The Tender Bonds

By ute carbone

On the last day of kindergarten, Patty Dykstra's mother picked her up after school and told Patty they'd be going on a trip to visit an aunt in New Jersey.  Six-year-old Patty didn't know she and her mother would not be coming back, and that she would leave behind her father, her home, and the only life she'd never known. 

Thirty-six years later, Patty discovers cards that had been written to her by the father she had been told was 'gone'.

Patty travels back to the to the small town she left behind as a child to find the man who used to call her starshine, the father she barely remembers. What she finds both surprises and shocks her. Jack Dykstra is a far cry from the man she idealized as her daddy.  And Patty must learn to stand up for her own self-worth in order to accept and forgive him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dream River Press
• Release date: Mar 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393573579

ute carbone

Ute Carbone  is an award winning author of contemporary women's fiction and historical fiction. She also writes  romantic comedy under her pen name, Annie Hoff.  She lives in NH with her husband. When not writing, you're likely to find her out in the woods pursuing her other life passion, photography. 

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Copyright © Release 2020, Ute Carbone

The Tender Bonds

Media > Books > Fiction > Literature

Keywords: Women’s fiction, literary fiction, contemporary women’s fiction, family life fiction, small town and rural fiction.

EDITOR, KAREN BLOCK

Cover Design by Ute Carbone,

cover photo by Keenan Constance

ALL EXCERPTS OF EMILY Dickenson's poems are from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickenson,  published in 1924 and edited by Martha Dickenson Bianchi. (public domain)

Shakespeare's Sonnet XXIX is from the Riverside Shakespeare, 1974 edition. (public domain)

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden.

This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.

This edition is published by Dream River Press, Nashua NH USA

Copyright © Release 2020, Ute Carbone

One

My Aunt Ruby resurrected my father the month after she died. She didn’t do it on purpose. Given a choice, Ruby would not have given new life to a man she despised. And she must have despised him. How else could she have kept a secret that would have changed my life had I known? That did, in fact, end up changing my life? No, given a choice, it’s far more likely my aunt would have chosen my mother, who had died a few years earlier, for resurrection. Given a choice, I would have done the same.

I hadn’t seen my father in thirty-six years. All I had of him was a set of hazy memories, softened by nostalgia. He used to call me Star Shine. I can picture the two of us looking out the window together, my father making up names for the constellations. Patty’s Pony and Mrs. Gebrowski’s Cat and The Swings at Fairfield Avenue School. He smelled of Old Spice and tobacco. He liked to sing Elvis songs, the sweet ones like Love me Tender.

These memories are diminished by an image of my mother picking me up on the last day of kindergarten at Fairfield Avenue School. It was a hot day and the vinyl seat of the Pinto stuck to the back of my thighs. We went to the Tastee Freez. I remember the vanilla ice cream melting, gluing the cone to a napkin and making my fingers sticky. How’d you like to go on a trip, Patty? my mother had asked as I watched green bottle flies buzz around an over-filled garbage can on the black top. We’ll go visit Aunt Ruby in New Jersey.

Later that summer, I recall my mother sitting on the green-carpeted step of Aunt Ruby’s porch, the tail of her cigarette glowing with each puff. We’re going to stay, Patty. We’re going to get a place of our own. I had a pink jump rope with tassels. My mother had given it to me that morning.

What about school? I’d asked.

There’s a school right over on Lansing Street. You’ll go there.

What about Daddy?

Your daddy’s gone, Patty.

AFTER AUNT RUBY DIED, it fell to me to clean out her things. It would have been an understatement to call Ruby a packrat. There were boxes upon boxes, fifty years’ worth of accumulation stuffed into the house on Ellis Avenue. I took a few mementoes and all the old photographs. The rest I gave to Ida McElroy as a donation for the faculty rummage sale at the university where I worked.

Ida called me a week later. I was fixing chicken breasts with white wine sauce and shitake mushrooms, a recipe I’d dug out of Gourmet Magazine, when the phone rang. I wiped my hands on the dishtowel, feeling guilty because my boyfriend Noah hated it when I did things like that, and picked up the phone.

I found some cards in those boxes you sent over, Ida said. I thought you might want them.

What sort of cards? I couldn’t imagine. Then again, Ruby had saved everything.

I don’t know, but they’re addressed to you. The funny thing is they've never been opened. There are quite a few.

