Chapter 2: Fatherhood

The sun was setting over the Yuba City Saloon when Marc Robinson drove by. A picturesque place in a town that was mostly just run down, it had never been much of a temptation for Marc. He took his faith only somewhat seriously, but his wife Emily took the prohibition on drinking very seriously indeed. He didn't really mind, because it was awfully difficult to repair a carburetor with shaky, drunken hands. He'd seen it tried.

As he left town and headed out into the country, he could see the sun setting across the rice paddies, now drained for harvest. It was beautiful here, arguably more beautiful now than ever before in civilized history. The roads were in good repair, the farms were prosperous and well tended, and the country homes neat and cared for. Turning down the road to his own house, Marc frowned a little. Well, most of the houses looked well cared for. His lawn needed to be mowed, and he'd never quite gotten around to smoothing out the large dirt mound next to the house, excavated when the foundation had been put in. Marc was quite proud of the fact that he'd built the house himself, but like so many of his projects he got distracted after finishing the essentials and had trouble getting back to the job to get it tidied up. Really going to have to get after that yard some day. Jenny was always so virtuously silent about it when she was home, and he knew it was because she didn't want to hurt her parents' feelings. In fact, the last time it had been tended much had been the two weeks she had been home early in the summer. Better get to it before Thanksgiving, he thought to himself as he brought the old Dodge truck to a stop inside the 5 car garage. One of the joys of building a custom house is, of course, putting on those little touches that are important to you and you alone.

There was that old 'Cuda. Hemi engine disassembled, parts laid out on the workbench ready to tag and store until needed during the reassembly. Marc itched to get to it, but he knew he should go inside first and say hello to Emily. She could be funny about "that car", as she invariably referred to whatever project Marc currently had hanging around his garage, and it only got worse if his first conversation of the evening after work was with a fender.

"Hi honey, I'm home" he said as he walked into the utility room. No reply.

A note on the kitchen counter. "Dear Marc, I'm going to be about an hour late getting home tonight, have a meeting with the Principal after school. See you." Well.

Emily was a Vice-Principal at Yuba City High, but for all that fairly popular with the students and staff alike. Marc recalled hearing her say that she'd have this meeting tonight, but he'd forgotten about it. Nuts, could have stopped off at the NAPA store and picked up some valve seals for the cylinder heads he was rebuilding. Glancing at the clock, he saw that she'd be home in about 20 minutes. Not enough time to run back into town after them, besides which the store would close in 10 minutes anyway. Not enough time to get wrapped up in the car before dinner, not enough time to do much of anything. Rats.

He went into the living room, fell into his favorite easy chair, and let his mind drift around, aimlessly. His eye alighted, for no particular reason, on a photograph of his auburn haired daughter, and he smiled.

"Ah, Jenny, why are you so far away? Sometimes I really miss you" he said to no one in particular.

Jenny and Marc had always been close, a father-daughter bond that had been a continuous surprise to him since the day she was born. So long ago... 25 years? He never could remember exactly the year she'd been born, just pre-Jenny and post-Jenny. Life pre-Jenny was pretty clear. Not a bad life, in many ways an enviable life.

Marc had never gone to college. His small town roots in rural Utah had taught him a scorn for too much learning that he'd never really gotten over. (Jenny's sojourn at Pepperdine had been more her mother's idea.) Not that he had anything against practical knowledge, not at all. A man needed to know how to time an engine, how to tell from the noises it made if the valves were all right, if the fan belt needed tightening, if the alternator was OK, if the ring gear was healthy. His Vo-Ag teacher had done a heck of a job with his boys, and Marc was eternally grateful. He'd graduated from high school already a high quality mechanic, and he never had any trouble getting work. Practical knowledge was a fine thing.

He'd met Emily after moving to Yuba City, California in 1965. He'd wanted to "see the world", and couldn't be limited to Utah. Yuba City turned out to be just foreign enough to be disorienting and familiar enough to keep him from fleeing back home. More than a little homesick, he'd begun attending services rather regularly as a sop to his melancholy. She'd been in the third row at one of the first ward meetings he'd attended, singing clear and strong during the hymns and soberly attentive. Marc had been smitten, and he spent most of the rest of that summer winning her favor and thinking about how sweet life could be together.

