Louise DeSalvo - Chasing Ghosts: A Memoir of a Father, Gone to War

Louise DeSalvo

A MEMOIR OF A FATHER, GONE TO WAR

World War II: The Global, Human, and Ethical Dimension | G. Kurt Piehler, series editor

Copyright 2016 Louise DeSalvo

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

DeSalvo, Louise A., 1942

Chasing ghosts : a memoir of a father, gone to war / Louise DeSalvo. First edition.

pages cm. (World War II : the global, human, and ethical dimension) Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8232-6884-9 (paper : alkaline paper)

1. DeSalvo, Louise A., 1942 Family. 2. World War, 19391945United StatesBiography. 3. World War, 19391945VeteransUnited StatesBiography. 4. SailorsUnited StatesBiography. 5. Working class menUnited StatesBiography. 6. DeSalvo, Louise A., 1942 Childhood and youth. 7. Fathers and daughtersUnited StatesBiography. 8. VeteransFamily relationshipsUnited States. 9. World War, 19391945Psychological aspects. 10. War and societyUnited StatesHistory20th century. I. Title.

D811.D419 2015

940.54"5973092dc23

[B]

2015006043

For my parents,

as they were,

and,

as they might have been

and for

Ernest DeSalvo, Edvige Giunta,

Audrey Goldrich, Christina Baker Kline,

and Pamela Redmond Satran,

who helped immeasurably

War stories. Let your guard down for a moment, and

they come rushing in on you, one by one by one....

Paul Auster

Man in the Dark

Where do words come from? They come from the dead. We inherit them.

Borrow them. Use them for a time to bring the dead to life.

Ruth Ozeki

A Tale for the Time Being

The flame of that wild battlefield

Rushes in fire through our rooms.

Muriel Rukeyser

Letter to the Front

2004

The last time my father came to supper at our house, he could barely climb the stairs. I stood at the top of the landing, wanting to help, knowing that if I tried he wouldnt let me, knowing that if I tried to touch him, hed wave me off, and maybe yell, or worse.

Goddamn stairs, he said, glaring at me, as if Id put the stairs there just to bedevil him. Goddamn it to hell.

I stood there holding my breath, watching him, hoping he wouldnt fall as he staggered, then gripped the railing with both hands to pause and rest for a few moments before hauling his once wiry and strong, but now enfeebled, body up the next step, and the next, and the next. I stood there, hoping he could make it to the top of the stairs unaided so that, after all his effort and hard work, he might enjoy the merest of victories.

This is the way it so often was with us. Me, standing and watching. Me, wanting a different kind of father, a phantom father whod be happy to see me, a father who wouldnt fly off the handle. A father I wouldnt have to lock into the crosshairs of my sightline to see what he would do next, and so what I would do next: exchange a few words; leave him alone; or duck and run for cover. A father I could, again, love.

And what did he want from me? That I would become a different kind of daughter? A daughter who wanted to please him? A daughter who adored him? But who that daughter might be, I couldnt yet figure out.

I had been that daughter once. But Id stopped being that daughter a long time ago, on the day my father shipped out to war. And hed stopped being the father Id loved in that way on that day, too. And it wasnt his fault and he couldnt have done anything to change it, and it wasnt my fault, either, and this was the greatest sorrow of my life.

Still, I wanted that father back before he died, if only for a little while. And I wanted to be that daughter again, the one who loved him utterly: I wanted to roll back the brutal engine of time. But how to get from here to there was the great mystery of my life. And on the day my father came to supper, it wasnt a puzzle Id yet tried to figure out, for I didnt then realize how little time we had left.

A few days before, my father asked me why I never invited his wife and him to supper anymore. I couldnt say, Youre a dangerous driver, thats why I always come to see you, for then we would have fought.

So I invited him and his wife against my better judgment, and the rest of the familyhis two grandsons (my sons), their wives, his two great-grandchildrenall of them pretending he was still the man hed been. The man whod fought fires into his sixties until he was too old to scramble into his gear and climb onto the hook and ladder. The man whod played Frisbee with his great-grandchildren well into his eighties. The man whod labored as a machinist into his early nineties because he couldnt imagine a life without work.

Hed wanted to come to supper, was happy hed been invited. And Id wanted him to come, too. This was something new for me, my wanting him to come. For years, Id done my daughterly dutyvisiting him, having him over to our house, making him supper, taking him on holidays, caring for his household, and done it far better than he deserved, my husband said. But I never knew which father would greet me: the father who wanted me to join him in the sunroom for tea and conversation, or the father who lashed out at me for not having come to see him sooner, or more often, or at a different time of day.

When Id invited my father to supper, Id wondered if it was a good idea. If it was a good idea for him to leave his house, given that he could barely make it up and down his stairs, couldnt make it to the toilet without wetting himself. If it was a good idea for him to drive given that I suspected his driving was a danger to himself and others, having seen the dents and scratches on the car with too much horsepower for anyone, let alone a man in his nineties, losing his hearing, losing his eyesight, losing his reflexes. Wondered whether hed still remember where I lived, whether hed get lost on the way, whether hed get into an accident and die. Wondered whether he and his wife could get themselves organized to get out of their house and over to our house by a certain time.

I thought he could because he wore the same shirt, same pants, same socks, same shoes every day, changing them only when I went to his house and forced him into clean clothes while I did the wash. But I doubted whether his wife could because she never knew where anything was, couldnt find anything she needed, and my father spent most of his energy returning her belongings to their proper places so she could get them again and put them where they werent supposed to be.

Id heard through one of her daughters that a few days before, a neighbor had discovered my father in the supermarket parking lot, asleep at the wheel of his car with the engine running, and she had found his wife wandering the parking lot, trying to find their car.