2006: Father
I think an odd thing happens every day, at least once. Some people have several odd things happen to them in a day but I usually only have to deal with one odd thing per day. Today my father came into my room while I was doing homework and told me he wanted to talk when I had the time.
When I was younger, after my mom left for a better afterlife, my father used to come in for talks when I did something bad, in which he’d tell me what I’d done wrong, what the consequences are, and how to prevent it in the future. I don’t remember any of these talks except that they were very, very uncomfortable for me as a young girl. When I was at friends’ houses, their parents would sit with them (instead of in front of them or standing - it always seemed kind of cold the way he stood near me) and have an actual discussion about what happened. The children were the ones expected to come up with ways to prevent the deed in the future, or to come up with more positive responses. My father spoke as if reciting an extremely boring lecture on mathematics or physics or some such nonsense, and then left the room without expecting an apology from me or seeing if I comprehended what he just said. In other words, I had the most one-sided parenting ever.
I was a little concerned at first. What, at this age, could I have possibly done “wrong?” I quickly learned after a few of those mundane and quite frightening talks that I should be a well-behaved daughter and I didn’t bother him much. (They weren’t frightening in the way one might immediately assume but more weird in a frightening way. He would come in morose and unconcerned and tell me exactly, as if rehearsed in points, what I did and what is to be done about it. Sometimes I wondered if he forgot his graphs and charts, and thinking on it now, I wonder if he is like that in his classroom.)
I went into the living room after I finished my homework (and after some reading and generally avoiding the passing of time in any way possible) and slowly eased into the chair next to the couch. He was reading under a dim light and didn’t seem to want to be bothered. After ten minutes of grueling silence and discomfort I almost decided to get up, assuming whatever it was that he originally wanted to talk about he either no longer wanted to say or he was too engrossed in his text to pay attention to the fact that his daughter was patiently waiting for some sign of life: and this was fine with me. I was about to move (very quickly, I might add, so as not to draw attention to myself), and he looked up at me. I was a little stunned and a little frightened, but not in the weirdly frightened way I mentioned earlier; rather, the actual scared of what might happen next kind of frightened. I am not sure why I have this attitude towards my father, as he didn’t ever do anything to me to merit it. He never beat me (or my mother in front of me), he may have neglected me emotionally a little bit but I’m the better for it- however, he didn’t deny me proper food or residential comfort or anything of that nature. He’s just an unkempt, secretive, secluded professor at a University who unfortunately found himself in the company with a little girl. I don’t blame him. Things may have been different if mom was here, but I think it’s because of her death that he acts this way.
I know he loves me but I also know he is indifferent to me.
Very gruffly and slightly uncomfortable, he began to talk about all the ways he possibly did me wrong while I was growing up. He was extremely vague, I suppose either out of embarrassment or the knowledge that I had experienced these moments and therefore didn’t need any further explanation. It felt like that moment in movies when a father and his son have a Big Talk and every bit of tension throughout the movie is resolved by a hug and a pat on the back, perhaps a witty joke. I like to think my father was doing this out of some sense of guilt, to clear his own conscience so he could move on with life and continue getting older. Or maybe he took some kind of AA class for emotionally stunted fathers. ESFA. Anyway, I had no idea what to say in the pauses that were obviously handcrafted for my responses and I think this severely disappointed him, though he wasn’t showing it. I hope he didn’t expect a lot from me.
Most of the things he mentioned were memories I’d long forgotten and forgave. I think most people talk about how the “little things” matter and let the “little bad things” build up to destroy relationships, whereas I agree that the “little things” matter, but I don’t let the “little bad things” get in the way of my life, because in reality the “little things” only matter so much, and I don’t have every bit of importance invested in them. He mentioned one time when I was only a few months older than ten, and I woke up on the couch in the living room and everything else in the room was gone. Feeling uneasy but thinking nothing of it (sometimes when things might have to change, furniture gets rearranged), I went into the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal. All the food was still there, but there was absolutely no silverware, plates, cups, or bowls. At this point I started to get worried. The living room was all but gone. It was like the Universe was taunting me with little things - I have access to food, but no way to eat it unless I planned on eating with my hands (and I didn’t - I was really in the mood for some Rice Krispies).
“Dad?” I said out loud into the void of what was once a comfortable home. We lived in this apartment with my mother while I was a baby and stayed in it after her death. At this point I didn’t think of her as much as I had previous years, or as much as I do now. I was more concerned with school and friends than to worry about a woman who left me with a detached father and a cat that died shortly after her death (broken heart, probably). I think I was really angry with her for a few years. However, the apartment was still “home” and I was becoming increasingly worried about it, especially after calling out for my father several times and gaining no response.
As I paced my way into his bedroom, fearing what I might see, an overwhelming sense of dread and loneliness settled on my heart. When I made it to my room, however, I felt it: The all encompassing feeling of abandonment. All that was in the apartment was a toilet seat cover, the couch, and food. Oh, and me. No pictures on the walls, no bed in my room, no tooth brushes or dressers or hanging clothes. Nothing but a scared little girl and an empty room. I was dying to wake up.
He described this memory as: “the day I moved out without you.”
He had to come back for the couch and when he did I was huddled in the corner of my old bedroom feeling very tense. When he saw me, he told me to come along just as if I had known what was going on all along, as if this is how we had planned the move. I would stay here and he would do all the moving, clear out the entire house except for a few little things. In retrospect, I think I suppressed some memories involved in this story. How could I have slept through the entire move? Surely at least something would have made enough noise to wake me… But I think I will leave it to mystery for now, because I am not in the mood to ask him about it; as he was apologizing, he brought back so many feelings that I had chosen to forget a long time ago. I am not sure this whole session has improved our relationship as father and daughter at all, but I understand his desire to make it right between us.
I hope he isn’t dying.
