“Reminds me of your mother,” he replies.
“It’s infuriating,” I complain. “They both are.”
Tapping the ring on my middle finger against the wrought-iron table, I feel my dad’s eyes on me just as the server delivers our drinks.
“You love them?” he asks so nonchalantly it takes me by surprise. “Don’t you?”
I’ve never been in love in my life. I have never had a relationship or love talk with my family whatsoever, so sitting at a café in the middle of the day while my dad asks if I am in love feels jarring and surreal.
“Yeah, I do.”
He grins, lifting his champagne in the air. “Cheers to that.”
I smirk as I lift my glass and gently tap it against his.
The rest of the lunch is easy. We discuss things at the club. We talk a little about his business partner Matis and his current late-in-life crisis. We discuss Jack and what a pain in the ass he can be at times. To my surprise, my dad doesn’t take the opportunity to cut his godson some slack. He takes my side on the trivial shit like how stiffly Jacks signs his emails and how he’s so insistent on meetings being early in the morning instead of late in the day.
Last year, I made it my mission in life to make my dad just a little disappointed in Jack, the godson who came before me. The shining star in my dad’s eyes.
I had myself convinced that in order to make my dad proud of me, I had to be exactly like Jack. In my younger adult days, I did try. In fact, even I looked up to Jack. But then I never got the same praise or attention. And the pressure was debilitating.
It feels like a lesson I’m still learning, and we are nowhere near perfect, but I realize now that son and godson are not the same. My dad carves out time for me no matter what. He’ll invite me out to lunch and smile at the prospect of love in my life.
This whole time, he’s treated me like his son, and I’ve been expecting him to treat me like his protégé or apprentice.
Fathers are supposed to be proud of their sons. Their love is supposed to be unconditional. All the while, I’ve had the world’s greatest dad…and I thought there was something missing.
Once our lunch is finished, we stand up and head back toward the club so I can get back to work. As we walk, I feel my dad’s hand on my shoulder. It’s a feeling both comforting and terrifying. This idea that his hand won’t always be there. This feeling that no one’s guaranteed time with the people they love.
As we reach the club, we stop out front, and I turn to him with a heaviness on my chest that I need to get off. Out of the blue, I blurt out, “How do you do it?”
His expression remains mostly neutral as he waits for me to expand.
“How do you love people when the risk of losing them is always there? And I don’t just mean death, but how do you know they won’t change their mind or change their personality? Why do we put ourselves in these positions, knowing that it could lead to excruciating pain? Is this love really worth it? Is it good enough to make up for what living without it would feel like? Wouldn’t it just be safer to be alone?”
My dad doesn’t look one bit surprised by my sudden emotional rant or neurotic fears. He stares at me like a man with confidence and all the answers. Then he places his hand back on my shoulder and he squeezes it.
“When your mom found out she was pregnant with you, I was fucking terrified. For thirty years, I lived without love because I thought it was safer than losing another person the way I lost them. And it is scary, son. It’s terrifying. I wish I had a better answer for you. I wish I could explain why we do this to ourselves when the pain is so great, but all I know is that the last twenty-seven years with you were far,farbetter than the thirty before you. So yeah, I’d say it is worth it.”
Tears brim between my lashes, and when my dad blinks, I watch a tear slip over his cheek. Without another word, I crash against him, wrapping my arms around him and squeezing him in a tight hug. Breathing through the emotion currently threatening to crack me in two, I cry against his shoulder.
It feels like hugging him for all the years I didn’t. How ridiculous I was to push him away out of fear of losing him. How did a man so smart have a kid so clueless?
After a while, we pull away. I quickly wipe my face and compose myself. My dad’s eyes are red-rimmed, and he doesn’t bother hiding it.
“Thanks,” I mumble. “For lunch and for listening and everything.”
“Anytime, son.”
“I should get back to work,” I say, pointing to the building.
“You go. We’ll catch up later.”
“Bye, Dad,” I reply, turning my back on him to walk toward the door of the club. After a few steps, something that’s been gnawing at me pops into my mind. Spinning around, I call, “Wait, what were you gonna say?”
“Huh?” he asks.
“Back at the table, you said you get to watch your wife follow her dreams and your daughter come into her own. Then you started to say something about me, but you didn’t finish. You get to watch your son…what?”
