There were days when my father didn't have money for food, and we slept hoping the next day something could be got from work.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
On any given day, my father wasn't likely to return from work before I was asleep for the night. I saw that a man's work was important, that he must pursue it tirelessly, and that it might require certain sacrifices, like being away from the warmth and comfort of home.
When I spent time with my father, it wasn't playing ball in the back yard. I came to his office and listened to him do business or sat in on meetings. I walked job sites. On Saturday, we'd see my grandfather in Queens for a couple hours, and then he'd say, 'Let's go collect rent!'
Years later I would hear my father say the divorce had left him dating his children. That still meant picking us up every Sunday for a matinee and, if he had the money, an early dinner somewhere.
My father was a misanthrope who slept all day and stayed up all night so that he wouldn't have to see people. He ran a business with a large staff but would go there at night and leave things for them to do during the day when he wasn't there.
I wasn't really aware that my father was working for quite a while. I thought it was my mother who had all the money!
As a child I was sometimes so hungry that I used to dream that one day I'd get locked in a grocery store.
I thought my dad was out of work, because my friends had fathers with briefcases who'd go off somewhere with bow ties on. But my father would finish breakfast and go back to his room.
Dad worked in a warehouse when I was little and I didn't see him for three years as he was doing all the overtime God gave him to buy me new ballet shoes, or a new tutu.
Sometimes, we didn't have enough to eat. I'd go to school with no lunch money, and my school would have to provide it.
We sat together as a family for dinner at night. And my mother had a job. My dad had a job. But there was always a meal on the table at 6:00, you know.