A funny thing happened over the summer. I don't entirely know what to make of it. My father started to take an interest in me. At the start of the summer, he was his usual self: rarely saying more than two words unless it was to describe what needed to be done in the fields that day. But as the weeks went on, he seemed to get softer in a way I had never seen before. Maybe it's because one of my sisters is going away to college this year. I don't really know. But whatever it was, I noticed the change. It was slow, yet shocking at the same time.
The first time I became aware of it was after working in the field with my dad one day. I still help out at the farm when I'm home, even though I'm not sure I'm really needed with all the hired help around. I enjoy it, and dad never seems to mind, so I keep doing it. But on this particular day, he said something I never thought I'd hear him say: "Well done, son."
It took me aback. I hadn't done anything special that day, it was just an ordinary day, but there were the words, hanging in the air. "Well done, son." I wasn't sure what to make of it. Did he mean in the fields today, or was he trying to say something bigger. After I stared at him with my mouth agape for what must have been far too long, he let out a little grunt and said, "Let's go get supper."
He didn't say, "Well done, son," again for several days after that, probably because I had reacted so poorly, but I noticed other changes. Like at dinner, he would say, "Pass the potatoes, please." Normally, my father just says, "Pass the potatoes." There's no please. He's the man of the house and it's expected that if he wants the potatoes to be passed, they will be passed. I looked up at him suddenly again the first time I noticed him say it, but no one else seemed to think it odd, so I shook it off and let it pass.
The strangest thing of all, though, was when he started asking me about school. "So you didn't want to take summer courses this year?" he asked me one evening. This was surprising because he showed interest and also because I hadn't taken summer courses the year before either, but I managed to eek out a, "No, sir." He nodded and gave a little grunt and that was that.
Over the next few weeks, he continued to ask questions from time to time. How were my courses? What was I majoring in again? Had I considered getting an internship? How did I like my roommate? How was my girlfriend doing? When he asked about my girlfriend, I nearly fell out of my chair. I wasn't even certain my father remembered I had a girlfriend, even though she had been to our house last summer, or if he remembered, that he knew I was still dating her. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe it was a lucky guess. But either way, the question really surprised me. "She's good," I said. And I couldn't help but smile. "She's wonderful, in fact."
And then my father did something I never imaged he would do, even if I had known he would do all the other things he would do that summer. He smiled back at me.
After all of these little surprises, the big surprise ended up not being that surprising. Maybe that was the plan all along, to warm me up to this idea that after all these years my father could really be a father. The big surprise came about 10 days before I was to return to classes. My mother was all fretting and worrying and excited and all in a tizzy and all that stuff about my sister going off to college, and she asked my father if he would come with to help her move in. Now, my sister was going to school very close to home, in the "big city" just an hour away, so it would be very easy for my father to skip out a day of farm work and go see her off. I didn't think he would, but still, with all this in mind, and with all the observations of him over this summer, it wasn't as shocking as it should have been when he said, "Yes." He would come help my sister move in.
But that wasn't the big surprise. The big surprise was when he turned to me and said, "Brady, how would you feel about your old man flying out to see you off this year?"
"At college?" I asked.
He shook his head like he was disappointed. "Of course at college, son," he said. "I could fly out and meet you, help you unpack and that, maybe meet that roommate. Zach was his name? It might be... nice."
This was so totally unlike the father I had known grown up that I might have had a heart attack, even at my young age, had this come totally out of the blue. But he had warmed me up all that summer to the idea that somehow, for some reason, he wanted to be a real father, and so I smiled at him, I actually smiled at my father's suggestion, and said, "Yeah, that would be nice."
"Good," he said with a nice firm nod. And that was that. For my senior year of college, my father would be coming down to my school to see me off. Miracles really must be possible, I thought. Unfortunately, if miracles, those surprising positive events, are possible, then unexpected negative events are just as possible.
-----
All my life, I never knew my father, never wanted to know my father, so I told myself. I mean, I was curious about my dad, but I never wanted to meet the jerk. He had been a jerk, a total jerk, to my mom, just leaving her with me, a new baby, for no good reason. Why would I want anything to do with a guy like that? My mom always said that if he ever came back, if I ever saw him again, that I should tell him that I loved him. Well what kind of sense did that make? How could you love someone you never knew? And if it was your father that you never knew, well, I was sure that if I ever did meet him, all I'd be able to tell him was that I hated him.
And then I met Brady's father. I knew Brady had a father, I mean everyone has a father, and I even knew that Brady knew his father growing up. But it's not like I talked to Brady about his family. Heck, I barely talked about family with Zach, why would I talk about family with Brady? I knew Brady had a father and that he lived on some farm, but that was about it. I never knew anything more and I thought to ask. Why would I? There are millions of farms out there. What are the chances that my father went to the same farm where Brady's father lives? Why would that thought even enter my brain? I have better things to think about.
