Town and Country Magazine
June, 2000

Section: SOCIAL GRACES 


WHEN DADDY WAS KING
by Frank Langella

A father and daughter teach each other about making
one's way in life.
Editor's Note: Father's Day is a time for reflecting
on the powerful role a parent plays in preparing his
child for the world. A parent's love and attention
provide children with their first lessons in civility.
In honor of Father's Day, the actor Frank Langella
celebrates the early exchanges he shared with his
daughter Sara, now 17, and what they brought to each
of their lives. 

I BEGAN THE KIND OF BEDTIME STORY SHE LOVED most about
the time she was four and her brother nearly six. He
stopped asking for them at eight, but she insisted
upon them nightly. 

"How about two tonight?" 

"No." 

"Okay, three tomorrow." 

"We'll see." 

"Promise?" 

Some nights there were four. Most there was one.
Sometimes none. I couldn't always dream them up. They
were called "An Animal with a Problem" stories. An
animal who lives in the jungle with all the other
animals is born with a problem. A giraffe might have a
short neck; a beaver no tail; a cat upside-down
whiskers. When I began telling them to both children,
my imagination ruled supreme--but as time went on, and
her brother lost interest, I lost control to Sara. She
named the animal, chose its sex and dreamed up the
problem--sometimes sending the story in a direction
all her own--and nothing would deter her from a happy
ending. No matter how insurmountable the animal's
problem, the story had to end happily. Snuffleupagus,
who was born all white instead of pink and yellow,
became, in old age, like all the other ones on "Sesame
Street." The lion got back his roar, the knots came
out of the tiger's tail, the blind monkey saw
again--and a short moral ended the night. 

When there was the critique. "I didn't get that one."
"That was too short." "That didn't make sense, Daddy."
This said as she picked her pals from the platoon of
stuffed animals on the three glass shelves behind her
bed, lined them up against the bed's back rail, and
interlocked their arms so that gazing over her as she
slept could be a rabbit, next to a hippo, next to a
puppy--a squad of fuzzy bodyguards. There would then
be a Chosen One kissed, cuddled and wrapped in her
arms for the night. But not before those arms reached
up and curled around my neck so she could give me my
kiss and hug, tight as could be. 

There was no tight like my daughter's tight embrace.
If I, didn't gently try to break free she did not end
the hug. She was there for life. Her abundant love
overwhelmed me sometimes and evoked memories of when I
had loved with that kind of power. When I had come at
someone full out and leaped at their heart with all my
heart. And sometimes during that embrace, my hand
touched her little foot and the tiny three-inch scar
left there by an operation to correct an imperfection
at birth. A scar I loved as much as her whole being.
And I knew our stories filled a need deep in her to be
whole and normal the way every child imagines all the
other animals to be. The stories grew fewer over time,
then faded away as she entered the real jungle. But
there are frozen images lined up in my mind--as
permanent as my favorite photo of her, poised and
ready in a white tutu and with me always. 

She's plunking out her first piano lesson, her
parakeet sitting on her shoulder. She's alone,
sitting, having pulled her oversize T-shirt around her
so that her arms are tucked inside and the body of the
shirt fits taut over her legs--only her head visible
above a homemade little girl tent. We're walking along
the street. She holds my hand with both her hands,
letting all her weight fully pull at my arm--sure that
I will keep her from falling. Sometimes she's climbing
on me, reaching up, as if my arms are branches, and
saying "Shouldies, Daddy" as she sits on them and
grabs my ears. When angry, she folds her arms in
front, her lips pout and she literally harrumphs as
her elbows hit her belly. If I wake her too early she
irritably says, "I want Mommy." Or she courageously
faces the first day at a new school, scared she won't
fit in. 

Safe at home again, she gets covered in wax making
candles, sick to her stomach eating messily made
cookies, trashes the kitchen while making her mother
breakfast in bed. Pillow fights, pajama parties,
brother battles, wailing when the bird dies, lost
teeth, first braids, racing through the house in a
dress I'd bought her--looking back to see it flying
behind, and tumbling over the dog. Feeding the fire in
the fireplace (saying, "It's going out") until it was
an inferno. And each December 24th, looking up at that
empty fireplace for Santa as she left his milk and
cookie. "Only one or he won't fit." And the
turning-point Christmas when I asked if she'd heard
him on the roof the night before and she said, "Oh,
Daddy, that was you." 

And when other realizations started coming to her: I
remember saying, "Sara, you have a great brain." "Oh,
yes, Daddy," she said, "I use both halves." Or, "Sara,
all your life I'll always give you what I have." A
beat passed and she said, "Can I have your watch?" And
my favorite--when she was five, I took her on my lap
and asked, "When you're all grown up and with children
of your own, will you still come and sit on my lap?
.... Yes," she said, "and when you're dead, I'll sit
on your grave." 

While the grim reaper has not yet taken me from her,
time and circumstance have forced a thousand little
deaths. After leaving her waving from a window, I
would sometimes find in my pocket at the airport a
note: "I miss you so much. I love you so much." And
when I came back, there was the leap into my arms; a
laugh so unbridled it tore the heart; and the frantic
search through my suitcase. She modeled the clothes,
played with the toys, then disappeared to her room.
Not, however, before insisting that in the morning I
make her special breakfast--eggs with onions, bacon,
cinnamon toast cut into triangles, and orange juice. 

That breakfast has remained a constant in our lives,
but little else has held as steady. Sara's mother and
I parted. They moved far from where I live and her
visits are too few. And now there is lipstick and eye
shadow and secrets and long talks on the phone and a
boy's picture in her wallet. And her impatient, "Oh
Dad, please!" is no longer a question asking for a
bedtime story. I'm the one at the door now as she
leaves for the airport or packs for overnights with
old friends--and when she goes there's nothing to find
in my pockets. That hold-on-forever love in that
hold-on-forever way has gone. , 

But the bittersweet freedom that comes with the empty
pockets is more bearable with the knowledge that she
seems happily joined with all the other animals in the
jungle she now inhabits. And altogether sweet is the
memory of that blink-of-an-eye time we shared, frozen,
never to thaw and melt away, when Santa was a player
and Daddy was a king. 

ILLUSTRATION (COLOR) 

~~~~~~~~ 

By Frank Langella