You fell from her words like sparse confetti without explanation, sans celebration, so I gathered what I could of you: Your name, along with her own, on the certificate that linked us, just above diminutive inked footprints. A funeral card with your mother’s name, Anne Fitzsimmons, and, and childish love letters to her (“I was painting walls today, the color was ‘wild rose’ with a virgin lamb’s wool roller”), posted on different days, sultry maybe, of August and September, 1960.
I made you into what I needed¾tertiary folds and creases like the furrows of a young girl’s brow until you were my origami, all pressed and turned till you were enough, a paper doll papa¾an image for me
of a musician who traveled with a band (I roller skated in the basement to her Percy Faith album, thinking maybe he, with his dark hair, was you)
or I’d re-fold you into a soldier, dead of course, or missing-in-action like the boys of Viet-Nam¾only I would get mixed up¾maybe you died on the beach in Normandy or somewhere south of Heidelberg. Or maybe you were a masked-hero without a face like The Lone Ranger or Batman. Always without a face.
In church I made the sign of the cross and said the words In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen and wondered if you were He and she was like Mary and now you were up in the sky with my half-brother Jesus. Only I would get mixed up¾and thought maybe you were the devil¾a monster of a man like in “Rosemary’s Baby.” I was always mixed up; you were no ordinary father.
Last year, I decided to send for your army records (your death I found when I looked for you in the 80’s) and I got a letter saying they were lost in a fire, but I could send for your “Final Pay Voucher” for $20.00. These words so strange on the form: “Requester is: Next of kin of Deceased Veteran, Relationship: Daughter.”
I’ve put her death certificate in a folder with what I have of you, so there you are, together now, and the crease between my brow increases, as it will have to be good enough, these papers; it will have to be what I needed.