I was curious now. Never opened? That is odd.

I’m on my way to campus. I could drop them by.

The doorbell rang just as I was about to put the chicken breasts into the pan. Ida McElroy, all five feet of her, stood at the doorstep in a soggy purple raincoat with a rain bonnet covering her gray, tightly-permed curls carrying a handbag that was half again her size.

Ida declined my offer of drinks, hot or cold. She fidgeted on the settee as though there were something alive in the cushions. I glanced at my watch. Dinner would be late, and Noah would not be happy about this. He valued promptness, something he never failed to mention whenever I was late for anything.

Ida asked after Noah, who was on faculty with her husband Conrad. I told her he was doing well. Kansas, she said. I’ve never been. Noah had accepted a new position at the University of Kansas. He was conferencing with the UK administrative board to hammer out the terms even as Ida and I spoke. Everyone, Noah included, assumed I would go with him. I wasn’t happy about the idea of moving to Kansas and, privately, I hoped the whole thing would blow over. Noah was excited over the move, the zenith of his career he called it.

They’ll miss you at the library, Ida said. Assuming I’d move, I’d have to resign my position as a reference librarian.

I’ll miss the library. I wasn’t about to say I didn’t want to leave my job as well as the town that had been my home since I was a child. She nodded and feigned interest. The conversation ran thin, and we sat staring at each other for a few minutes. Then Ida pulled her gargantuan handbag onto her lap and changed my life.

These are the cards I spoke to you about earlier. She took out a large stack held together by a rubber band.

I sifted through the packet. All of the cards were addressed to me in care of Ruby St. James on Ellis Avenue in Cherry Park, New Jersey. I pulled one free and carefully opened the envelope: a birthday card with a picture of a kitten wearing a hat. Hope you get one of these and that all your wishes come true. Love Daddy was written in the card.

I don’t understand.

The wrinkles in Ida McElroy’s forehead deepened. I hope I haven’t upset you.

No, no. Of course not. My hands shook as I opened another card. A Snoopy Valentine. For my own little Star Shine. Love Daddy.

Well then. Ida patted her handbag and looked longingly toward the door.

Thank you so much for saving them for me. I ushered her out and waved cheerfully as she backed from the driveway. I could feel a pounding in my temples, an incessant beat as it became clear to me that my mother and Aunt Ruby had lied about my father being ‘gone’. How could you, I whispered aloud to my dead mother and aunt. How could you have done this?

A hard gust of wind slammed the door shut with enough force to make the hall mirror jump from the wall and shatter into a million stars.

WHEN NOAH CAME HOME an hour later, I was sitting on the living room floor with the cards my father had sent scattered around me like planets. I had opened them all, stacking the envelopes neatly to one side. A good librarian, I had ordered them by date, putting the oldest ones at twelve o’clock and circling them around me clockwise to the newest. I picked them up one by one, sniffed in their musty odors and read the inscriptions. There wasn’t a lot written on any of them. The earliest ones said, to Patty love Daddy. Later, Love Daddy became Love, Dad, then Always, Dad. The last few said Best, Jack as though he’d given up altogether on trying to be my father. Five years ago, the cards had stopped coming. Maybe he had really died. Or maybe he’d become infirm. Dead. Infirm. Given up. I don’t know which possibility stung the most. They all stung, these possibilities, and in considering them I lost my father all over again.

I heard Noah call my name. I had thought there would be annoyance in his voice as he noted the uncooked chicken breast lifeless on the cutting board, the dishtowel flung carelessly in the direction of the sink. Noah did not like messes. He hated things left undone. But the tone that he brought into the house that night was decidedly upbeat.

There you are, he said upon discovering me on the living room floor. He was still wearing his camelhair coat and it was covered in rain droplets. His thinning brown hair was plastered to his head. I had to dash to the car, he said, taking off the coat, brushing the water off as he took it to the rack in the foyer. What’s this? Mirror broke? That’s seven years bad luck, you know.

He came back into the living room and sat on the ottoman. They offered me full tenure, Patricia. Full tenure. I’d be teaching grad students. I’ll be given time to write the expansion history. They said they wanted to see me publish it, that they would give me all the support I needed. And research! What better place to research the expansion than where it happened? The salary is about the same as here with the added bonus of a housing allowance.

