My Father’s Love

Did you know that scars can still hurt long after the flesh and skin have been mended?
It has something to do with nerve endings getting trapped in the scar tissue.
This is to say, some wounds never fully heal.

The Greek word for wound is trauma.
I once read a book about the way trauma reshapes your brain.
This is to say, there are some things you can never get over.

✷✷✷

I am four years old and sitting in the backseat of my dad’s Ford Aerostar while he scrapes ice off the windshield. It is much older than I am, with side steps so rusted I have to be lifted up and put into my car seat. The heater hasn’t worked in years but I don't feel cold. I am bundled in a coat and snow pants and a hat and a scarf and mittens and my father’s love. When he clears my window, he presses his face up against it, wrinkling his nose and sticking his tongue out. I tap on the glass, sticking my tongue out in response. He slides into the driver's seat and turns the key, the car coming to life with a stuttering roar. Classic rock plays over the rumble of the engine and the crunching of the January snow beneath the tires. The backseat of the van is equipped with a panel of buttons, a dangerous thing for a little girl like me to have access to. I slip off my mitten and push a button with a chubby finger. The radio station switches from classical to country to gospel.

“Hey! Who’s doing that?” He asks, looking at me through the rearview mirror, his eyebrows wiggling. I giggle as I cycle through pop and NPR and radio static.

I am four years old and I know my father loves me because I love him.

✷✷✷

“Have you ever eaten dinner at a restaurant alone before?” He asks me. His blue eyes are oceans of sadness.
“No," I reply.
“It doesn't feel good.”
I poke at my pasta trying to imagine my father sitting alone, sipping from his lemonade and eating his baked ziti. He wants my pity but I don't have any to give him. There's a sharp pain in my side as the bitterness I'm harboring begins to leak into my bloodstream.
“I wouldn’t mind”, I lie. “I like to be alone with my thoughts.”
He doesn’t know how to respond, so our conversation falls silent.
“How do you feel about all this?” he questions. By “all this” he means divorcing my mom and briefly playing house with a new family before returning like a scolded puppy, tail tucked between his legs. This dinner is supposed to fix things between us. I don’t know if bottomless breadsticks and crappy Italian food could fix anything.
I scoff, the bitterness seeping into my mouth.
“I hate how we never talk about how weird this all is. I mean, you and mom aren't even together anymore and we’re all still living in the same house—”
“It’s not weird.” he cuts me off, adding fuel to the fight that's just sparked.
“Yes, it is weird. I know everyone thinks so. I’m just the only person to bring it up. It makes me feel like… like a bitch.” I snap back. I've decided that I'm the kind of daughter who swears at her parents now. It’s one of the little rebellions that makes me feel like I have some control over my life.
“Well, yeah. Sometimes you can be a bitch,” he says matter-of-factly, like it's one of my defining characteristics.

A few months ago when he was on the phone with my grandparents, and I was perched at the top of the stairs, eavesdropping. He told them about how my mom made him put all his belongings in trash bags when he left and how humiliating it was.
“She's just being such a bitch about the whole thing.” He spat, dripping in disdain and a wounded ego.

“She’s smart, funny, and a raging bitch just like her mother,” I can imagine him saying, and I hold my breath to prevent myself from making a scene in this Olive Garden.
I drop my fork on my plate so hard it chips.
“I think I’m ready to go now.”

✷✷✷

On my grandmother's porch,
We talk under a setting sun. August evenings are cold
in Michigan.

I don’t look at him. We speak
In screams and slammed doors;
Things we regret

Later, he’ll tell me he thinks about this moment.
But I can’t even remember what I said I remember

The chatter of my teeth
The shake of my voice
Crickets and mosquitos swallowing
the last of the daylight

Love isn’t supposed to be easy

Am I talking about his relationship?
Or am I talking about ours?
A daughter shouldn’t have to teach
her father how
to love.

✷✷✷

Things my father has given me: the need to please, love for music/museums/old churches/Mexican food, relationship issues, trust issues, my temper, my little brother, a fear of abandonment/commitment/never being enough/being too much, a happy childhood, a shellfish allergy, my nose, bedtime stories, the ability to take a joke/brush it off/not take it so seriously, skepticism, heartbreak, headaches, my wit, a gold ring, a sharp tongue, and things to write about.

✷✷✷

My father has never apologized to me. Maybe he doesn’t know how. I don’t think anyone has ever taught him.
On nights when I can’t sleep, I imagine my father as a little boy with big front teeth and even bigger glasses. I hold his little hand in mine and tell him I’m sorry.
“For what?” he asks me.
“I just am.”
He doesn’t say anything but I think he understands. I’m sorry for everything that's happened. For the things that will, and for the things that won’t. I’m sorry that life doesn’t always go as planned. That some things never go back to the way there were. And I forgive you. He squeezes my hand and wipes his nose on the sleeve of his sweater. I know he’s sorry too.

✷✷✷

My father loves me because he tells me so.
My father loves me when he kisses me on the cheek and says he’s missed me.

I know my father loves me because we don’t bring up the things that make us upset.
Instead, we talk about the weather
the Lions game
and the time I threw up in the airport and everybody saw.

When he looks at me, he sees himself.
My father loves me because I love him.