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Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb. He really was there all those years, a flesh-and-blood presence streaming off the wallpaper, digging up the dogwoods, polishing the finials... smelling of sawdust and sweat and designer cologne. But I ached as if he were already gone.

This quote takes place at the end of 1. Old Father, Old Artificer, as Bechdel describes how her father’s emotional absence resonated throughout her childhood. Her father’s present-absence is an organizing theme throughout the memoir, as Bechdel struggles to understand the very real, embodied father she grew up with, the secret, closeted self he hid from his family, and the ghost he left behind when he killed himself. Here, Alison describes how her father always felt absent to her and how much she ached for him, despite his emotional distance.

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