Chapter 8

Since our father was a foreign national at the time he died, the Ontario Provincial Police notified the State Department, which then notified two families of the tragedy.

Why two?

It turned out our father was a bigamist, with two wives and two families. He had two phones on him when he died, one for each family, and nobody knew which was the “right” one to notify. So they notified both of them and let us work it out. Suddenly we knew why he had been “too far away” to come home on a number of holidays in the past.

Mom was devastated, of course, by both his death and the knowledge that came with it. A side effect of his criminal behavior was that he had married the other woman first, which meant she had legal claim to being his wife, his life insurance, everything. She saw my mother as being the home-wrecker in the story, even though Mom didn’t know about any of it. She probably thought of Cathy and me as bastard children, too, but I never met her.

Cathy’s and my reactions were different from Mom’s. I think we felt betrayed, too, but on more than one occasion I thought that, under other circumstances, my father might have made a good Taliban. His political beliefs were rabid. He felt like women were inferior creatures and should be controlled by a man. He certainly acted like he owned Mom and Cathy. The fact that he based this on the Bible rather than the Koran didn’t make any difference, really. The way he had treated Cathy was a little like an honor killing, without the actual killing part. Sure, I had some good memories, but the Taliban make some good memories, too.

I was furious with him for hurting Mom, though, and that’s why I didn’t miss him. His other wife claimed the body and buried him. We didn’t even go to the funeral. The “system” is pretty heartless in situations like this. To the law, it’s all black and white, and the shades of gray that are “the other family” are ignored completely.

The exception was our university family. Granted, they didn’t know all the details, but they gave us both time off to go to what they thought of as our “home”. Michael drove us there in his car so we wouldn’t have to endure the bus trip.

Mom was torn up, listless, her spirit broken when we got there. All we could do was hold her while she cried. Michelle picked up on the atmosphere and started crying, too, which was the first time Mom actually realized she was there. Mom had never seen her granddaughter, and I think Michelle might have saved Mom’s sanity, because she went into Grandma mode and got a grip.

We knew we had to be there for Mom at Christmas, and planned to stay until after the new year.

Oddly, there was nothing to do, concerning his death. As I said, wife number one claimed the body. We weren’t invited to the funeral, which was in Oregon anyway, clear across the country. I imagine it’s a little like when a soldier dies in a foreign land, going missing in battle and is never found. There’s no body for his people to bury and no real closure. Dad’s belongings at our house suddenly seemed sparse, consisting of some clothes, his 2004 Mustang, and the tools he used to work on the Mustang. That’s what he drove when he was home. He didn’t let me use it very often and he never let Cathy take it out. I used it to take all his clothes to the Goodwill store.

Being home was bittersweet for Cathy and me. Mom had loved Dad, and that didn’t magically go away just because she found out he had cheated on her ever since they met. I realize he was really cheating on his real wife, not on Mom, but that’s how she saw it. They met at her work, of course. He stopped for lunch one day and flirted and since he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and was handsome, she flirted back. The rest, as they say, is history. I have to hand it to him, he was good at compartmentalizing his married life.

For Cathy and me, though, the sooner all traces of him were gone, the better. True, he was our biological father, but for those first few years after he died, that was all we saw him as. Later, the good times would surface and mitigate our disgust for him, but once the bandage was ripped off, we saw him for the scar he was. Maybe that sounds heartless, but you reap what you sow, and he was pretty heartless, too. And not just to our family.

Eventually it was time to head back to school. Mom decided that, since we had Michelle and all, we should take her van and that she’d drive the Mustang. That was a real windfall for us. I packed most of the tools, too, since the van was eight years old and would need some maintenance. At least my old man had taught me how to do that kind of thing.