My words are disturbingly weak, humiliatingly so. My cheeks flame with a forgotten shame of beingme. He’s in my house, smiling as I take him in. He’s wearing a worn brown leather jacket, and I know if I get close enough, I’ll be able to smell it mixed in with the Old Spice aftershave he used to wear. Wrinkles mar his brow and line his mouth, and his eyes appear smaller than I remember, rodent-like in their appearance as they study me with something similar to cunning. They’re not blue like mine, they’re a murky brownish yellow, the colour I imagine bile would be.
Keegan laughs. “I let him in.”
“Son . . .”
My dad opens his arms, not in a gesture to invite me into an embrace, but as if he’s saying, “Here I am, this is me,” and it’s not like I’ve forgotten. How I could I ever forget?
“I know you said you’re estranged,” Keegan starts. “But I found him online, and we started messaging. He wants to make amends, and this is the perfect time.”
There is no “make amends.” Make amends implies both parties want to fix what’s broken between them, but I sure as hell don’t. My heart struggles the longer he looks at me. It thuds in my chest, hard and true, but it flutters at my throat and wrists. If I stay standing here long enough like this, I’ll be able to feel it racing in the soles of my feet. The effect this man has on my body not only makes me nauseous, but faint too.
“Is this because of the stupid wedding photos?” I say, and it comes out harsher than intended.
I asked her to marry me five weeks ago, but she’s known from the beginning that I don’t have a relationship with my dad—that I don’t want one with him. But here he is, sitting at my table after Keegan’s been complaining about wonky-looking photographs ruining the aesthetics.
Keegan widens her eyes and takes a step back from me.
“My mum’s dead and buried in the ground, unable to attend, so you go out of your way to find my dad, someone I specifically said I didn’t want at the wedding? We’ve not even set a damn date. We’re talking years in the future, and five weeks later you bring him here?”
I’ve never raised my voice in Keegan’s presence, let alone directed my frustration towards her, but this is what he does to me. He takes away the man I’ve become.
“Easy, son.” My dad raises a placating hand my way. “Your girl was doing a nice thing, no need to upset her.”
Keegan flashes a grateful smile my dad’s way and my stomach rolls. How long have they been talking? How many messages have they exchanged? What lies has he fed her?
“Keegan might have thought she was doing a nice thing, but there’s no way you did. Why are you here?”
My father bunches his lips, considering me. “I wanted to know what kind of man you’d become . . .” He glances to Keegan. “One that makes his fiancée cry, I see. Thought I taught you better than that.”
“You taught me nothing,” I say.
But that’s not true. There are a lot of things this man taught me—fear, apprehension, sadness, self-loathing, nervousness. On a level that I can no longer function as a human being, like a dog in a cage wanting to be free but never knowing when or if that day might come. I’m skipping and tripping in and out of my body as we speak. On edge, the way he likes it.
“Come now, Freddie.” My dad’s eyes dart to Keegan again. “You’re making me out to be some kind of monster.”
“You are.”
He sighs. “As I’ve told you, Keegan, Freddie’s mother and I had a turbulent relationship. Lots of breaking up, getting back together. Between you and me, I think she had some medical problems that hadn’t been diagnosed, maybe bipolar or something. It made her irrational, unpredictable. Her mood swings were terrible at times, and I thought it best I leave.”
That’s not it, that’s not it at all. But my tongue is tying itself in a knot, and I can’t think with him here. I can’t defend myself, or my mum. I’m a dog in a cage, and I can’t do anything complex. All I can do is snap.
“Fuck you.”
My dad carries on like I haven’t spoken. “She wasn’t the easiest to get along with, and I’ll admit I left Freddie alone with her more than I should have.” He’s talking about me to Keegan asif I’m not here. “And maybe she painted a certain picture of me, but she wanted me at her funeral, which means I can’t have been all bad.”
She had, she’d been adamant when she was dying that I track him down and make sure he was there. My mum loved this man. This man whose mere presence makes my knees shake. I want him to leave—need him to—but before I tell him to get out, he speaks first, moreclearlyandcalmly, and we’ve played this game before with my mum.
The way he made me sound hysterical to turn her against me.
“Now, son, Keegan has prepared a lovely three course dinner, and I suggest you man up and come sit with us.” He curls his finger in a come-here gesture, not to me but to Keegan, who goes to him while wiping her face.
She passes him to get to the stove where she lifts the lid of a pan. “It’s a tomato soup for starters.”
My dad takes in a deep breath through his nose and tucks his legs beneath the table. “It smells incredible. My son’s lucky to end up with a girl like you, not only beautiful but talented in the kitchen too.”
“It’s light,” Keegan says without looking at me. “It shouldn’t upset your stomach.”
“What’s wrong with your stomach?” my dad asks.
