Dad asked, four weeks ago, when I arrived here to stay, what happened with Buckley. He was concerned and paternal. I clammed up. I told him, “It didn’t work out.” Dad didn’t push.
Mom would’ve, though. She would’ve pried answers out of me in the kindest way possible; she knew how to ask the right questions and which bribes to offer that would get me to talk.
I don’t begrudge Dad for not taking on Mom’s role when she passed. Overnight, I was an adult, and he was a single parent and the world kept unfairly spinning.
We sit down on the hard, high-top chairs pulled into the chipping breakfast nook. Our elbows bump each time we pick up our forks. He’s left-handed while I’m a righty.
“Sorry, son,” he says, the third time it happens. There’s a graveness to his voice that wasn’t there a second ago. When I look over, I notice there are tears rimming his eyes. “I know I always try to look on the bright side and when it came to your mom, there was no other way I could face the day-to-day without optimism, but last night, watching you all alone, it hit me how unfair it is that your mom couldn’t be there to see you. I know she was smiling down on you and cheering you on, but I just wish she could’ve been there to see you.”
I push my plate away, appetite upended. “I don’t.” The confession sends a chill through the room. Despite how I felt on set, the plane ride and the sad in-flight meal helped me realize the truth of the situation.
“What?” Dad asks, evidently surprised. “Why not?”
“Because Leo and I were lying,” I tell him. It doesn’t feel so leaden now that it’s out in the open. “He was working at the hotel I was staying at. He lost his job and we agreed to fake a relationship so we had a better chance of getting cast on the show. Somehow, it worked.” After I say it, I realize thatsomehowisn’t quite right. Thesomehowwas us falling for each other, and others catching on to that quicker than we could.
“I have to admit, I was a bit caught off guard when you told me,” Dad says, surprise in his voice. “Even more so when I saw you were competing against Buckley.”
“That part was a shock to me, too,” I say. I fiddle with the napkin on my lap, remembering the napkin contract I voided by leaving the hotel last night. In the moment, it felt like the right decision. Now, I...
My mind switches tracks before I can complete that thought. “Have I been a ghost?” I ask.
“You haven’t been going around shouting ‘boo’ at people, if that’s what you’re asking.” He chuckles, tears subsiding. “I will say that when you moved back after school you did, uh, shrink a little.”
“Shrink, how?”
He strokes his chin, obviously searching for the right words. “Your life force got smaller, I’d say.”
I blink rapidly, unable to compute this. “Sorry, I’m not following.”
“I’ve probably been watching too much sci-fi TV since you’ve been gone, but I noticed when you moved in with Buckley and you took the job at the boutique that you downsized everything. You got a little quieter and a little less social,” he says. He stands and moves to the fridge, pulls out another tray. This time it’s a blueberry pie. He did this a lot in childhood—brought out the dessert to sweeten even the most difficult situations. We had a lot of these when Mom first passed. Chewing away our sadness because speaking was too challenging.
“I’m sure you’re right.”
He cuts and plates us both a hearty slice. “My hope for you was that after school you’d move someplace new where the memories wouldn’t be so hard to handle.”
“Why haven’t you done that?” I add a dollop of whipped cream to my plate, waiting to hear the answer to a question I probably should’ve asked a long time ago.
“Because my life is here. The love of my life is buried here. Every week, I still carve your mom a small figurine that represents something exciting that happened during my week and I switch it out every Sunday when I visit,” he says.
“Really? I had no idea.” My heart lurches knowing this tradition existed for so many years without my knowledge.
“Do you want to see this week’s?” he asks.
Leaving behind our pie, we go into his room. Dad picked this building because at some point in the seventies they added a woodworking shop for resident recreation. He’s really the only person who uses it these days.
He slides open his closet door and flicks on the light. There, on the shelf above his clothes, are what have to be hundreds of wooden figurines of all sorts and shapes.
“Whoa.” I start picking up the ones that are closest to the door. One is a graduation cap and when I flip it over, on the bottom he’s carved the date. This was the week of my college graduation. There’s one of a dollar sign.
“That’s from when I got a raise at the furniture store,” Dad says, a note of pride underpinning his words. He points to a music note. “That’s when you got certified for Cardio Dance Fit.”
“Don’t remind me,” I say with a laugh. “Is this all of them?”
“Only some. Some get ruined after I leave them due to weather or animals,” he says. “Some I gift. On more than one occasion, someone else visiting the cemetery has seen one of my figurines and told me some story or another about how what I’d made represented a loved one they lost, so I’ve given it away. Some I simply don’t have space for so I repurpose them for other projects. These are my favorites.”
These remind me of the scrapbook Leo’s mom proudly showed me. It’s strange that I had no idea Dad did this. Sure, I knew he woodworked in his spare time, but these mini trinkets dedicated to Mom never crossed my mind.
He pulls down a rudimentary unfinished one of two people pushing something square.
