“I’m your father, I should be the one to come to these things.”
I push my bag over and sink onto the mattress next to him. Grabbing his hands, I let him squeeze mine like he is trying to keep me here.
“You’ll be here when you can be here. There is nothing for you to do. Please stop making this worse than it is.”
We both sigh for our own reasons, and then share the same look. My face is a carbon copy of his; the only thing that differentiates us is my softer angles and lighter skin.
“Why are you so damn stubborn?” He pokes my nose like he used to do when I was a kid.
“Where do you think I learned it from?”
Before he can respond, we hear a knock at the front door and then a voice calling out.
“We’re up here, Charlie,” I yell while standing.
The creaky stairs, a warning bell for every time I tried to sneak out, announce his arrival.
“Hey y’all,” he says, walking in.
My dad stands and shakes his hand before looking around the room.
“Well, I should go get the groceries you like and leave you kids to talk.” He kisses my forehead, then walks out, closing the door behind him.
“Do you want to help me unpack?” I ask, shuffling boxes to the side to get to my closet. A lot smaller than I remembered, I don’t know how everything is going to fit. It makes me think about the walk-in closet Callahan has.
“Should you be doing all of this right now?”
I fight the urge to stomp my feet and scream. Instead, I let out yet another disappointed breath.
“I’m fine. I can do everything I did before.” At least right now. I spin around so he can see how okay I am.
“Can you please just stop and treat me the same way you did before you knew?” I bring my hands together in a pleading motion.
He steps forward and covers them with his. They are so big they swallow mine, and all I see is his rich brown skin.
“I don’t know if I can. You’re precious to me, and I need to treat you that way. I don’t know if I can lose anyone else.” His eyebrow furrows, and his lips pull tight.
He is fighting with himself to hold it together.
I know how different this is for him than for everyone else. I should have expected it to be more serious on his side. As a kid, he used to cry every time someone he loved got in a car, because he thought, like his parents, he would never see them again.
Being in this place where he has to hold his breath, hoping everything turns out okay, is suffocating him in real time.
I bring his hands up to my lips and kiss them. I’m alive, I need to feel like I’m alive. He needs to see that I’m alive. I hope standing still with him will do that.
As much as it irks my soul to be continuously mitigating the emotions of everyone else, I let him have this.
“Sit down,” I say, pulling him back towards the bed.
He does so, and I crawl into his lap. His fingers gripping my thighs to hold me in place, he buries his face in my neck.
“I promise it’s going to be okay.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Yes, I can because I’m Ulisha, the goddess of the future. I can see it now.” I hope calling back to one of our favorite videogames will bring a lightness to this heavy conversation, but I don’t even get a chuckle.
“Look at me.” I lift his head so that we are eye to eye. “It was caught early, it hasn’t spread, and I am doing everything I need to do.”
