Love, Heartache, and a Palomar Knot
A Story of Father’s Love and Daughter’s Devotion
Something a little different for everyone today. Happy Father’s Day!
Nauseated, shaking, and dripping in sweat, Janice Parker had to overcome the debilitating fear, enter the grocery store, and purchase his necessities, or her stepdad would die. Nobody else was coming to help. This was her responsibility. And who taught her more about commitment than him? His condition deteriorated dramatically in recent weeks, and they both knew the end was frighteningly near.
The horrific combination of diabetes and congestive heart failure ravaged the strongest, wisest, and most admirable man she'd ever known, leaving a withered shell in his place. She delayed as long as she could. Neither her sister nor her best friend were in town, and he could not go with her despite his insistence he could.
She needed food, candy, and sugary juice. The violent swings in his blood sugar necessitated having those items on hand. Yielding to her paralyzing social anxiety placed him at risk, and she wouldn't do that no matter how cripplingly ill she felt driving into the Save-Mart parking lot. Her knees began to shake at the traffic light a quarter of a mile away. From there, she could see the grocery store was crowded. It was 10 AM on a Saturday. There couldn't be a worse time for avoiding a crowd.
At 5 AM, when she usually went to the store and enjoyed a manageably sparse crowd, he was sick. His blood sugar dropped into the low seventies. He needed juice and candy to get him back to neutral. She didn't dare leave him then.
With weak knees, a viciously knotted stomach, clammy palms, and drops of sweat running down from under her arms, she pulled the emergency brake and started to cry.
Why, why, why! Grow up, Janice; you are 41 years old, damn it! You own and operate four successful veterinary clinics, and you've nursed your stepdad for years now.
She angrily attempted to motivate and console herself as the tears flowed and she slapped her steering wheel. It didn't matter. He needed her, and nothing else mattered. Irrespective of how strong and successful she became; she couldn't stand entering a crowd alone.
In those instances, she was a six-year-old girl lost in a bazaar in Tijuana, Mexico, scanning every woman's face for the hope of seeing her mother next. She was only lost for thirty minutes, but she never forgot the experience. As she grew, she learned how to successfully craft her life to manage her panic attacks and social anxiety – she never went to crowded places alone, ever.
I don't care if I vomit and collapse; I'm going in that damn store.
And with the assuredness of a spaghetti-legged drunk after closing time, she did.
♦ ♦ ♦
Through his watery, rummy eyes, she saw a hint of pride in him when she came through the door. She had neither a feeling of accomplishment nor pride on the way home but one of mere survival. Could she manage without him? She did what needed to be done but still felt a heavy, lingering embarrassment for struggling so immensely with the task. She knew the fear was not rational, but it was there, and it haunted her.
They didn't discuss the topic much anymore. He knew there was nothing he could do to help the issue except love and encourage her – which is precisely what he'd done more than anyone since she was eight years old.
He was a young, single man when he married her mother. He knew as much about raising eight- and twelve-year-old girls as he did about quantum physics – nothing. They immediately taught him that the neat, orderly, quiet existence he carved out for himself vanished, probably forever.
"Girls," he'd yell from the kitchen, "GIRLS!"
Yes?
"Wash your dishes."
"Yes sir," Lilly said, rolling her eyes.
Janice was too young and afraid to roll her eyes at Allen. He was loud, strident, and set in his ways. He knew what he wanted and how things were supposed to be. Still, she immediately began to feel a bond with him. As she aged, she knew it was his consistency and even-handedness that meant so much to her, even though he was a curmudgeon at times.
Allen watched in wonderment as Janice played with her dolls and crafted tea parties for imaginary guests. Or when Lilly bubbled over with extroverted joy in recounting her day in school. Lilly's laughing, infectious gregariousness and Janice's quiet observations and brooding introversion intrigued him every bit as much as Sally's fierce pride, love, loyalty, and dogged determination.
