“Hey, you’re still up?” My father cast his eyes around me. I had my legs stretched out on the living room floor, surrounded by old photographs and unfinished albums. There were several pictures of my mother mixed in the batch. I wasn’t sure if it hurt my dad to see the photos, but I didn’t try to shield him from them, either.
“I couldn’t sleep.” I looked up at my father, with his hair going in every which direction, a gray terrycloth robe wrapped safely around him.
“It’s been a while since you’ve had them out, but never at two in the morning.” He frowned, sliding down next to me. “The last time was the night before you left for New York,” he said, like he’d already figured me out.
I took the photos out when I was missing my mom, or when there was a significant milestone in my life, critical moments she was never there to share with me. These old photographs were the only tangible things left. In them, Joyce, my mother, frozen in time. I liked to think that, if she should come walking back, she would still look like the last time I saw her through the kitchen window.
I remembered the day Joyce left, the way her long blond hair flowed frantically around as she dragged and loaded her green sedan with her luggage. The baggage I had watched her pack earlier that day. Those hollow eyes focused only on my father’s car as he pulled into our driveway, arriving from work.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m leaving.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t belong here … I’m leaving you, Charlie.”
“Joyce, let’s go inside and talk about this.”
“Stay away from me!” Joyce barked when my dad got closer. The neighbors were walking out of their homes.
“What is the matter with you? I just want to talk.”
“Don’t. Touch. Me.” She reached the handle of her passenger door.
“What about your daughter?” He pointed to the window without realizing I was standing there. “You’re just going to walk away from her?” he said, but she continued to look at him with a far-off distance in her eyes.
She was already gone.
My final glimpse was of her in her blue couture tracksuit, sliding into the driver’s seat, heading off toward her new life. We were left to return to ours, a single father raising his daughter. That damn tracksuit … I get hives every time I see something made of velour. It’s crazy how you remember the most insignificant details, but I guess that’s better than remembering something far worse, your heart being smashed, trampled, and kicked to the curb.
I always wondered what had motivated my mother. The reason was never sufficient to overshadow that I still wanted her in my life. How can you omit someone who’s given birth to you? Initially, when Joyce was around, there were moments when I felt her love, and that was why her departure had been so surprising.
“What was she like as a kid?” I leaned my head on my father’s shoulder, holding out an old photograph of my father and Joyce, well into their teens. They were sitting on the steps of what must have been my grandparents’ home. My dad once told me they had known each other since kindergarten. He had stolen her red Crayola from her desk, and she called him out on it. They had remained friends through the years—until they were something more. It amazed me that, after all this time, he had never once spoken a bad word about her, at least never in front of me. I guessed it would be difficult to do about someone you’d known and loved all your life.
“Your mom was wild; she wanted to do all sorts of crazy things.” He took the picture out of my hand. “And well, your grandparents never liked me very much. They thought I was a bad influence, but it was all her doing.” My mother’s family came from money and my dad’s didn’t. Possibly that might have played a part in it.
I felt his breath on my head.
“Does it hurt you to talk about her?” I asked, sitting up and placing the picture on the pile nearby.
“Well, it’s always difficult for me to speak about your mother, but then I figured it would be harder for you not to.” He ran a gentle hand through my hair.
“Why do you think she left?” I asked the question I had always been afraid to ask. All my life I had wanted to know the truth—what had happened the day she disappeared—but knowing wasn’t as important as hurting him with the pain of reliving it.
He inhaled a long breath before turning to me. “I can’t tell you how many nights I spent thinking about that question, but your mother is the only one who could answer that.” He rubbed his eye under his glasses. “When we were young, your mom and me, we would spend hours talking under the stars. I thought I knew everything there was to know about her, but what I wasn’t counting on was that people never stay consistent … we grow toward each other, and sometimes we grow apart. I guess at some point she stopped being the person I thought I knew …” He shook his head. “Because the Joyce I knew would have never abandoned her daughter.” His eyes softened.
“Where do you think she is?” It was a question I asked myself all the time, but this was the first I’d said it out loud.
