LJ Idol, Week 16
My father would call it a “breakfast moment.”
He was always coming up with weird terms and phrases for things. My sister, in fact, had once offered to write up an encyclopedia of his phrases; she had cleverly named the project the Dadtionary. It never came to fruition, though it didn’t have to. We knew what he meant.
So, yeah, this was a “breakfast moment,” one of those moments you will always have perfect recollection of, despite the fact that you probably won’t normally remember what you had for breakfast of any given day.
I was chewing on the butt end of a pen and my eyes were starting to glaze over while I stared at the computer screen in my office. I heard the phone ring, and I thought about ignoring it, feigning busyness, but opted to answer it instead. I was expecting Cheryl from Accounting or Taylor from Receiving. Instead, it was my father.
“Hey,” he said in a tone that didn’t sound like his normal, more jovial, tone, “I’m sorry to bother you at work.”
“No,” I said. “It’s fine. What’s up?”
“It’s June. She passed away this morning.”
Before the words had even finished processing in my mind, my eyes had begun to water - as if my body already knew what my mind hadn’t yet grasped.
“Okay,” I said finally after a few moments of silence.
“I’d like you to come home, if you could. Just for a day.”
“Of course, Dad. I’ll come up tomorrow.”
…
I was thankful that I only lived two hours from my Dad now, as opposed to being across the country as I had been for the past 5 years. The drive was so quick, so seemingly effortless, that I wondered why I didn’t do it more often. Occasionally while driving my mind would replay conversations between my father and I.
“You should come up this weekend. Have a beer or two. Watch the game,” he’d say.
“I wish I could. This weekend just looks pretty busy for me.”
My weekends were never busy. There was just something so unfathomably daunting about a two hour car ride. The two hours might as well have been 18 hours. I imagined even the wheels of my car tiring out from the ride. They wouldn’t like the trip and neither would I. Of course, that was likely my overactive imagination, but the point remained.
I had reached his house, a small rancher on the edge of the town I had grown up in. Admittedly, I had been worried about him having his own house when he left my mother. He was never one to be that good at managing things like cleaning, laundry and general upkeep. He depended on my mother, my sister and myself for that. He knew cars, he knew sports and he knew ridiculously offensive jokes. As far as I knew, that was all he knew. Yet, here was his house, with a well manicured lawn, bright flowers growing in perfectly mulched strips and even a small gazebo in the lawn that I didn’t remember being here the last time I was here.
In the driveway I could see his car, the same one he had had for years. I was surprised the old pick-up was still running. Maybe it wasn’t. Regardless, here it was. Parked behind it was a dated sedan, most of its gloss and paint faded and muted. I wasn’t sure who this car belonged to at first, but when I noticed the bumper sticker reading “MY OTHER CAR IS A UNICORN” I realized that it had to be my sister.
I was shocked. Not only would this be the first time in years that I had seen her, but this was probably the first time in my entire life that I could remember her arriving somewhere before I did.
I started to knock on the door, but I could just hear my father in my head yelling: “Just come in! It’s practically your house too.” I just opened the door and walked in.
There, I the living room, was my father sitting in his favorite chair; the one he had deemed “The Throne” (this, of course, had lead to many discussions questioning his decision to name the chair after a common euphemism for a toilet). Sitting on the couch across the living room was my older sister, looking much the same as she had the last time I saw her, and a man I had never seen before. He shared a common fashion sense as my sister, mostly dark clothing and odd jewelry and piercings. His exposed arms seemed chock full of tattoos that I couldn’t decipher at this distance.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here,” my father said, standing up. He walked to me and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly. I was caught off guard at first. He never hugged anyone. The moment of confusion passed, though, and I embraced him back. This was a moment that probably deserved a hug rather than a simple handshake.
“Of course,” I said. “I loved her too.”
My sister rose from the couch and walked to me. We didn’t say anything, we just embraced each other. I could hear her sniffling in my ear.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly to me. I wasn’t sure what she was sorry for exactly. Falling out of touch with me? Sorry just for the loss we were all feeling? Sorry for things I didn’t even know about?
“I’m sorry too,” I responded, meaning every word of it. “This shouldn’t be the way we get to be in the same place at the same time.”
I could feel her head moving against my shoulder like she was nodding. We finally released each other and I noticed that the man she was with was stepping forward with an outstretched hand. I took it in mine and we shook.
“This is Eric, he’s my fiancé. Eric, this is my brother.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said.
“Likewise,” he said sincerely. I noticed that one of the tattoos on his arm was of Kermit the Frog. I wanted to smile, but I didn’t. Surely, no man with a Kermit tattoo was a bad man.
“It means a lot to me that you’re all here,” my father said again. We all nodded and agreed.
Nobody had to ask how it happened. June was old. Very old. This was inevitable, though that knowledge didn’t make the moment any easier.
“I called your mother,” my father said.
“Is she coming?” asked my sister.
“Yeah.”
Nobody said anything to this. If it had been ages since I had talked to my sister, than it had been eons since I spoke to my mother. I suspected the same could be said for everyone else in the room right now.
“Was she okay when you told her?” I asked.
“She was upset,” he replied. I was surprised that he didn’t end that sentence with “…that bitch.” There was no animosity or frustration in his face, a first when talking about her.
…
A few hours later and we were huddled together in the grass outside. We were looking around at each other. My sister, fighting back more tears. Eric, trying to comfort her. My father, sighing and staring at the ground. My mother, wiping away some of her runny eye make-up.
“Would you like to say something?” I asked my father.
“Yeah, I guess I should, shouldn’t I?” he said. I nodded. “Well, June was loved. And she loved everyone here, unconditionally. Despite everything that’s happened to us over the years…the loss, the distance, the separation…she was on everyone’s side. I always saw her as the last remaining piece of our once happy family. With her gone…I don’t know…”
“I’m sorry,” my sister said again. “I didn’t mean to fall out of touch with everyone. I just…it became so easy to distance myself from the drama and focus on my own life.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s exactly what I said.”
“I love all of you,” my mother said. “I mean that. Maybe I didn’t say that enough.”
“It’s, uh, very nice to meet you all,” Eric said, obviously feeling like he had to contribute something.
“See?” My father said. “That’s what June always did. She brought us together. Even now…even after she’s gone, she managed to get all of us together in the same place at the same time, without any fighting or biting.”
We all smiled and laughed a little. I remembered when we first got June, how that playful puppy never tired. Even in her later years, she always seemed to have more energy than what seemed possible.
“I never actually bit anyone,” my sister said. We all laughed a little. “Dad blows that story out of proportion.”
…
“I’ve missed you,” my father said to me later in his kitchen while we ate some pizza that he had had delivered.
“I’ve missed you too,” I said.
“Your mother misses you too,” he said, again surprising me with his tone when mentioning her.
“I know,” I said. “I might come up next weekend. Are you going to be around?”
“I am,” he said, trying to hide a smile. “Are you sure that’s not too much traveling for you?”
I thought about the wheels of my car again, the wheels that I once imagined that would be exhausted at the mere mention of a two hour trip. Maybe they’d be more than happy to make the trip now.
“That’s no problem,” I said. “I’ll pick up some beers on my way up.”