I don't--I don't know. It doesn't make sense.
He’s not the kind of abusive father you must think of; he doesn’t crash into the house frothing at the mouth, he doesn’t beat anyone or break anything. In fact, he is best known for doing quite the opposite.
That’s the problem.
It’s evening, and a breeze blows through the open window, smelling only for a moment like fresh-cut grass and tranquil trees before it acquires the stale, dusty odor of home – my home.
Someone’s crying in the kitchen. Nobody seems to hear.
The door swings open, and I concentrate so hard on my book that I forget the words before I’ve read them. I can feel the new presence, like a scent in the air, like a shadow over the sun.
“I’m home,” he says, and nobody answers. I look up, and the involuntary smile on my face feels stiff and itchy, as if some part of the expression is a mask.
“Hey, Dad.”
He drops his keys on the table, and turns to look at me through eyes I feel I do not know. Bleary eyes, old eyes, tired eyes.
“Hey, Schlagel-doggs. What’cha reading?” he asks, coming over to kiss the top of my head. He spares my book half a glance. I wonder how much of him cares.
“Something. It’s fantasy.”
“Oh,” he says, and that seems to settle it, for he kicks off his shoes and flops down on the opposite couch.
He’s asleep in a minute.
I try to keep reading, but my concentration is broken constantly by his snores.
And there’s someone crying in the kitchen. He never noticed.
The book flips shut of its own accord, and I don’t protest. I stare at the man on the sofa, at his dress shirt, at his once-handsome face and the lids that now cover those alien eyes. I’m not quite sure who he is, beyond the man who helped give me life.
I wish he would wake up. Somebody’s crying in the kitchen.
Some part of me hates him. I can’t hate all of him – who can hate their father, truly? Not straight through. I owe him, and I don’t want to.
Some part of me loves him. I can’t love all of him – who can love their father, truly? Not thoroughly. I owe him, and I want to.
He smiles slightly in his sleep, and I tremble with tears I don’t wish to shed. Not here, not now. That ghost of a grin, still fading from his face, is the ghost of the dad I want, the ghost of the dad I had.
Someone’s crying in the kitchen. No one asks whom.
He should wake up – he never really does. There’s always something behind his eyes, stuck in his throat, at the back of his mind, that never wakes up anymore. The part I miss – the part I want to so badly to love, to hear, and to see again. I want to shake him, scream at him, cry with him. I don’t want him to know. I don’t think he wants to know.
Somebody’s crying in the kitchen. No one says she can.
The helplessness of sitting here, of knowing I’m powerless to wake him up, is painfully like suffocation. I can’t remember clearly a time when he was all-awake. I can’t ask anybody if they remember; I think it hurts to recall.
Someone’s crying in the kitchen. No one tells my why.
My face feels wet and sticky; maybe I’m crying, too.
“Dad,” I whisper.
He snores.
Somebody’s crying in the kitchen.
“Dad,” I say, louder now.
He twitches; he snores.
Somebody’s in the kitchen – crying, crying. No one asks.
“Dad!” It’s a scream, a plea, the gasp of a dying man - a dying daughter.
Someone’s crying in the kitchen; no one wants to know.
He doesn’t wake.