Emily was raised in a rather disjointed Mormon household, by a sensible, sweet mother and a drunken father who essentially left raising the children to his wife. Emily had witnessed more than her share of beatings, though she'd never been harmed herself, and wasn't deeply impressed with the merits of married life by the time she graduated from high school. Short on cash, she'd signed up with the local community college extension program to learn business skills and begun working at a florist's shop to pay the bills. Though quite poor, she was happy to be independent. It was during this time, before she met Marc, the she had begun forming an odd melding of Feminism and Latter Day Saints theology which made sense to her but didn't really allow her to "fit in" anywhere in particular.

But, again, he'd certainly been smitten, and eventually so was she. Marc never really saw the irregularity of her faith, how her beliefs had been shaped by Betty Frieden and other feminists. Not being deeply introspective himself, he didn't look for it in his girl friend. For her part, Emily had never been treated so nicely by any man in her entire life, and found that she really enjoyed his country boy manners, his self confidence, the obvious delight that he took from her presence. With his steady job at the repair shop he saw no reason they couldn't be married, and he began talking about it with her often. By Christmas they were engaged, and after the beautiful spring wedding with both families in attendance they took up residence together and had the most glorious summer of their young lives.

"Or, for that matter, of any part of our life" Marc thought sardonically to himself. It had been wonderful to be young, married, and facing the future together. They took trips to the coast on a whim, played in the surf, lay in the grass above the surf to dry off, roasted hot dogs over driftwood fires as the sun went down over the broad Pacific. They went hiking in the mountains on weekends. Mostly, they just reveled in the luxury of always being together, with the inexhaustible energy of youth.

Marc smiled.

They made all sorts of plans. She stopped working and began taking classes full time, he began working hard at the repair shop to get enough set aside to buy their first house. Their zeal for church activity dropped off as they concentrated on their plans. Eventually, they knew, they'd have a little house in the country and everything would be wonderful. Then things would get back to normal. Of course, Emily didn't want to be too far out, because she knew she'd have to get into town to get to her job. This fact didn't seem to enter Marc's consciousness, even though she reminded him of it often enough. On the other hand, her mental picture of that little cottage didn't include the rather over sized shop Marc dreamed of, a place (far) out in the country where he could ply his automotive repair trade away from the maddening crowd. The seeds for future discontent were there, but they slumbered.

To hurry along the attainment of their plans, she took a job as a secretary at the local public school after getting her AA degree, and continued with courses towards a 4 year degree in education. In a couple years they had saved the down payment on a small house in town (the country home would have to wait a bit), which eventually reaped them a large profit due to the Carter inflation. Emily finished her degree, got her teaching certificate, and began teaching English and History in the Jr High in Yuba City. Meanwhile Marc had built up a large and steady following at the repair shop and, growing restless with his salary, struck out on his own by taking over the repair shop of a retiring mechanic. Though it absorbed all of their savings, it attracted a high volume of business and generated an excellent income. Emily's shrewd management of the money made the business a success (whereas most such small businesses with young owners fail due to poor cash flow control), and they began looking forward to the future eagerly. So much so, in fact, that they decided to start a family.

Actually, it had mostly been Emily's idea. Marc was content to spend his whole life young and independent, but Emily had other plans, and eventually Marc saw things her way. Once she was pregnant, she wasn't quite so sure it was such a great idea. During delivery, she thought it was a down right mistake. After delivery it was a bit better, but Emily decided one child was enough, and never bore another live one. Jenny had been a shock to Marc; he hadn't expected to love her so much at first sight. He wanted to have many more, a large family. Emily wanted to get back to her teaching career as soon as possible. For the first time since getting married, they began to have serious fights (always out of earshot of the young Jenny). Eventually, they settled on a compromise. No more children, but Emily would stay home with Jenny until she entered school.

Neither of them was happy with the arrangement, but neither wanted to part, and for awhile things improved. Money certainly wasn't an issue. Limited domesticity had spurred Marc to even greater efforts with his business, and Emily's money practices had born fruit. For a couple 28 year olds in the mid 70's, they were doing quite well on Marc's income alone. Jenny was an adorable little girl, happy and lovable, and a second period of happiness, an Indian Summer of sorts, enfolded the little family.

