Since my father seemed to think that honesty was not always the best policy it made sense that he would rarely keep his word. There are many concepts that my father bestowed upon me that were backwards. However, one saying that has always held true in my mind is that “A man is nothing more than his word.” This is just a nice way of saying “If you say you are going to do something. Do it.” Yet when I look back on my life and at my mother’s descriptions of my father I can see that his word has never truly meant much.

It started with my father’s marriage proposal to my mother. As my mom tells it they had gotten into a fight over Thanksgiving dinner. My father and mother grew up in the same town, but currently lived in different cities so he had to trek to her town to spend Thanksgiving with her. They'd gotten into an argument about my mother’s family and my father had taken their side, which was clearly not the right choice. My mother threw him out and neither of them partook in the Thanksgiving dinner that she had prepared for them. Later that night around 2 a.m., Rowen called my mother.

“Hey, is this Genevieve?” he said.

“Who the hell else would it be Rowen!” my mom responded groggy with sleep, and ready to wake up in a few hours to go to work.

“Well, what do you think we should do?” he probed in reference to their relationship status.

Apparently they had broken up and gotten back together before so this was not a new occurrence in their lives.

“You know Rowen, I think we need to either get married or call it off.” my mother exhaled in exasperation.

At the age of 28 it wasn’t like they were getting any younger and frankly this was becoming a waste of both of their time.

“Okay. I have a ring. I’ll come by tomorrow and give it to you. When should we get married?” he said sheepishly.

“How about during your winter break. I have time off then.” She responded.

“Okay. Good night.” he replied.

“Good night.” she said, hanging up the phone, a little less angry, excited to finally get some more shuteye.

Not ten minutes later the phone rings again. My mother reaches over to the bedside table to yank it off of the receiver.

“WHAT?!”, she sreams into the receiever.

“Have you changed your mind yet?”, my father's voice is tentative on the other end.

“Rowen Beckman, God help you if you pull out of this!” she said.

“Okay. Good so you haven’t changed your mind? Just checking. Good night.” he says.

“Night!” she says slamming the phone down onto the receiver.

You’d think that this whole ordeal would have been a sign. My parents agreed to get married like two conglomerates would agree to go into business together; something Rowen tried to back out of not ten minutes later!

This behavior was something that never really stopped though. I learned throughout the years that Rowen said things he didn’t really mean all of the time. Rowen worked late shifts and pulled overtime doing hard physical labor as an electrician in the Arizona heat, so I tended to make excuses for him. I made excuses for why he couldn't follow through on committments, even when they hurt my feelings deeply.

For example, Ophelia and I were not allowed to ride the bus home under a specific age for a myriad of reasons. The first reason being that the bus refused to come all the way into the apartment complex to drop us off. This meant we had to walk from a busy four-lane road all the way to the back of the complex to get home. The second reason being that Ophelia was teased relentlessly on the bus for being a massive bookworm.

It was because of these things that Rowen was to pick us up from school everyday at 3:30 p.m. The first time that he forgot about us I am sure that it was an accident. However, after the fourth, fifth or sixth time a trip to Dairy Queen didn’t prevent us from telling our mother. Teachers had also begun to take notice, as we would sometimes be stuck there until 5:00 or 5:30 in the evening. As a result the teachers began marching us to the office, and then the poor office people would have to sit with us until they could get ahold of our dad to come retrieve his children.

I remember the first time a teacher took us to the office. Ophelia and I tried to play it off like it was no big deal that Rowen forgot about us because this “happened all of the time.” Which to us, was the truth but to other adults made our father look reckless and uncaring, which wasn’t the case at all. His problem was just that he was exhausted from work and would fall asleep on the couch without setting an alarm and therefore leave us at the school for hours on end. I remember making him promise every day that he wouldn’t forget us at the age of five or six.

“Dad,” I’d say before we’d head to bed, “You have to promise not to forget us tomorrow after school.”

“I promise, I won’t forget next time” he’d say as if he really meant it, “Good night girls”, he’d say as he closed our bedroom door leaving it only slightly ajar because I was afraid of the dark.