Two years after Sally and Allen married, Lilly moved south to live with her biological father. Lilly constantly butted heads with Sally and blamed Sally for her divorce from Lilly and Janice's father. Janice could have gone too but was afraid to leave her mother and grew surprisingly fond of her stepfather. He wasn't so bad.
He took so much pride in teaching the girls things that he learned from his father. Never borrow something you can't afford to replace. Nothing good ever happens after 11 PM. No matter what you do, graduate high school, don't get addicted to drugs, and get married before you have kids. He taught Janice two more lessons that penetrated to her core: right and wrong are thicker than blood, and the most profound love has nothing to do with biological family.
When Janice's father called and canceled an hour before the father-daughter high school dance, it was Allen who postponed the annual hunting trip with his friends to take her. He made her laugh so hard when he did the worm, the running man, and the whip and nae nae that she feared she'd wet herself in front of her entire class. For some reason, Allen's cringeworthy silliness never embarrassed her. Maybe it was because he wasn't her real dad. But she suspected it was that she knew how much he loved her. And she knew that love was what caused him to break out of his stuffy shell and be silly for his daughter's benefit.
When she graduated from high school, he told her, "Little One, I love you because of who you are and who you have become. I don't love you because I made you. Moms and dads can hardly help but love their offspring no matter how rotten the kid may be. But that you and I choose to be close, care for, and respect each other as we do is entirely earned. It's because of the wonderful young lady you have become."
That made Janice cry, and she didn't cry easily. She was not like her sister, Lilly, who blubbered watching shallow, cheesy commercials. She even saw Allen tear up. It was the first time she'd seen him do that other than when his black lab, Ellie, died. Thinking back, she desperately wished that were the last time she had to see tears in his eyes.
Allen began referring to Janice as Little One when she moved in with him at the age of eight because of her diminutive and lithe build. Years later, on a family movie night, when she saw that her favorite superhero, Gamora, was also called Little One by her father, it further cemented her love for the endearing nickname. Even as an adult, Allen’s use of the name filled her with a glowing warmth.
♦ ♦ ♦
When high school ended, grandma and grandpa got sick. Grandma had Alzheimer's, and grandpa was a severe diabetic. For three years, Sally spent more time two hours away caring for them than she did at home with Allen and Janice.
College never interested Janice. She barely managed her anxiety enough to graduate from high school. So after graduation, when she landed a full-time job as a veterinary assistant, she snatched it up. Her father told her that she was throwing her life away, that she needed to buck up and go to college – to get a degree. She always disguised her emotions when he berated her, turning her face to stone, looking off in the distance, and giving the appearance she didn't care about his opinion. But his words cut her deeply, making her question every move she made and whether she'd ever be able to take care of herself.
Allen's words never tore her down. Sure, as a girl she let him down and disappointed him from time to time. And in those mind-numbingly horrible instances that she did, he'd sit her down for a talk in his den. He would explain, in detail, why her behavior came up short and why it was their job as a team and family to correct it. Again, she hid her emotions as she heard the disappointment in his voice. But this didn't anger and enrage her as her father's critiques did. Instead, it felt as if every unsettling emotion she was capable of had been violently shaken in a paint-mixer and then dumped back into her belly. She fought hard not to cry and to maintain her hard outer shell. But when she retreated to her bedroom, she buried her head in her pillow and sobbed uncontrollably. She'd swear to herself that she'd never let him down again.
When she'd come home crying and shaking because she had to leave a football game early or because she couldn't go into a store by herself, Allen would just hold her and tell her that he loved her.
"You're going to be okay, Little One. Just keep your head down and keep moving forward. Your cup overflows with common sense, compassion, and the wisdom of a much older person. I have nothing but faith in you."
To Janice, his words meant everything. Her father never said anything like that to her. He just scoffed at her "weakness" and told her to grow up and not be a loser like her drunken cousins.
When Janice caught her first boyfriend cheating on her, it was Allen who got out of bed, came downstairs, put his arm around her, and listened to her cry all night long.
