Mud Pies

          My father loved to watch other men play golf, the graceful way they swung their clubs, the ball soaring over the fairway, small and true. He wore cashmere sweaters he couldn’t afford. Slept with people he barely knew, coming home late at night in a cab, with a bouquet of excuses. Tiny red lines meandered across his nose and cheeks, like rivers that lost their way.

          He met my mother on a cruise. They hit golf balls into the ocean and laughed about it. She was a hand model, a good time girl. Marriage was never on either of their agendas, until she got pregnant with me. Then he bought a condo for the three of us in Ft. Lauderdale, where water bugs scurried over dishes in the sink.

          On TV, golf fans hovered near the edges of the screen while the pros teed up. No one spoke. The only sound – the rhythmic thwack of the ball arching into blue. I liked this hushed world too, how orderly it seemed, how managed.

          Once, when I was five, my father took me to the park and pushed me on the swings. There was a driving range there. Guys in their twenties with no mortgage payments, no nagging wives asking when they’d get a real job. He led me to a bench, said: “This’ll only take ten minutes. After, we’ll go for ice cream.” He borrowed somebody’s nine iron, rented a bucket of balls.

          Each day, selling plumbing supplies in a strip mall off I-95. He liked to chat up the customers, ask about their lives. His depression hidden, like black mittens tucked into the pockets of an overcoat, a hint of sadness pooling under his eyes.

          I got bored watching him trying to make the ball soar through the air. It was a hot afternoon. There was a sprinkler behind an outdoor café and I drifted in its direction.

          When my father looked up, I was gone. He scoured the park, which was big and had too many trees. Calling my name. Feeling that breathless pinch in his chest when he thought he might never see me again. There were no cell phones to call 911, so eventually he gave up and went home.

          In the pictures I have of him, my father is always smiling. Never sitting on the couch, staring into space. Mumbling excuses about why he can’t go to work. Drinking beer after beer. Indexing his regrets.

          “You what?” screamed my mother. “You left her there?”

          In Jackson Memorial Hospital, he passes out wrench-shaped key chains to the nurses. “If the doctors save me,” he tells them. “They get a free toilet. If not, my daughter will sue.”

          When my parents found me in the park, I was making mud pies under the sprinkler. I was soaked and dirty. Not scared or crying. As they ran toward me across the grass, I smiled. They liked to tell this story as if it says something important about me. My resilience. My breezy attitude. Here’s the thing: I was trying to shape mud into golf balls, but they kept falling apart.