“Shut the fuck up! Are you shitting me right now?”
My shoulders slumped. Sure, he’d missed every birthday since I was seven. But still, this was a new low. “No, not shitting you at all. If you will recall, I was born back in 1992.”
“Wait a minute! How old does that make me then?”
“Forty-five.”
I didn’t need a calendar to rememberhisage. John had become a father at the ripe old age of eighteen and had been forgetting his responsibilities ever since.
“Well, fuck!” My father paused a moment to address his buddies. “Do you guys know I’m forty five fuckin’ years old?”
There was commotion in the background as all his friends replied in the affirmative.
“Okay, this sucks. Why didn’t someone tell me I was old as fuck?”
My father was still engrossed in the far-off conversation while I waited on the line.
“Vic, get off the table,” he yelled, forcing me to hold the phone away from my ear. The get-together sounded bigger than just a group of high school pals sharing a few beers. I had a sinking suspicion I’d just interrupted a smoke out.
“Who’s Vic?” I asked, grasping at straws to hold the conversation together.
“Just some asshole I know. He thinks he can fly. Anyway, sorry, baby girl, what have you been up to? And don’t tell me you’ve got some snot-nosed rug-rat of your own or I might just have a full on heart attack.”
“No, no kids.”
“Oh, whew. I so couldn’t handle being a grandfather.”
Right, like he couldn’t handle being a father?
“So, what’s happening?” he asked. “Why did you call?”
“No reason. Just thought I’d say hi. I’m sitting in the dark. There’s a power outage.”
“Really? That’s weird. I have electricity.”
“Right, but you live in San Francisco. I’m down south.”
“What the hell are you doing down south?”
“Well, I’ve been living in Ventura County for two years now.”
“Huh, really?”
I may as well have been talking to myself. Clearly he was preoccupied or just too wasted to offer me any attention.
“You know what, you sound busy. I’ll just talk to you later.”
“Okay, baby girl. That sounds good. Have fun.”
And with that, he hung up on me. I stared at my phone in disbelief and then wanted to kick myself for being surprised. If I thought he’d fight a little harder to stay connected to me, I was sadly mistaken.
Stroking the silky fur of the cat curled up on my lap, I fought back tears. Why had I called him in the first place? People didn’t magically change just because you needed them to. My father couldn’t offer me any more solace than Sweetpea, who routinely bit my butt while I slept.
“It’s his loss.” I whispered the words my mother had used to soothe me when my father had skipped a weekend visit, or a birthday.Or my entire life.“He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
Lucy lifted her head, rewarding me with the affectionate attention I craved. I’d known this brown and white ragdoll cat for five days and she already appreciated me more than my own father did. That’s why I loved pets. They didn’t care what you looked like or how much money you made, all they required from their humans was basic necessities and a gentle touch.
I bent down and kissed the top of her head, and she purred her approval. Who needed a dad when I had my Lucy?