"There is nothing I can say to make this better, Little One. It is horrible. I know. It feels like your heart is going to cave in from the crushing pressure on your chest. But I promise it will eventually get better. It just takes time."
And he was right.
♦ ♦ ♦
After three years of caring for her parents and watching them pass, Sally returned home to be with Allen and Janice. Sally was never the same, and within a year, they received the devastating news that Sally had stage-four pancreatic cancer. Once the health maintenance organization finally discovered the issue, it had metastasized and spread to most of Sally's vital organs. She only lived four months after that.
Allen arranged his schedule to work remotely, part-time. Janice continued full-time at the vet, helping Allen on nights and weekends. Sally insisted on spending her final days at home. In the end, she was no more than a skeleton, and Allen looked like he'd aged twenty years. He lost thirty pounds, his hair turned entirely gray, and his eyes carried a hollow pain that never went away. The emotional sense of loss that Allen and Janice felt bonded them more than most people ever do. They took turns sleeping so that one of them could always be awake, holding Sally's hands and brushing back the thin wisps of hair remaining after chemotherapy. They bathed Sally, shopped for her, cooked for her, clothed her, fed her, and watched her fade away together. Sally's passing devastated them both, but Janice saw that Allen never quite recovered. The loss of his wife, so viscerally, took a vitality from him that never returned.
♦ ♦ ♦
Now, twenty years later, Janice was watching her dad wither away. She stopped calling him Allen soon after her mother passed. He was her real father. He gave her the love and support she needed to grow into the woman she was. The one who held her when her anxiety tortured her, taught her to drive, helped her with homework, encouraged her to pursue her passion of working with animals, and open her own veterinary clinics.
♦ ♦ ♦
"It’s about time you got home,” Allen said. “I want you to pack up some snacks and help me in the garage. We’re hooking up the boat and going to the lake.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Maybe, what’s that got to do with anything?”
“I was inches from driving you to the emergency room this morning, and now you want to go fishing?”
“Yup.”
“This isn’t a good idea, Dad. Why don’t you wait until Rip or Tom can take you out? Until you are feeling better?”
“Hell, Rip won’t be back from overseas for weeks, and Tom is so busy right now it could be a while. When you get to be my age, Little One, you gotta smoke ‘em while you got ‘em. And right now, I got the urge to go fishing, so we’re going!”
Janice nodded, “Okay. But you are going to have to back the boat down to the water, and I’ll do the rest.”
“Of course, I don’t want my truck and boat floating away into the lake."
She tried backing that trailer down to the water more than one hundred times and could not get comfortable with it. And if there were people there waiting or watching, the damned anxiety kicked in and the whole endeavor became unbearable.
Allen hobbled out to his old Ford F150 and backed it up to the tongue of his twenty-foot Skeeter bass boat. Janice nudged the boat onto the hitch and secured the electrical wiring and safety chains.
“Now, you can go in the house and get our food ready. I just want to get some rods and gear together for us,” he said.
“You want me to help you into the boat?”
“No, all the stuff we need is in the cabinets. I’m just going to get it out.”
She hesitated to leave him alone puttering around in the garage but figured it would be okay if he would not try and climb into the boat.
♦ ♦ ♦
Fifteen minutes later, when she returned from the kitchen with sandwiches and snacks for the lake, Allen had pulled the boat and truck most of the way out of the garage. She also saw that he pulled up the shop tiles in the garage floor beneath the center of the bass boat’s usual spot.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to show you something, Little One.”
Janice could see a small gun safe sunken into the concrete garage floor. It had been perfectly covered by four tiles that Allen lifted and removed. The safe was open. Inside, she saw gold coins and small gold bars. Janice investigated the safe with her mouth agape, unsure what to say.
“One point five, Little One.”
Janice gulped, “a million and a half in gold?”
“Yup.”
Her head slowly turned from the gold-filled two-foot by two-foot safe to him, waiting for further explanation.
“My grandpa began this collection. My dad continued it. And now I’m putting you in charge. This is yours, Little One, and I want you to share it with your sister. Don’t tell her about it yet. Let’s make sure her marriage is going to stick,” he said.