He stopped and stared at me. I was fingering one of the cards, a birthday card with Snoopy on it. A favorite dog for my favorite girl. Thirty-four years ago my father sent me this card for my eighth birthday.

Patricia? Noah asked. What are you doing?

They’re cards, I told him. From my father.

Your father is dead, Patricia. You told me so yourself.

Noah knelt down next to me and began to pick up the cards. Let’s go out to dinner. He kissed my forehead and handed me the stack. We haven’t been to the Academy in quite some time.

The Academy was the finest restaurant in Cherry Park. That’s no easy honor; given that Cherry Park is a university town with a restored downtown full of quaint restaurants and shops. I’ve got chicken breasts, I told Noah. It wouldn’t take me long to fix them. I’d already gotten to my feet. I was clutching the cards to my chest for fear they might scatter and I’d lose them. I couldn’t bear to lose even one.

I’ll clean up the kitchen. Noah steered me towards the bedroom. You get dressed.

I wanted to put the cards in my jewelry box. I didn’t have a lot of jewels. The only items of value I owned were a pearl necklace that had been my mother’s and a gold wrist watch with a diamond chip that Noah gave me last Christmas. Otherwise, the box was a treasury of costume jewelry I’d bought at department stores and gift shops over the years. These cards seemed more valuable than the whole lot, but they were too many to fit. I found a piece of pink ribbon and tied them together. I tucked them into my underwear drawer nestled between the lacy panty and bra sets I seldom wore, next to the lavender sachet that made the whole drawer smell like spring’s arrival.

Afterwards, I stood in front of the clothes closet in my slip, staring at blouses and slacks and skirts and dresses, the better things hung on padded silk hangers, over a neatly arranged shelf of pumps and flats in a variety of colors.

Patricia?

I can’t decide what to wear. I folded my arms as a sudden chill made me shiver.

Noah smiled and clicked his tongue at my lack of certainty. He studied the closet for a minute and pulled out a blue silk dress I’d worn to a colleague’s wedding several years ago. This one is lovely. He held the dress out to me.

I put it on, found appropriate shoes, and went out to the living room where Noah waited on the settee. He asked if I was ready, making a small joke about how it’s true one always has to wait for women. I told him I was all set, though the truth was I wasn’t up to an evening out at a fancy restaurant. The truth was I wanted to climb into bed with the pile of cards under my pillow and see if they would make me dream of my father.

WE SAT AT A TABLE NEAR the window. Downtown Cherry Park glowed under the illumination of streetlights made to look like gas lamps. We might have been sitting in a painting by some romantic from a previous century, one of a privileged few patrons who could dine at a window seat with such elegance and prosperity all around us.

Noah talked more about the new job. He went on and on about how he would sell his house here. U Kansas has a relocation program. They’ll help me find a new house and they've even agreed to pay for the move. It’s lovely there, Patricia. Not many trees, but grass as far as the eyes can see. Not like here at all, but lovely. Of course, they have all the same conveniences, stores and such. They have a wonderful art museum and nearly as many coffee shops as we have here. The housing market is so much better. I'll be able to afford a small mansion for what I'll make on the Jersey house.

I had heard it all before. How wonderful Lawrence was. What an honor to be given this chance. I looked out the window, Noah’s words like the patter of raindrops against the pane. In my mind, I reopened those cards. I thought about how they had been tucked away with all the junk my aunt saved and found only by accident. I wondered how my mother—my own mother who had allegedly loved me—could have torn me away from my father. How Aunt Ruby could have deceived me for all those years.

Patricia? Noah had poured us each another glass of Merlot. You really are a bit out of sorts, aren’t you?

I’m sorry. It’s those cards. I can’t seem to stop thinking about them.

They are wonderful mementos. You should be glad to have them. I felt my eyes fill and took a sip of wine so that I wouldn’t have to look at Noah. Soon we’ll be living in a new place. Something fresh to occupy you will be just the thing. He took my hand. I even talked to the provost about you. He said they’d be happy to speak with you about working at the library. Seems they’re always looking for good research librarians. I told him that you were the best, of course. He squeezed my hand, thinking this would seal the deal.

There is something else, he said as the waiter brought coffee and crème brûlée to the table. I know you’ve had second thoughts about the move, Patricia. And I realize I haven’t made my intentions clear. Noah reached into his suit coat pocket and drew out a small box. I wanted to be sure that our plans could be finalized. He handed the box to me. I stared at it and swallowed hard. Well, go on, he said. Open it.

