My father’s old mistress died last week or the week before. Nancy Hockensmith. Of all of my father’s girlfriends, Nancy seems the most clear: her dirty dishwater blonde hair, her old-fashioned bun, her pock-marked face. She helped teach me how to read, helped guide my fingers over the smeared newspaper ink. She took me to ride horses near her mother’s dark farmhouse that, in my mind, was lighted only by candles.
And now, on some small-town public message board, her name is being smeared and her life is being questioned. Some say she was a drug addict. Some say she overdosed. Most of the posts are either very kind or very nasty.
I wish someone could tell me how to feel about Nancy Hockensmith’s death. I wish there was a guide, a book on how to feel about a woman who dated your father while he was married to your mother. A woman who is now dead. I don’t know if Nancy came along while my parents were separated, or if she was the cause. I only know that she was there in my life, briefly, 23 or 24 or 25 years ago. I only know that she helped me sound out words and I didn’t hate her.
8 notes |#