“It’s not enough for you two to retire and live like fools, but you now have an insurance policy unlike most will ever know. I had to pull some out when we cared for your mom. She wouldn’t let me use it to get a full-time nurse, but we needed it to pay for some of her treatment.
“Live like you don’t have it, Little One. Tell Lilly about it only after you are sure that Jake will be a good husband. But know you have this, and you can do good with it when the opportunity presents itself.”
“I don’t know what to say. Why are you showing me this now?” She asked, immediately knowing the answer and wishing she hadn’t asked.
“C’mon, Little One. We know that I’m going to get to go home to your mother soon. I needed to make damn sure that didn’t happen before I shared this with you.”
“Dad, this is more than I could have ever imagined. I had no idea you’d been collecting gold all of these years.”
“Good, you never want anyone to know about this. That is the point. It’ll make you a target.”
This was too much for Janice to take. Her eyes filled with tears, and she hugged him. She didn’t want to hear any more about him joining Mom.
“Come on, show me how to close this up and cover it as you had it so we can go fishing.”
“You got it, Little One.”
♦ ♦ ♦
The boat ramp was empty. It was early March, and the lake was too cold for most water and jet skiers. Anglers launched long ago, at first light. Upon seeing this, Allen pulled his truck and boat into the lot and parked.
“You got this, Little One. You are going to back her down. I’ll climb in the boat with Trixie.”
Allen insisted that the two take their nine-month-old lab with them to the lake. Janice didn’t love the idea. Trixie was wild, loving to jump in the lake and shake all over Janice once she was hoisted back into the boat.
“She’s gotta learn somehow,” Allen would always say if Janice protested.
Janice didn’t bother objecting. If Dad wanted their lab along with them, then so be it.
Amazingly, Janice backed the Skeeter down into the lake in a reasonably straight line. She only made two minor bending turns, ensuring not to overcorrect as she eased the boat into the water.
“Not bad, Little One! I knew you had it in you,” she could hear her dad yell from in the boat.
Even at forty-one, owning and operating four businesses, nothing felt better than when Allen praised her. A warm glow of pride percolated up from her belly as she smiled. She laughed.
I guess I am a daddy’s girl.
Puffy white cotton-ball clouds dotted a Columbia-blue sky. Janice zipped up her jacket and pulled her collar up to her ears. Late February to early March was Allen’s favorite time of year to fish as the first waves of larger bass moved to the banks to begin their annual spawning ritual. The rolling oak and granite-covered hills around the lake sprouted bright green knee-high grass dotted with vibrant orange poppies.
“You drive,” Allen said.
“Where are we headed?”
“Cruise on up to the Rock Gardens; there are always big ones up there this time of year.”
Most people don’t associate highland reservoirs, ultra-clear water, and granite with bass fishing. But in northern California, the two were synonymous. Locals coined the term Rock Gardens for a portion of the lake up one of the river arms where enormous granite boulders appeared to grow up and out of the water like stalagmites in a cavern.
As they approached the Rock Gardens, Janice eased the boat off pad and killed the motor.
“I’ll run the trolling motor up front, Dad. Can I help you onto the back deck?”
“No, I’m going to fish right here in the passenger seat, Little One. I don’t think I have the strength or balance to fish from the back today.”
That reality saddened Janice, but she was happy he made the decision. She could envision a rambunctious Trixie knocking him in the water as soon as he hooked into a fish.
“Go into that rod locker and dig out my topwater rod, if you don’t mind. Then grab me the largest topwater waking lure in my box.”
“Water temp is still in the low sixties, Dad. Little early for topwater, isn’t it?”
“Maybe, but I’ve caught topwater fish on this lake every month of the year except…”
“...for January,” Janice finished his sentence, smiling. “See, you think I don’t listen when you talk fishing, pop, but I do. I even know which bait and color you want.”
