that must have had an effect, don't you? Perhaps you contributed more than just bodily fluid.

I wonder how I felt when you left. They say children blame themselves in a divorce. Thinking they must have done something wrong. I have a problem with apologizing. I will apologize for anything. Tell me it's raining and I'll say, "I'm sorry." I'm always ready to take the blame. I'm quite good at it after all these years. I wonder what I think I did that made you not just move out physically, but emotionally as well. I don't know the circumstances, I don't know what was going on with you then that forced (?) you to leave two small children behind. Stereotypically then, I have abandonment issues, don't you think? Why I'll put up with just about anything to get someone to stay with me (read: a man). Thank god I've finally got someone who doesn't make me put up with anything but goodness to keep his company.

If you had stayed in my life, consistently, as opposed to appearing every so many years, and then disappearing again, who would I be now? I have paintings you did of me as a small child. That's all I have of you really, and a few photos. How would you paint me now? Would you think I was pretty - do I look like you? Or like anyone in your family? My mother says I have your bone structure in my face. I can't remember your face unless I look at picture. Then I'm remembering the picture.

In spite of all the love I received from mother, brother, wonderful stepfather, the void exists. The void that is you. The void that makes me not want to be a parent. The void that makes me fear for my brother and his wife and their son - will they make it? The void that makes me want to save every lost or hurt creature in the world. The void that makes waves of darkness break over me sometimes - is that from you?

Are you still alive? I'm not mad at you anymore, you know. I just don't care anymore, but the void does. The void must be fed, yet it is bottomless. The chip fell off my shoulder a long time ago. Remember that time I tracked you down, must have been almost ten years ago now, and you came to the phone and cried to hear it was me? I had just been rejected, yet again, by another dysfunctional man, and that brought me to you. Remember even years before that, you were living in Boston driving a cab, you got shot during a robbery. Your sister called me and we went up there on the train from Philadelphia, you wanted to see me. It my first time as an adult being in your presence. Your presence was in a hospital bed full of tubes. A bullet lodged near your heart. Perhaps this was to be our final meeting, again. You lived, but I think it was our last meeting after all.

You told me about the first time you said goodbye. You said I was wearing a blue dress. I was six. I don't remember. You said you tried to explain things. I was six. I don't remember. You said you loved me. You always said that after years of separation. You love me. You don't know me!!! This is me: I am living in California now. I love birds, all animals, and nature. I work in the Internet industry - sometimes it satisfies me, mostly it doesn't, but I love making web pages, if you know what that is. Perhaps it's my artistic inheritance from you manifesting itself. I ride a motorcycle, or I try anyway. I'm an aunt and I'll never be a mother. I married a man I'd known for eight years and he left me after six months. My brother, your son, is a wonderful, loving person, and a great father who feels guilty when he's not with his son - can you imagine that? I love my stepfather intensely because he CHOSE to be my dad and spared me from total bereft-ness. But the void lives on. There's more about me but you don't deserve to know. I expect if I ever hear of you again it will be that you are dead. I don't know how that will feel, but maybe it will finally feed the void. What do you think?

Love,

Your daughter,

Marguerite, now known as Maggie