The Dream Falls into My Lap

“And I believed for a moment that /my chances were approaching to be grabbed/But as it came down near/so did a weary tear/I thought it was a bird, but it was just a paper bag”- Fiona Apple

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My mom sometimes tells me about when she and my dad were first dating, back when my grandfather was still alive. My dad’s parents essentially welcomed her into their family with open arms, made her feel at home even though she was Catholic and they weren’t.

She told me about some of his witticisms—she couldn’t remember any of them, of course, but she’d always talk about how he had a certain dry sense of humour that she could pick up on, a sense of humour that she felt my dad got from him. They got along, I know that.

So when I pictured the ideal family, it always included a pair of in-laws who I could joke that familiarly with. It included a mother-in-law who would send me birthday cards before my own mother would with hundred-dollar checks enclosed to buy a nice new piece of clothing for myself, and it included a father-in-law whose jokes I would get and who I could look to as an example of what my husband would someday turn into and be happy about that fact.

When I started dating my first boyfriend, things were still fairly good in his family. They weren’t the ordinary nuclear family we were—I knew at the time that there had been at least one divorce and a remarriage for his mother, Regina. I always called her Lady Regina in my own mind because of the strangely regal way she carried herself. They didn’t have much money, but she always seemed beautiful, dignified and queenly anyway. Regina and her husband Bert lived in a little house in Montesano with Regina’s two sons, the elder of which was my boyfriend Ray. Ray’s real dad—Regina’s first husband—lived south of them, in a trailer in Artic.

While I liked Lady Regina from the start, I couldn’t say I felt the same way about Bert. He seemed gruff, practically humourless. When he did start talking in a way that seemed like a joke, it turned out not to be, and therefore was rather embarrassing when I started laughing. And his vocabulary certainly left something to be desired.

Ray’s real dad, Thomas, was another matter entirely. While no one would want their boyfriend turning into Bert Garreter, they wouldn’t have wanted Thomas Amunski either. Thomas had a sense of humour, but seemed to be utterly lacking in fiscal responsibility. He used his money to buy motorized parachutes and electric guitars rather than a nice place to live and college tuition for his children—the three from his first marriage along with Ray and his brother Calvin. Maybe I just didn’t know how the world really worked for middle-aged divorcees, but it seemed like the kind of thing I would never do were I in his position.

Near the beginning of our relationship, Ray would always talk about how he was: “Just like his dad.” Before I met his dad, I shrugged and thought: Okay, whatever. But when I got to know him a bit better and discovered his idea of cooking was ordering a pizza, and his idea of a dream job was driving a train around a factory in Hoquiam, I began to question this a bit. It wasn’t that I was a snob, it was just that I knew Ray had different plans for his life, and that ‘turning into Thomas Amunski’ wouldn’t help him to achieve them.

Despite all of this, though, I could tell that at least Regina and Thomas loved him, and liked me enough, and I thought that would be enough to get him off to the next stage of his life.

I was wrong. Regina and Bert began fighting more and more, consuming his thoughts. Thomas did nothing to help him either, and I grew more and more disenchanted with the entire combined Amunski-Garreter family.

When Ray flunked out of college and we broke up, I began dating Alexander Kasemann almost immediately. Alexander was the son of Jerry Kasemann, Bert Garreter’s rival for general contracting business in Gray’s Harbor County. Mr. Kasemann was clearly the winner, though. This wasn’t why I dated Alexander. I dated him because he was my ‘type’—taller, swarthier, and with a deeper voice and a bigger nose than Ray. It didn’t make Bert dislike me any less though.

The first time I met Jerry Kasemann, I was more nervous than I ever had been in my life. What if it’s just not the nature of other peoples’ fathers to like me? I thought. What if I’m intrinsically repelling?

This didn’t happen, though. His girlfriend was over at the time—a girlfriend that was only two years younger than him as opposed to the fifteen-year difference Thomas Amunski and Lady Regina had. She was the warmest person I had ever met. She wasn’t at all regal—her face was more weathered and her hair was graying—but there was still a certain beauty about her.

And Jerry Kasemann himself?

He had a sense of humour that I picked up on, a sense of humour I could tell Alexander inherited from him. He had assorted witticisms and a warm smile that invited people in. And when I looked to him as an example of what Alexander would someday turn into, I was happy about that fact.