“You’re a damn good daughter, Little One. When God gave me your mother, I had no idea he was also giving me you and Lilly. A three-fer. He gave me a damned three-fer! Hell of a deal.”
Janice picked up a spinning rod with a pink six-inch worm and started fishing as she eased the boat forward expertly with her left foot on the trolling motor pedal. Trixie sat at her side, ready to pounce on any mysterious invaders miraculously appearing from below the surface of the water.
After a few casts, Janice looked back and saw Allen’s wrinkled and spotted hands shaking as he struggled to run the line through the eyelet on his lure. She set her rod down and moved back to sit next to him.
“Here, let me pop,” she said, gently taking the rod and bait from him.
“Thank you, honey. You know how to…”
“I know, pop. Palomar knot, the only one you can trust with braided line and a big old topwater plug.”
“That’s right. Now you’re just showin’ off.”
She smiled at him as she handed the rod back to him. He saw her mother’s smile beaming back at him with those large, love-filled brown eyes and had to turn away to avoid steaming up.
“Excellent job, Little One. If you ever get bored of the veterinary world, you can be a fishing guide. I even give you permission to use my boat."
♦ ♦ ♦
It was a slow day on the water. Over three hours, Janice landed four bass using her pink worm. Each time Trixie nearly jumped into the lake, eager to help. Allen laughed at the spectacle every time as he watched Janice run the trolling motor, land a fish, and stiff-arm Trixie off to the side, all at once.
“You’ve become a pro, Little One!”
“I learned from the best. Hey, when are you going to catch a fish, anyway? I think it is time for you to pick up a worm. You're down four to zero, pop!”
“Nope. Going big or going home. And I know it’s nearly time to go home, so I ain’t givin’ up yet.”
As she continued to guide the boat along the granite outcroppings and cast into the shallow shadows of the rocks, Janice became acutely aware that her dad was struggling to cast his lure more than ten or twelve yards from the boat. He was tired and weak. She realized Allen was not going to catch a fish today in his weakened state. He couldn’t get the lure far enough from the boat, and he struggled to twitch and walk it with the necessary action to fool a leery, early Spring bass. Maybe that didn’t matter to him. They both feared he would pass this morning, and here they were out on the lake. That, in and of itself, was a miracle. He was doing what he loved with his dog and his daughter.
The splash was so startlingly loud she nearly fell off the bow of the boat. Had Trixie just jumped into the lake? She turned to see Allen arching back in his seat, holding onto his rod for dear life as he fought a giant bass. Allen laughed uncontrollably.
“Fish on! I got ‘em, Little One! I caught Moby!”
“You certainly did!"
Allen thumbed his spool of line, but the reel squealed incessantly as the giant bass pulled for deeper water. The rod bent over in such an exaggerated fashion it looked like he was trying to lift a tree by a thin green limb branching off near its base. Allen held on with all of his might, but the bass tugged his rod tip down toward the water.
“Get back here, Little One. The one is for you.”
Janice set her rod down and darted back to join her dad. She nestled in next to him and took the rod from him, as she’d done countless times in her youth when she didn’t have the skill to hook her own fish.
Allen would discreetly hook a biting bass and then find an excuse to hand his rod to Janice so he could grab a drink, take a bite of a sandwich, or do some other mundane task. Then the fish would pull, and Janice would reel it in, beaming.
“Great job!” he’d tell her, doing all he could to ensure she basked in all the glory of the catch.
Janice took the rod from Allen and confirmed, he hooked a monster bass. It was still pulling straight down, and it was all she could do to hold onto the rod. Trixie noticed the excitement, began barking and running around the boat in a frenzy. Meanwhile, Janice had to walk the rod back up to the boat's bow as the wind picked up and was pushing them toward the rocks.
The giant bass felt her pulling and changed strategy. Her line went slack as she attempted to fight it while creeping back up to the bow.
“He’s running back up, reel up the slack!” Allen said.
