The Ultimatum

“I’m going to be in town to run a few errands. Are you going to be around? Can we go for lunch?”

It seemed like an innocent request but given everything that had happened since the family meeting with the pychologist to help them understand our daughter’s diagnosis, it was anything but.

My heart raced re-reading the email message. What did he want? What was this about? Dad came to town regularly but yet for as far back as I can remember, we’ve never gone for lunch. Not just him & I.

We’d always been close; from my earliest memories I was a Daddy’s girl. Whisker rubs. Eskino kisses. Ride on his motorcycle from the first time it fell over and landed on top of me when my 4 year old curiosity got the better of me.

My Dad’s version of “get over it” was cured with speed and laughter to conquer fear. Years later it involved encouragement to “go back and hit him back.” The teenage boy in question eight year later had six inches and 30 pounds on me. Even I knew better than to hit him back!

Things had been increasingly tense with my parents since Mary Lou, the attachment specialist tried to help our families understand the “attachment” disorder our adopted daughter was suffering with. We now used dissassociative and disorganized attachment is complete sentences the way most people started a sentence with “the.”

My Dad usually plays the role of facilitator in difficult conversations. During his last few years of employment he was paid to facilitate conversations between his company and a variety of multi-billion dollar companies. I think facilitating family conversations was proving to be more difficult than those companies!

When Dad picked me up on Tuesday, I immediately asked if we could stop by the house to talk to the contractor who was working on the new build that day. I secretly liked the idea that I’d have someone with me during the conversation; as Dad was an electrician by trade and carpenter by hobby so he understood the importance of many of these details more than I did. I enjoyed the opportunity to have these conversations with him present as I knew he was proud to see we were building a house and he could see I had learned a lot from him about these decisions.

The drive to the house was short but awkward. He clearly had something on his mind and I’d find out soon enough.

As the last contractor straggled out for lunch, Dad pulled out a typed piece of paper and proceeded to read it to me.

Even now, years later I can re-play those moments in my mind.

I stood in what would soon be our entryway with my back leaned against the bannister post. He stood infront of me needing to read his words, likely because there was no way he could just say them. He needed to follow the script he committed to saying before he left Mom that morning.

So this is why he wanted a solo lunch. Not to talk. Not to support. Not to empathize or try to learn. But to be messenger of The Ultimatum.

I have to be honest here and say I don’t recall all of the points read aloud. I know my gaze had drifted to the plywood floor. Dad was no longer looking at me; he looked only at the paper, gripping it tightly as if a tighter grip would hide the heriditary slight shake of his hand.

As he read aloud, I already knew the answer, I just didn’t know how to say it.

While things had been difficult for awhile, I never imagined this is where things cold lead. I never imagined having to choose “our” family over ‘my” family.

I never imagined this kind of betrayal.

This man, whom I had known my entire life, stood before me, hands shaking, reading a laundry list of “you will” to his 40 year old daughter as if it was a chore list for a high school weekend or a checklist of tasks that needed to be completed while I was grounded. (That was a frequent experience in my teenage years!)

I trusted him. I loved him as a daughter loves a father. I admired him. His strength. His intelligence. His compassion. And before my eyes he was crumbling. He was no longer a rock. He was a pawn. A pawn in my mother’s game.

The laundry list continued for a few more items before I found my voice and piped up to say, “we’re done.”

He’s cautioned me at the beginning of his dialogue that if I didn’t agree to the terms of this one-sided pitch, that “we were done.” That there would be “no further contact with him or mom;” that we would be cut off and cut out of their lives and they from our lives and their grandchildren’s lives.

While I can recall hearing the first one or two items on the list, I was numb and unable to respond. I did not ask questions. But when item number five was explained, I suddenly found my voice, declined to listen any further and indicated he could take me back to work.

I mentioned the ride to the house felt a little awkward but the ride back to work was excrutiating. There was nothing to say. He was silent, searching for words to make it message more pallatable yet knowing they’d raised me to be strong and independent. And to protect “my family.” They never expected their hard work and values to be used against them.

That same strength they supported and nurtured for years suddenly was able to take a position opposite the two people who encouraged it the most.

The early Saskatchewan spring already had puddles roadside and the sun seemed to be absent today. This matched my mood but I kept my sunglasses on to hide the tears quickly forming in my eyes.

There was nothing to say. And even if there was, the words were not coming out right now because the lump in my throat was preventing everything but breathing.

As we pulled into the drivethru at work, he once again added, “Barb, I mean it; this is really it.”

My response shocked us both. With a calm and evenness I was not feeling, I said, “Ok, then this is it.” And I closed the door and walked away.

The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way. When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way. On her way she met a copy.

Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.

The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way.

l using her.Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia.