The Apology that Wasn't

"Vi? I'm sorry," my dad said.

I knew why he was calling as soon as I saw his name come up on my caller ID.

"What did I do?" he asked.

"Well, Dad, you called me an embarrassment in front of our family and everyone else at Maggie's for Thanksgiving," I said acidly, and I knew I didn't sound forgiving or like someone accepting an apology because I didn't want to accept the apology.

"Why would I say that?" he asked.

"Because you were being a petulant child who didn't get his way," I responded flatly.

"Why didn't I get my way?"

And this was the huge disconnect. He either truly didn't remember being a huge dick to me, my mother, and my sister on Thanksgiving, or he wanted a pass. He wanted someone to say, 'That's okay, Dad. You're old, and you're allowed to be an asshole to anyone and everyone, especially the people who are trying to cater to your every whim.'

"You are an adult," I said. "You are capable of managing your feelings. Everything you think in your head does not have to come out of your mouth. There are other people besides you, and the world doesn't revolve around you."

"What happened?" he asked. Now I would tell my dad the story to him about him, and he would take it in like he was hearing it for the first time and hadn't been an active participant in all the events I was relating. And it killed me a little on the inside. I knew there was a high road, but I couldn't get past hitting the threshold of the ongoing pattern of his bad behavior.

"You didn't want to wait for lunch, which you knew would be at 3 pm, and you pitched a fit about wanting to go home before dark--at 3 pm."

"Sounds about right," he said. "Your mother can't see well in the dark, and she has trouble driving at night. I don't know what you want me to say. I said 'sorry,' but you have to understand that getting old changes things in your head, and sometimes you don't act like yourself."

And here's where I bit my tongue. He always acted like this. It was his show, and we were all the bit players. My mother, probably the nicest person I knew, was his biggest enabler. She complained, but then she continued to allow him to act like a child. She allowed him to throw an adult-sized baby fit. My sister and I separated the two of them on Thanksgiving because we knew it would be a small-town America telenovela situation. No thank you.

To be fair, Dad had dementia. His remote memory was fabulous, but his recent and short-term memories were a jumble of the same questions and the same stories, and he had good and bad days. And the bad days were becoming more frequent. He could hold onto a thread of logic for a bit, and then it would disintegrate or float away, and we would work to re-build the thread for him over and over again. He still had more good than bad days, and we all tiptoed around him, handling him with kid-gloves because if he was having a good day, we wanted him to remain in high spirits, but it also meant always giving him his way.

On the day of the phone call apology, I knew he was having a somewhat lucid episode, but I wasn't sure if he truly couldn't recall his behavior from the previous day, or if he was making an excuse.

"I made you a plate before everyone was ready to sit down to eat. I set it right in front of your place at the table. All you had to do was pull your chair forward, eat, and not be an asshole. And if you weren't hungry, all you had to do was put a smile on your face. That's it." I began to gain steam, and I hated that I was getting worked up, becoming shrill. "I was trying to accommodate you, and you called me an embarrassment. And you were mean about it, like with some anger."

"I don't know what you want me to say. I already said I'm sorry."

But I wanted him to mean it.

My sister and I were talking the day after Black Friday, and I told her about the non-apology. "If he didn't want to come for Thanksgiving, Mom should have left him at home," Maggie said.

"He didn't want to come?" I asked.

"Nope. He just wanted to stay home, have his salami and crackers for lunch, and watch football. Mom forced him to come," she said.

"You know how he would have been if Mom had left him at home, though," I said. "He would call her every 20 minutes to see where she was and ask when she was coming home. If he stayed home, he would have wanted her to stay home, too."

Maggie sighed. "Mom really wanted to come for Thanksgiving. She was desperate to get out of the house."

"I know," I said. "I don't think I was very nice when I talked to Dad the other day when he called to say he was sorry but he didn't think he really had anything to apologize for."

Who really owed the apology? Did our sainted mother need to apologize to Dad for dragging him along to something he didn't want to attend? Did Dad need to be sincere in his apology to me for the comment, to my sister for making a scene, to Mom for being so self-centered? Did I need to apologize for not being more understanding? Did I need to apologize to my mom for telling her about my dad calling me an embarrassment and hurting my feelings?

I took a beat, trying to make sense of who should be sorry, and who needed to tell whom they were sorry and for what. I was pretty sure the only person who didn't owe anyone an apology was my sister, unless she apologized for not serving lunch at high noon, to make Dad happy. I also knew, though, that our dad didn't get anywhere by noon very easily. He and his morning routine took him hours these days. Where was the answer? And I knew I'd drive myself crazy trying to come up with one.

And here is where I needed to get off my high horse--choose your battles and all that. "Mags, I think, maybe, I feel bad about this. He's 86. His health is declining, as is his memory. I know Mom wanted him to come to be with all of us because he probably only has a couple Thanksgiving Days left in him. I hate thinking that we feel like this, especially if it's his last Thanksgiving. But, there's a little part of me that doesn't want to give him a free pass. There's a part of me that wants him to be accountable for his behavior."

In the grand scheme of things, we were all bit players in this ridiculous Thanksgiving farce, bumping against each other with good intentions, bad, and in some cases, no intentions at all. And at the end of it, we had these two old parents who we needed to handle with love and care, and the time for teaching lessons was well and truly past. And we could choose simply to love, forgive, and forget.

Maggie said, "Vi...I think the time for him to be accountable for his bad behavior was probably 10, hell, maybe 20 years ago. I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. Thanksgiving was really nice, top to bottom, except for Dad's little snit in the middle. Everything was great."

"You know," Maggie said, "I think maybe your mashed potatoes were better than Mom's, and you know hers are the bar we measure everything against."

"Why, thank you," I answered. "Sorry I'm being a baby. Glad you liked the potatoes, and thanks for letting me vent."