Before Janice could reel in the excess line, a gargantuan spotted bass shot up out of the water, shaking its head violently with the plug dangling by one barb of a treble hook. Unable to contain herself, Trixie snapped and leaped for the airborne fish in an effort to assist in the retrieve. As she reached the trolling motor and began to ease the boat back from the rocky shoal, Janice lowered her rod tip, praying the fish would not throw the lure.
Allen laughed uncontrollably, watching his daughter maneuver the boat with her feet as she fought to retrieve the hostile bass while keeping the hooks in the fish’s mouth and out of Trixie’s. She heard him laughing, coughing, hacking, and thoroughly enjoying himself as she did her best to keep the line out of the trolling motor, the boat off the rocks, and the dog out of the fishing line.
To Janice, the fight and balancing act felt as if it lasted an hour. The bass made two more long runs down and then up into a spectacular jump. Each time Trixie barked and raced to try and swim underneath the airborne fish. Finally, the fish tired and allowed itself to be gently pulled to the side of the boat, where Janice knelt, holding her rod in her left arm while reaching down with her right to grab the fish by its lower jaw. It was a gorgeous spotted bass that appeared to be seven to eight pounds, by far the largest spotted bass she or Allen ever caught.
Once securing the bass by its lower jaw, she released the now barely fastened lure and turned to hold it up in a glorious action of celebration for her father’s appreciation. But Allen no longer laughed or made any noise at all.
Janice’s heart raced. She felt icy and weak. Allen was slumped down in his seat with his head down as if he’d fall asleep.
“Dad, DAD!”
Allen didn’t move. Janice walked back to the passenger seat and knelt next to her father, holding the fish.
“Daddy?”
Trixie swam around to the side of the boat, placed both paws on the gunwale near Allen, and whined. Tears flowed from Janice’s eyes. Allen’s head was down. He was gone. His face was at peace, and she even thought she could see the corners of his mouth slightly lifted, like a relaxed smile. No, it couldn’t be, she thought as she placed her left hand on his shoulder and then the side of his face.
She sat in paralyzed silence. Then the wall of denial started to buckle and give way. Grief consumed her, compressing the air from her lungs. She collapsed onto the ice chest next to her father’s seat, hugging him with her head pressed up against his already cooling, whiskered face.
The bass, still in her right hand, wiggled. She forgot she still held it. That was their fish – the pinnacle of their last fishing trip together. And what a magnificent, vibrantly colored, healthy specimen it was. She held it up in front of her with both hands, knowing that her dad was now somewhere above, looking down with an enormous, proud smile.
Tears flowed from her eyes. She rocked back and forth, rubbing against Allen, and she bellowed gut-wrenching, soul-tearing cries. She then leaned over to the side of the boat and gently lowered the bass into the lake. She held it underwater for a few seconds to ensure it acclimated to the water. Then she felt Allen encourage her to lean down and kiss the bass on the top of its head just before releasing it. She’d seen Allen do that countless times growing up, and she never understood how he could kiss such a slimy thing. But today, she felt no hesitation in doing so. She, Trixie – and she knows Allen also – watched the bass gently swim away. Trixie never even made a motion to obstruct the bass’s departure.
Janice hoisted Trixie back in the boat, and Trixie proceeded to shake all over her. Then she leaned up against her father again and sobbed some more with her arms around him. She had no idea how long she cried. Eventually, she felt herself shivering and heard Trixie’s teeth chattering. The day neared its end. She forced herself to stop crying and begin her journey back to the boat ramp.
The thought of backing the boat trailer down and retrieving the boat by herself no longer concerned her. He taught her the lessons she needed to learn to navigate this world. Allen’s teachings, love, and confidence were infused in her forever. Just keep your head down and move forward, Little One, she could hear him saying.
They enjoyed one last fishing trip together and caught the fish of a lifetime. That was all Allen needed before he could say goodbye to this place and move on to the next. Janice idled back to the dock, knowing that Dad’s last voyage might have been his best. She noticed the most magnificent burning orange-red sunset ablaze beneath the puffy, white clouds and knew that mom and dad were finally able to enjoy one of those together again.