And then I met Brady's father. I was in the apartment hanging out with Zach. We had moved in a week before. Oh yeah, Zach had asked me to move in, and I had said, yeah that would be cool. Zach told me Brady would be living there, too, and I figured whatever. I could deal with that. So yeah, the three of us were going to live together. Cheap rent and all. So Zach and I were there hanging out, and Brady walks in looking all happy like he usually does this days and in walks this older guy behind him. Brady seems a little awkward, but he introduces the guy to Zach. Dude shakes Zach's hand. Doesn't smile or anything, just a hand shake. Then Brady introduces me. Calls me Elizabeth instead of Lizzy for some reason. Whatever. And when Brady's dad shakes my hand, this look of surprise or shock or something comes over him, just for an instant before he pushes it aside, and he lingers with my hand in his just a little too long. But then he seems to shake it off and it's gone. Brady doesn't seem to notice, but when he and his dad go back outside to start hauling stuff in, just before Zach goes after them, I say to Zach, "What was that about?"
He looks confused like he thinks I'm talking about something he did and he says, "What?"
I probably smirk just a little at his cluelessness as I say, "Brady's dad. He looked at me funny and stuff."
Zach shakes his head. "Dude, I don't know," he said, "but he did shake your hand a little long."
"I know," I said.
Zach gives a little smirk himself and then says jokingly, "Let's hope he's not getting a crush on you."
"Stop. Gross," I say as I punch him playfully in the arm.
"Ouch," he says with a smile as he rubs his injured shoulder and then goes out to help Brady and his dad carry stuff. Maybe I would have helped, too, maybe, but I was a little weirded out by Brady's dad, so I just went back to our room, Zach's and mine, and chilled out until they were done moving junk in.
-----
Her name is Elizabeth, and she looks quite a bit like... but it can't be. That's too much of a coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence. I haven't talked to Sarah in years and I haven't since a picture of Elizabeth since she was 10. A lot has changed. So much has changed. I'm sure I'm just imagining things because of the name, and her being around the right age and all, but she's probably not even the right age. She's dating Brady's roommate. She's probably younger than Brady. My Elizabeth would be a good three years older than Brady. No, I'm sure it's not her. It's just an old man's mind playing tricks on him. Why am I getting so soft in my old years? I used to not let any of this sappy crap bother me, back when I was young and it would have been okay to let it bother me. But it's never okay. I just want to connect with my son, if I still can. I know my daughter, my first daughter is lost to me. Right?
-----
I guess Brady's dad decided to stick around for a bit and Brady suggested we all go out for dinner. I guess Brady's dad wanted to meet Zach or something. I wasn't entirely comfortable with going along, but Zach thought I should. Brady's dad still kept looking at me funny. It's not like the "I want you" kind of creepy, it was more like he was afraid of me. I know I can be intimidating, but damn, he's a grown man. No wonder Brady's such a wimp if he's dad's afraid of a little girl. I'm kidding, by the way. Well, mostly.
Anyway, so we go out to dinner, and Brady's dad seems like he's trying really hard to be pleasant and polite and carry on his share of the conversation, but it's really awkward, like he doesn't really know how to behave in social situations. Brady helps him out, though, and Zach does lots of the talking, so it goes okay, I guess. I don't say much, mostly because I'm still trying to figure out what's up with Brady's dad, but as the dinner goes on, he seems to relax a bit.
We're just starting to eat desert when Brady's dad takes a deep breath, looks at me and says, "So Elizabeth, tell me about your parents."
Seems like a strange question to ask the girlfriend of your son's roommate, but whatever. I smirk a little and consider making up some lie about how I have some awesome parents, but that's really not my style, so I decide to tell it like it is: "Well, my mom's not much use to be honest, but she does her best. My jerk of a father ran away when I was an infant, so what can you do." I feel Zach kick me under the table, so I just turn and look at him. "What?" And then when I look back at Brady's father, he looks horrified, and a bit of the smirk fades from my face. I actually feel a little bad. "I'm sorry," I say, "I..."
But he interrupts me before I can go on. "What's your mother's name?" he asks.
I probably sneer again because what does he care. "Her name's Sarah," I say. "Though I don't know why..." I stop short at the look on Brady's dad's face. It's like he's seen a ghost or something.
The three of us just all sit there staring at him, waiting for him to say something, anything. And then he takes out his wallet, plops a hundred dollar bill down on the table and says, "That should cover most of it. I need to go back to my hotel now." And the guy just up and leaves. Walks right out of the restaurant. I look over at Brady, who looks totally mortified, as well he should. I don't say it, because I have some tact, but all I can think at the time, in reference to Brady's father, is, "What a jerk."
-----
It's her. It's really her. I can't believe it, after all these years... what are the odds? This is so unlike me. I'm a man, damn it. I need to man up and act like one, not like a little girl. But she's my little girl. She was my first little girl, the one I ran out on. It wasn't her fault I couldn't live with her mother, and yet she had to suffer. Clearly she suffered. I never used to care so much, but now, I do. I really do. Back when she was lost, I made myself not care about her or about anything really. But now that I've found her again... what's wrong with me?
-----
After that horrible scene at dinner, Zach, Lizzy, and I managed to finish dessert and pay the bill and after I dropped them off at home (thankfully my father had driven his rental car separately), I went to his hotel to see what on earth was going on. My father is a man of few words, so we just sat there for a while until he finally said simply, "Elizabeth is my daughter from my first marriage."
That was it. It was done. He said it and now I knew and no one else did. I wanted to know why and how and so many other things, but what can you say? Especially now at a time when I saw my father, the toughest most frightening most difficult to please man I had ever seen, here in a moment of weakness. I realized that maybe, after all these years, I really didn't know him at all. And neither did Lizzy.
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