It was a pearl ring set into an antique gold setting. He took the ring from the box and slid it onto my finger. It’s a promise, Patricia. Kansas will be a whole new beginning for us.

Before Ida brought me those cards, I’d thought marrying Noah was exactly what I wanted. I had thought if I married and maybe had a child before it was too late for me, I’d be the happiest woman alive. Now all I could think was moving to Kansas might be the worst mistake I’d ever make.

My reaction surprised me. There was so much about myself I didn’t know. How could I commit my life to someone else—how could I begin a new future—before figuring out my past?

Well, say something, Noah said.

I was going to say I couldn’t possibly accept it, when Noah smiled at me in the candlelight. His face was so full of expectation that I reached out and squeezed his hand. Thank you, I said. It’s beautiful.

Two

We made love that night , an unusual event since Noah had early classes on Thursday and it was already well past his ten o’clock bedtime when we got home from the restaurant. He kissed me on the cheek when we were done and rolled over to his side of the bed. I lay there watching his shoulders rise and fall as he slept, a sight as familiar as my own name. Patricia Marie Dykstra. Who was she? And what was she doing here next to Noah Sawyer?

Sleep elusive, I got up, took the cards from the drawer and went into the living room. The rain had stopped. The light of a full moon shimmered off the droplets in the grass. We’d have to fertilize the lawn soon, though there would be little point if we were to sell the house. It was Noah’s house. Five years ago, I’d moved in with a single carload full of bits and pieces. I’ve never been one much for things. All of my possessions were here, a few odds and ends nearly lost among Noah's furniture and Noah's books and Noah's art work.

I sat in the club chair and fingered the cards. I wondered where Aunt Ruby had kept them. How had I missed them when going through her things? Maybe she’d hidden them stacked with the canning jars in the cellar or in the endless boxes of knickknacks gathering dust in the attic. I was surprised she had kept them at all. Maybe some part of her had wanted to remember my father’s goodness, though it hadn’t been enough to dispel the bitter looks she gave me whenever I dared mention his name. Bitter enough to make me stop mentioning him. You’ll hurt your mother, she’d say. Hasn’t she been through enough? No mention of what I’d been through. No mention of the countless nights I’d spent inventing and reinventing a man I barely knew and barely remembered. All the while thinking he was lost to me. Gone. But he hadn’t been gone, and the truth of this ached inside of me, a dull and constant ache like the light of the full moon that shone through the picture window.

I made my decision that morning. Noah, as usual, was gulping down coffee while stuffing students’ papers into his briefcase. I’ve got to find him, I said. Noah searched for his keys among yesterday’s mail on the kitchen counter. Find whom?

My father. I need to go to Bensonville. At the very least, I need to know if he’s still alive.

Noah stopped his search to examine me, his eyes filled with disapproval. Why would you do that?

I need to know.

He patted his jacket pocket and fished out the keys. I don’t understand why you would want to open that can of worms, Patricia.

I wanted to tell him it was because they were my worms, but Noah was already on to a new subject. The president’s dinner is tomorrow night. He chuckled. Honored guest. All one has to do is leave, I suppose, to become an honored guest. He caught the look in my face. You aren’t worried about what to wear are you? Well, an honored guest’s lady should have a new frock. Why don’t you go to the mall this afternoon? A little retail therapy would do you a world of good. And with that, he kissed my cheek and was out the door.

I watched as he got into his car and pulled out of the garage. Noah might think all I needed was a new dress to make me forget my father, but I knew I could never move to Kansas without first knowing what had happened to him.

THE LIBRARY WHERE I worked was the oldest building on campus. The outside was ivy-covered brick with a huge clock tower dominating the center. The interior had been refurbished and was ultra-modern. The reference desk was an enormous edifice of chrome and steel, long and sleek, with padded orange and red stools along one side as though students could belly up to the bar and order two fingers of information. All of the librarians had laptops and docking stations. Last year, the university had invested a small fortune in making the library and several other key buildings wireless. Truthfully, I found the changes difficult. I missed the old card catalogues, the acres of volumes we used to peruse. I liked the smell of the back stacks, loved wandering among the dusty volumes, thumbing old magazines in search of just the right piece of information. Now, pages of text were