Soon, though, Emily's resentment of her enforced motherhood began to find ways of manifesting itself. She increasingly began to see her economic dependence on Marc as bondage, and tried to find ways to keep him from totally eclipsing her. She began keeping Jenny from her father, first by rigid bedtimes and later, as she grew out of toddlerhood, by telling Jenny not to bother her father when he came home, and not to tempt his temper by prattling on when he was around. This had grieved Marc tremendously when he found out (3 year old girls talk very well, and repeat more than their mother's would like them to), and he didn't know how to handle it. So, he didn't. He just let things slide.

He swore under his breath. When had he lost the ability to stand up to Emily?

Jenny, however, had her own ideas. On finding out that her father really wasn't an ogre, she had become distrustful of her mother and began seeking her father out as much as possible. When he came home, she'd drop whatever she was doing and run to him, even if it meant wriggling out of Emily's arms to do so. As she continued to grow and increase the range of things she could do, she usually looked first to her father for appreciation and approval.

None of this made Emily particularly happy, so she turned to a different venue to establish her independence; the church.

Now, the Mormon Church is not exactly a bastion of Feminism. But there are strong women associated with the church, women like Emily, and they've begun to insert themselves into the ordering and governance of the church. Emily began to involve her family heavily in church. How could Marc object to that? He hadn't. She used the involvement less for spiritual enlightenment and more to demonstrate her independence from her husband, by taking on as many roles as possible that had been traditionally reserved for men. Constantly pushing the limits, Marc resisted only feebly and then not at all. Why bother? Did he really care if she took on church work? Gave him more time for fishing, or working. Emily, having found her niche, was content for awhile longer.

When, however, Jenny entered Kindergarten, Emily had decided it was time to re-enter the workforce. When it came down to it, Marc really didn't want her to. He was old fashioned enough to take pride in supporting a family. She thought it was nonsense, and went ahead with her job search. Marc had rebelled...

But, he really didn't want to go down that train of thought. What had gone wrong? Why had he and Emily found themselves so far apart? Jenny had become the only real joy in his life, and now she was gone. But even with Jenny, had he ever been a father to her? What was a father, anyway? Marc knew he'd always loved Jenny, and even that he'd always loved Emily. But what, exactly, was he to do as a husband and a father when no one listened to him? Emily now treated him like a post most of the time, and Jenny only really listened to him when he was talking about cars. Boys? She'd never taken his advice once. His father certainly hadn't allowed such nonsense; his father had been Lord and Master of the castle, and everyone knew it.

Well, then again, hadn't he skipped out to California instead of hanging around the farm like his brothers, as his father wished? Yes, but that was different. He wasn't trying to be Lord and Master here, just trying to lead the family, to do what was right. Was that so awful? But what if you were a leader and no body followed. Were you still a leader? What do you do then? He wanted to love his family kindly. Why couldn't they see that? Marc shrugged and rubbed his eyes. When had life become so difficult? Somewhere along the line, Emily had become pregnant again, and then one day she wasn't anymore. Simple as that. None of his business. The fact that he thought it wrong, that he thought she should have talked to him about it, was of no consequence. He never had been able to get over it, and they'd never told Jenny, he because of his shame, Emily because it wasn't any of Jenny's business. By that time their church attendance as a family had dropped off again; Emily usually found that the books simply had to be done on Sunday morning, so Marc and Emily went together alone.

Their life as a married couple had become oddly formal. They had settled in; neither was going anywhere, they certainly weren't going to add to become another divorce statistic, but on the other hand their affections had become chilled and without life. Marc had eventually tried the dramatic gamble of following Emily's lead in everything, up to and including changing his job. He shut down his successful auto shop business, using his hobbyist's skills with computers to get a job with the school district teaching computer programming and supporting the school's computer systems. He and Emily then car pooled together, and when Jenny entered High School all three of them traveled in and back together almost every day. They sold their city house (for a healthy profit, as most boomers did) in 1980 and finally bought that country property. He built Emily a house just as she wanted it (with a large garage that she graciously allowed, for his interests). None of it brought back the heat and passion of their earlier married life. The pandering to her whims simply lowered him in his wife's eyes, and made him an object of his daughter's pity. One outcome of that had been an even closer bond with his Jenny, for whom he built a very special sports car before she could even drive. But nothing had really worked for he and Emily. What more could he have done?

Jenny. Sure would be nice when she came home for the holidays.

He heard a car door slam outside, and realized that twilight had fallen as he'd been sitting lost in thought. He got up, flipped on a light, and headed for the kitchen. Better get dinner started. Emily didn't like cold dinners, and it was his turn to cook.