Points of Departure Read Free

about me—and that’s what I can’t forgive.
    He sent me to private boarding schools, where I waited desperatelyfor summer break. Then, during summer break, he sent me to camp. I lived in dormitories and cabins, cared for by teachers and counselors and housemothers.
    And I saw more of my father on the movie screen than I ever did in life.
    He married again—three more times. Each marriage ended in divorce. But he had no more children. One was enough. One was too much. I don’t think he ever wanted a daughter.

    It’s one in the morning, and I’m watching a videotape of The Darkness Underground . My father plays an impoverished coal miner, working the mine in a company town.
    The living room is illuminated by the light from the TV screen. I love the light the TV casts—it makes everything seem unreal, fantastic, as if the living room had no substance.
    The couch and end table are dim outlines, barely visible.In this light, I’m not real. Only the world on the TV set is real.
    The videotape is old: colored snow flickers on the screen. I watch the videotapes only when I have no choice; I’d much rather watch a broadcast and know that many people are watching my father. But the tapes have some advantages.
    “I hate this life,” my father says. He slams his fist down on the rough wooden table. “I hate it.I know why the fox gnaws off its leg to escape a trap.”
    “Don’t,” says the woman who plays his wife. I think her name is Mary. She dries her hands on her apron and hurries to his side.
    I stop the tape, run it back, then play it again. “I hate this life,” he says. Then he catches sight of me and stares at me from the television. “Laura, listen to me. Please.”
    His face fills the screen. His skinis mottled with red and yellow snow that dances across his cheeks like flames. He slams his fist into the table. This time, I stop the tape before the woman can rush to comfort him.
    I play the scene over and over, watching him strike the table and cry out in anger and frustration, unable to escape. “I can’t stand this life,” he says. “Laura …” His eyes watch me from the screen.
    At last I letthe movie run to the end. My father leads the miners in a strike. They triumph against the company, but my father dies. It’s a good movie, especially the cave-in that kills my father. I play that over a few times.
    At my mother’s funeral, I walked beside my father, holding his hand. I’ve seen pictures of us standing at the grave. My father looks handsome in a black suit; I’m wearing a black dress,black gloves, and a broad-brimmed black hat. The only spot of white is my face: round, pale, and mournful, with black smudges for eyes. I remember that the dew from the grass in the graveyard beaded up on my new patent leather shoes. The droplets caught the sun and sparkled like diamonds. Newspaper reporters took pictures of us, but I would not look at the photographers; I was watching my shoes.When we left the photographers behind, my father stopped holding my hand.
    We rode back home in a big black car that stank of dying flowers. I sat on one side of the big backseat, and he sat on the other. His eyes were rimmed with red and his breath smelled of whiskey.
    I can’t watch my mother on TV; she was never in the movies. I wonder what happened to her soul when she died. Is there a heavenfor people who were never in the movies?
    On Sunday afternoon, the two o’clock movie is Summer Heat . I’ve seen it before: my father plays a prisoner in San Quentin who was framed for a crime he did not commit.
    At about one-thirty, I pull the drapes so that the room is dark and I switch on the TV. Instead of a picture, I get jagged lines, like lightning across the screen. I thump the side of theTV and the lightning jerks, but the picture does not return. The sound is a hash of white noise.
    It’s the maid’s day off. I’m alone in the house and panic sets in quickly. I have to see the movie. I always watch my father’s