Finding Dad: From "Love Child" to Daughter by Kara Sundlun

dinner, that was just for guests, and this was to be “my” room. Finally, a place to call my own that represented the new stature I had in my father’s life. I must really be family if I get a room, right? I quietly closed the door and smiled to myself. Everything was so beautiful, it was hard to believe I was now going to live here. I made sure not to lay anything down on the crisp white bedspreads that covered the two twin beds for fear I might make a mark.
    I carefully arranged my t-shirts and shorts in the drawers of the handsome mahogany antique dressers before moving into the bathroom attached to my room. It felt like a luxurious hotel suite. In keeping with the blue theme, there was a blue oversized square bathtub with matching blue flowers on the shower curtain. It was just calling to me to take a soak. All of the towels had a blue monogrammed “S” that the housekeeper, Mrs. Schuster, kept perfectly folded.
    Again, I think I need to pinch myself.
    Looking at all this luxury sent my nerves into overload. I didn’t want to make any mistakes, so it was hard to relax. I felt like I was still performing.
    I shouldn’t have been nervous; Marjorie was sweet as pie and worked hard to make me feel at home, and Mark let me know I was invited to go to the beach with him and his friends anytime I wanted. But my father had other ideas.
    As I came downstairs, he greeted me with a kind smile. “Kara, since I still have to run this state, I think the best way for us to get to know each other is if you just come with me. And you might learn something, too.”
    Though basking on the beach sounded great, I really wanted to soak up my father and get to know everything there was to know about him. And most importantly, I wanted to make up for lost time.
    I felt like I needed to cram an entire childhood into one summer. I wanted to learn about him, and I hoped he wanted to find out more about me. Since my father was a man of action, our getting to know each other would come from doing, not talking.
    “Sure, I’d love to go with you.” I answered eagerly, without the slightest idea of what I’d be doing.
    Each day was a new adventure, sometimes it was christening a submarine, other days it was shaking hands at a local veteran’s potluck, I never knew what to expect, and it just added to the excitement.
    One day we were walking on Narragansett town beach shaking hands when a woman asked him to kiss her baby. He happily obliged, then put his big strong arm around me. “Have you seen my new baby?” Then he kissed the top of my head.
    The crowd roared with laughter, and so did we. Instead of trying to gloss over his huge mistakes, he was putting them out there front and center and owning them with humor. The laughter helped evaporate my long-held anger. I was having way too much fun to worry about the past. I kept reminding myself this was a new beginning, and to leave the past where it belongs. In the past.
    It all could have been so awkward. I mean, how many teens meet their dad for the first time at seventeen? But thankfully, I felt innately at ease around him, and he brightened up around me. We just clicked, like two puzzle pieces that were always meant to be together. He was bringing me into his new world, and I loved the adventure…especially the night my father came home and asked me about a helicopter ride.
    “Have you ever ridden in a helicopter?”
    Definitely not a typical question I was used to getting. “Um, no.”
    “Well, tomorrow one is going to land in my yard, and you should be ready to go by 6 a.m.” His smile told me he was proud to share a first with me. Imagine! A helicopter…landing on my father’s back yard! No, Dorothy, you’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.
    I snapped him a sassy salute and snapped to attention. “Yes, sir!”
    He had missed out on my first steps—my first lost tooth, my first school concert—but he’d definitely be there for this new milestone, and I was excited to share