He focused his eyes on the wall across from us. “To be honest, I don’t allow myself to think about it. I haven’t heard or seen your mother in years, but somehow I can’t stop myself from believing she will come back one day.”
“But she won’t.” I was livid that my dad refused to move on, especially from someone who didn’t deserve it.
“You wasted almost two decades and—what—for her? She broke your heart.” I turned to look at him.
“You will understand one day. Love is one of those things you don’t forget how to do, like riding a bike. The only thing is … God, I still want that same damn bike.” He paused. “Maybe that’s why I don’t have the heart to find someone new. Your mother was my best friend, the love of my life, and that’s something you can’t forget.”
“See, that’s why I’m cynical about love. Even if you find it, it will ruin you.”
“That’s not true,” He said. “No matter what happened between your mother and me, I wouldn’t have changed a single thing. I hate to think you see me as someone wrecked by love. I’m not. It enriched me, because now I have you. My little light in the midst of clouds; that’s all I needed to keep on going.”
I sank into his side, feeling like I was six all over again. How can I leave him? I felt guilty that I had been flirting with the idea of moving back to New York.
“It’s time to let go, Dad.”
“I thought that’s what I’ve been doing.” He knitted his thick eyebrows together.
“You don’t see it, do you? Living in the same house, still holding on to the same phone number. You’re like a train that should move forward, but’s been stopped at a station waiting for a passenger that will never come”
“I like this area. I have sweet Mrs. Shaw next door, and what’s wrong with having a landline?”
It concerned me that my father’s social life comprised of a bunch of people well into their golden years. So much so that he dressed like them.
“She’s not coming back,” I said with the utmost sincerity.
He sighed. “So, what can I do?”
“Go to the next station, where your friend Lauren is waiting.”
“Do you think she would be interested in someone like me?”
“Yes!” I shrieked. “Why else on earth would she give you her number? You’ve got to swing into action, Dad.”
“Yeah … Yeah, I think I will,” My father said, more defiantly. “I will ask her out next Saturday, maybe bird watching on Mount Royal.” He looked down at me. “No?”
“No!”
“Dinner and a movie?” He replied.
“Now you’re talking! Geez, we have so much work to do,” I said to him as he slowly got up.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to call Lauren.” He nodded his head, and a sudden light went on in his eyes that I hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Hold on, Romeo, wait until it’s at least eleven A.M.” I laughed.
“Right. I guess I got carried away.” He grinned, coming back down, picking up the magazine off the floor.
“What does this mean now?” He sighed, making my heart dip a little. “You know, I let you go off to New York … secretly hoping it wouldn’t work and you’d come back. Am I selfish, that I want to keep my little girl here with me?" He inhaled deeply. “But you’re an adult, and this is your decision alone to make.”
“I hate leaving you again.”
“I’ll be here whenever you need me, Mable.” He smiled. “When does this go on sale?” He held the magazine higher.
“It will hit newsstands in March.”
“Well, I’ll buy a few copies and show them off on bingo night.” His eyes cast down at my face. “I’m proud of you, Mable. I really am, but please forgive me if my insecurities are stopping you from following your dreams, because you’re all I have left, the only thing that matters.”
“I will always need you, Dad. You’ll never lose me.” I sat closer, nestling in the crook of his arms.
“Just promise me one thing? Go live out your dream, but please hurry back when you can,” he said, while I hugged him tighter around his waist. He reminded me of a particular guilt I had held on to. I had spent the holidays in New York not because I couldn’t pay for a ticket, but because I couldn’t tell my father that my aspiration had been a complete bust. Now, thinking back, I was so foolish, because none of it mattered. We are never failures in the eyes of the ones that love us.
“Let’s get to bed,” He said, and I pushed myself off the floor, but my eyes trailed down to the glossy paper, looking at the girl who was staring back at me; her eyes had never looked so bright.
This is a big deal. Simon’s words echoed through me, ringing like a brass bell. This was a dream on the verge of blossoming. I knew what this meant, but I didn’t think about the fame.
No.
I didn’t think of money.
Nope.
I thought about her.
If Joyce saw this, would she come out of the woodwork? Maybe seek me out, because now I might be something worth having in her life?