An imaginary white cord ties me to Daddy in the water, the cool, blue water of Long Island Sound, at Cummings Beach. The cord squiggles and flows across the water’s surface, twinkles in the sun, reflects light that bounces on me. Toe-by-toe, I inch out to deeper water, where Daddy is clamming.

“Don’t come out any further, Jeanne. I told you not to go out above your waist. Stay with your sisters.” Daddy scolds as his wet, white shoulders scoop under the water and he bends to pick up another clam. Surrendering, I stay at the low end. I obey him because Dear, Sweet, Jesus wouldn’t like it if I didn’t.

I connect to Daddy in ways unlike Mom. I long to be with him, out above my waist, take a risk, dig heels into muck, blindly search for clams to triumphantly throw, hear a hard snap, as a clam hits another in the basket that bobs happily along nearby. I long to spend time with him, learn from him, without Mom or sisters bugging me. I long to be kissed, hugged, squeezed. I long to be loved by him. Is that so much for this nine year-old girl in a blush of a faded, pink, hand-me-down bathing suit to ask for?

This is a start to a piece that I’m working on now. It’s 1967 and I’m 8 years-old…

Daddy slowly slides the black, leather belt out of the loops of his pressed, gray pants, the sharp creases run down his long legs, the fresh finish ironed by Mom, the iron gliding smoothly on the ironing board, the kitchen air invisibly clouded with the magic of Niagara spray starch. Mom’s jet-black hair, tightly pin-curled with black bobby pins against her head, makes her high cheek bones tauter, her head smaller, as shoulders, patterned with blue violets and a ring of white-petaled, yellow-centered daisies, circle around her aproned neck. She sways with the soothing rhythm of the iron’s motion and sings along with the Beatles on the kitchen radio, all you need is love, da-da-da-da-da. Mom says that Niagara makes ironing shirt collars and children’s clothes a breeze.