When I show up at the hotel later that night and knock on room 717, I almost don’t recognize my own father when he opens the door. His clothes are all wrong. He used to wear ratty jeans with holes and T-shirts with funny photographer puns on them like “Warning: At Any Time I May Snap!” Now he’s wearing a collared shirt and slacks. I didn’t even know my father owned a pair of slacks.
But it isn’t even his attire that most shocks me. His skin looks ashen and almost thirsty. His hair is graying at the temples. And there’s something about his eyes that sends a chill through me, followed by another wave of guilt.
This life, this choice. It’s changed him. In more ways than I even realized.
It takes a long time to convince my dad not to put me right back on a flight home. It takes even longer for my mom to stop screaming at me on the other end of the phone. But eventually, things settle down and the world seems somewhat at peace again.
I told my dad that I needed a break from school. That it was just getting to be too much. I didn’t elaborate beyond that. Maybe he could see it in the shadows under my eyes, or hear it in the break in my voice, but he eventually agreed to let me stay for a few days, on the condition that I come to work with him tomorrow so he can keep an eye on me.
I want to argue that I’m eighteen years old now. I don’t need anyone to keep an eye on me. But I decide not to press my luck.
He calls for a rollaway bed to be brought to his hotel room. I order room service. And we both sit in our pajamas eating pasta and watching episodes of Magnum, P.I. on Dad’s iPad.
The next day I go to the set of his photo shoot and Dad puts me to work as his photographer’s assistant. I run around swapping cameras, bringing him lenses, fixing stray hairs on the heads of babies, ordering lunch. It’s nice to feel busy without all the pressure. It doesn’t erase any of my problems, but it does make them fade into the background for a few hours.
After a long day, Dad and I return to the hotel for another room service dinner.
“Is this what your life is like now?” I ask after we’ve eaten. I’m sitting on my rollaway bed, playing a game on Dad’s iPad.
Dad is propped up on his bed with his laptop, reviewing pictures from today’s shoot and marking the ones he likes. His face is so serious as he clicks through page after page of the same stupid baby. Like the fate of the world rests on this one diaper ad.
“Is what my life now?” he asks without looking up.
“Room service and twelve-hour shifts with toddlers?”
He cracks a smile. “Pretty glamorous, huh?”
For just a flicker of a moment, I see a glimpse of old Dad. The one who lives in a universe far, far away. The one who makes waffles with chocolate chips in them on special days. The one who wakes me up every morning by singing horribly off-key.
The one whose eyes, close up, look like the whole world.
But then, just as fast as it came, the moment is gone. His smile fades. His jaw tightens. He goes back to sorting through photographs.
“Dad?” I ask, setting down the iPad.
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever take pictures of people’s eyes anymore?”
“Eyes?” he asks, his brow furrowing. Then, a moment later, recognition flashes over his face and he looks up at me, leaning back against the headboard. “Oh, right. The eyes. God, I haven’t thought about those in a long time.”
“You called the project Portals,” I remind him.
He chuckles. “That’s right. Your mom’s eyes were always my favorite.”
“The sunflowers.”
He smiles, looking nostalgic as he stares off into the distance. “Yeah. The sunflowers.” Then, like he’s silently scolding himself for getting distracted, his wistful expression vanishes and he goes back to work.
“So you don’t take those pictures anymore?” I confirm. “I mean, not even as a hobby?”
He laughs like this is the funniest thing he’s heard in a while. “Yeah, in all my spare time between photographing diapers and bottles of shampoo.”
“But the eyes were your passion. You lived for those photographs. They were good. And maybe, if you had kept at it, they would have taken you somewhere amazing.”
Dad studies me for a while, like he’s trying to read between my words. Finally, he sighs and says, “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. Give up on things we love to allow other things to flourish. Sometimes our responsibilities and obligations outweigh our silly whims and childish dreams.”
Tears well in my eyes at the reminder of what Dad gave up for me. At the sight of this man—this stranger in a hotel room—who bears so little resemblance to my father. My dad is the kind of person who lives for silly whims and childish dreams. He embodies them. He makes adulthood look like an amusement park. Or at least he did.
In another life.
But this person sitting on that bed has none of that. The child in him has been stamped out long ago. I can see that now. He’s lost his whimsy. He’s lost the thing that makes him …
Dad.
I watch him for a long time, taking in his studious expression, wondering where the manchild inside is hiding. Is he even still in there? Or is he gone for good?
I listen to the quiet click, click, click of his selection process for a few moments, then I ask, “Will you take a picture of my eyes?”
The clicking halts. “What? Now?”
I shrug. “Why not?”
“Because I’m busy, Kennedy,” he says, a slight edge to his voice. “And because I don’t do that anymore.”
“Please,” I say quietly. Urgently. It’s enough to make my dad look up.
“Why?” he asks.
“I…” I start to say, my voice cracking. “I can’t explain. I just really need you to do this for me.”
Dad studies me for a few seconds, his brow pinched together to form a lopsided question mark between his eyes. Then he places his laptop on the bed next to him and grabs Magnum from the nightstand.
“C’mon,” he says, standing up and heading toward the bathroom. “This is where we’ll get the best light.”