I think I knew that it was a lie every time, but I truly wanted to believe somewhere in my soul, that he really did mean it. Rowen wanted to be a good dad; wanted to be there for us when we got out of school. Unfortunately, the situation got so out of hand that my mother eventually paid for us to go to an afterschool program until she got off of work at 6:00 p.m. and she would take us home instead. I’m sure that my father saw it as a win-win because we now had a place to do our homework and play while he had time to sleep before heading off to work again. I, however, saw it, as the realization that I couldn’t count on anyone, not even the people that I loved the most.

Rowen became a master at finding excuses for why he couldn’t do things. I have always seen him as a brilliant man, but as an adult I realize that his need to remind everyone of how exceptional he is in comparison to everyone else, is exactly what makes him so frustrating. There is a list a mile long of things that Rowen could do around the house but refuses to.

To name just a few:

Make Genevieve a bed out of maplewood, which he bought over a decade ago Put up the ceiling fans that Genevieve bought over five years ago, which he promises he'll install for her annually. Clean the garage, which he claims is so cluttered that he can’t find any of his tools. Oh and this is why he can’t finish any of the previously aforementioned projects. Talk to his neighbors about how their water is draining under his house, and ruining his house’s foundation over time.

One time I called Rowen out on this bad behavior by stating, “You know for someone who is so damn smart that they can do anything, you sure are good at making excuses. What a waste of a brilliant mind to invent excuses for why you never do what it is that you say you will.” Stinging words that I know made him re-evaluate his life and mannerisms. Or maybe they just hurt his feelings, but I hope that wasn’t the case. I was hoping they'd land as a wakeup call.

About the only time Rowen did keep his word was when I asked him to be a chaperone at my sixth grade science camp. At a time in my life where everything had begun to revolve around Ophelia, death, and overall sadness and cynicism; I wanted my dad to help me come back to the light. Hell! I wanted anyone to come back to the light with me. The worst part about this trip is that his youngest brother called the week before, and I knew deep in my heart that my dad wanted to go and help him out. I listened on the phone when my dad lit up from his call, but by the age of 12, I knew a thing or two about family; especially our family. These people only called if they wanted something and I wasn’t having it.

I listened with baited breath as Rowen talked to his youngest brother.

“You need me to come up there by next week?” he said.

God dammit! Of course he would need him up there during the week of science camp, which he had already committed too! That bastard! How could his brother call and ruin everything! This weekend was supposed to be full of hiking, campfires, ghost stories, and science! I just knew that my dad was going to pick his youngest brother over me! It made perfect sense he had all these memories, and back stories, and an actual bond with him; which he didn’t have with me. Here I was trying to forge our own bond in the fires of the outdoors and I was going to simply be kicked to the curb.

All of this went through my mind in seconds, and when he didn’t say anything to his younger brother about our trip I blurted it out,

“No! That’s the weekend of science camp! You already agreed! You signed paperwork! You said you be a chaperone! You said it! You’re a horrible liar!!!!” I screamed and stormed off.

I was so angry with him for casting me aside like a beat up old shoe. That’s when I heard him say it from the other room,

“Well, Rad... I promised Roslyn and her school that I would be a chaperone at her science camp for them. It would be one thing if it were just for her, but I did sign something saying that I would be there.”

In that moment I realized that my father’s word meant nothing when he gave it to his wife and children. His word was only good for his immediate family (which apparently didn’t include us) and to strangers.

He went to my science camp with me and we had a lot of fun. He was in charge of a cabin full of a group of boys and all of them hated each other, so it wasn’t exactly easy for him but he enjoyed it. However, every time we had down time together I know that it weighed heavy on his mind that his brother needed him more than I did.

This is the one act of kindness that my father ever bestowed on me. One of the few times where he put me above anyone else, and I truly appreciated it. This was the one and only time I remember my father making his word count. So as I went through life, whenever someone gave their word to me, I fully expected them to break it. I had already set them up for failure in my mind.