tony-and-liliana-delvecchio.com

“Keep a fire burning in your eye

Pay attention to the open sky

You never know what will be coming down.

I don’t remember losing track of you

You were always dancing in and out of view

I must have thought you’d always be around.

Always keeping things real by playing the clown

Now you’re nowhere to be found”

– For a Dancer, Jackson Browne

It became clear to Tommy in time that Livy’s mother was determined to write him out of her life. With the full weight of the so-called “family court” behind her, Tommy became an un-parent, not just in a figurative sense, but in reality, under Japanese law. Upon conclusion of the divorce, Tommy was stripped of any and all parental rights. Livy was awarded to her mother in that no provision under Japanese law allowed for joint custody, or even enforceable visitation rights. He was no longer considered Livy’s father in the eyes of the law and had no more rights as a parent than the clerk at the convenience store on the corner had. And he knew that any attempt to force the issue by trying to see Livy would result in his arrest and possible imprisonment for “stalking.” Tommy wisely stayed away, unlike other left-behind parents that he knew who did try to see their kids and who wound up in detention and sometimes even deported for the crime of insisting that their natural rights as parents superseded Japan’s absurd and callous legal fictions.

The only way he could ever hope to see his daughter again, he knew, would be if Livy decided to get in touch with him again. So many factors obviated the possibility of Tommy making the first move, not just the legal peril he would find himself in should he do so, but, to Tommy, the dreaded eventuality of Livy reacting out the programming she’d been taught and rejecting him with a finality that would end any hope he had of a reunion. Tommy imagined what would happen if he approached her suddenly on the street, and in his heart, he knew that it would likely end up disastrously. He didn’t know exactly what Livy had been told over the years about her father, but one thing was certain — it was none of it good. Her mother was a master manipulator, and he assumed at this point that what Livy believed was precisely what her mother wanted her to believe.

And so, Tommy decided to remain in the old homestead, keeping a candle burning in the window to light the way for Livy’s hopeful, eventual return. If not a deep felt desire to see her father again, Tommy figured curiosity about her past — who she was and where she came from — would someday win out and bring her home. Tommy remembered reading somewhere that one of the hardest tasks of parenthood was patience, and that made sense to him. Acting in haste, out of some sense of urgency, he came to believe would sabotage whatever chance he had of seeing Livy again. It was at least an even chance that she would reject his entreaties out of hand, and only confirm the narrative Livy’s mother, grandparents, and “new father” had drilled into her mind. He’d had enough of being “the bad guy,” and just refused to play along. Being available to Livy by simply staying on the periphery of her life was the only weapon he had against the relentless onslaught of indoctrination to which Livy had been subject.

Thus, Tommy waited for her to come to him of her own volition. He knew instinctively that that was the only way this long sought after parent-child reunion had any hope of success. Reaching out to her, he felt, would achieve precisely the opposite of his intention, and so he stayed away. He could not, would not, risk the possibility of losing her forever, so as much as he wanted to approach her — something he knew would not be difficult to accomplish knowing what he did about her whereabouts and that of her mother and step-father — he weighed the potential pitfalls of such an action and decided the risks far outweighed any hoped-for rewards.

Tommy waited, then, at the place where he once taught Livy to read, where he played silly games with her, where he watched The Teletubbies and The Raptones and Tom and Jerry with her as he cradled her in his arms, and where he sang her to sleep at night. He was determined to remain in this place despite the pain it invariably caused him, and despite wanting to flee in an attempt to leave behind the phantoms of the past that visited him in every nook and corner of that place. He sometimes looked out the window, thinking that she might have even walked past the old homestead at some point just to revisit her origins, if ever so briefly. Yes, Tommy stayed and kept vigil, and the days passed into months, the months into years. And he kept the memories alive for the both of them.