Incognito

Incognito
Miriam Sagan

     When we were children, my father was not very available. He came home after dinner, worked late on Thursdays, and a half day Saturday. He and my mother went out Saturday night until he put a stop to that by abruptly refusing to socialize ever again. No parties, no dinners, no couples. He announced this at age forty, and pretty much held to for the next forty-eight years. 
     When he was home, my father often said he was “incognito.” I thought this was an actual place, called Cognito. Perhaps it was, as it meant he was in his study with the door closed. If he emerged briefly, he refused to answer if spoken to. He was not to be disturbed, and never was. 
     From this remove, I have the urge to diagnose. Sensitivity? Hypoglycemia? Asperger’s? Whatever it was, my father believed that his preferences and reactions were right, the morally correct course. A hatred of small talk was not just his quirk, or a personal preference. It was an elevated position, one that any superior person would automatically take. I, who even now enjoy a chat about the weather, fruit trees, real estate, gossip, and clothes, had to rally my childish resources to discuss the ancient Greeks. 
     Surprisingly, my father had four children. That was a lot of people to fend off. He eventually had five sons and daughters in law, and seven grandchildren. And he did not really want any of us under his roof. 
     Once, after an extraordinarily rare visit with a friend, he complained about the vagaries of being a houseguest. His hosts were so picky about the kitchen, the sponges, the faucets.
     “Yes,” I agreed. “And it’s not just hard to be a good houseguest but to be a good host.”
     “True,” my father said. “and you know, I’ve had a lot of houseguest.”
     “You have?” I was surprised. I could literally not come up with an instance when a visitor not of my own generation had slept under my father’s roof.”
     “Of course…you, your sisters, your brother…”
     So after our lives together my father regarded his children as guests. No wonder he most often tried to dissuade us from visiting, citing the domestic upheaval of having to change the sheets. Once, in my fifties, I offered to bring a sleeping bag, but he didn’t laugh.