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When my mother told me that my father had declared his love three weeks after they’d met and before they’d even shared their first kiss, I had roared with laughter. My fifteen-year-old heart couldn’t imagine falling in love before a kiss or after a few weeks.
When she’d reminded me of this story during one of our family therapy sessions, I’d laughed again, but this time it was at how little I’d known about matters of the heart.
I hadn’t understood that our hearts didn’t bow to any master. That it rules supreme and that nothing; not time, distance, age, beauty, money, truth or a lifetime of lies can manipulate or stop it. I release a frustrated sigh into the night.
“Those kinds of sighs aren’t allowed on Sundays.” My father’s deep, gruff voice interrupts my day dream. It’s our day to eat dinner together. My mom had her quarterly book club meeting tonight. So, my father came over to my little town house by himself. When my dad fell asleep on the couch, I came out to onto my back patio to enjoy a rare cool evening in Houston’s typically hot and humid late spring.
I look up at him, and give a small, affectionate smile. I pat the cushion of the seat next to mine and he drops his long, rangy frame into it.
In the waning light, the fiery red of his hair that’s been increasingly replaced by white blazes. I love having him back. I love how good it feels to talk to him, face to face. He always listens so closely; his eyes never leave your face.
“Penny for your thoughts.” He shoots me that crooked little grin of his, the one that says “Come on, you know you want to tell me.” And I do. So, I tell him.
“I miss him.” I bite my lower lip, to stop it from trembling after my admission.
“Hmmm.” Is all he says.
“Do you think it’s hopeless?” I ask him.
“You and him?” He asks in mock confusion.
I nudge him with my shoulder, “Daddy. I’m being serious.” I whine.
“Well, I couldn’t tell. You told me missed him, and you said it like you were about to cry. So, I’m thinking you mean it. So, why you’re sitting here, on your porch thinking about missing him is beyond me.”
“Daddy,” I moan, “It’s not that simple. Things between us were a mess when I left and we haven’t talked in three months. I want to call but last time we spent three months apart the next time I saw him he had a girlfriend. And that was before he knew I’d had a baby in secret and then broken a bunch of laws by breaking into a database, stealing personal information, and cyber stalking them. I’m sure after I left he brought one of those special cleaners in to burn sage.”
He bursts out laughing and I stare at him, not finding anything funny.
“If you’re just going to make fun of me then I’m leaving.” I say and start to stand.
He closes a hand gently around my wrist and stops laughing, but a smile still dances on his face.
“I’m not laughing at you.”
I scoff at that, giving him a look that says I don’t believe him.
“Well, okay maybe just a little,” he acquiesces. “Come on, sit back down.”
I do, plopping back into the seat, a pout firmly on my face, my arms now crossed over my chest as I stare straight ahead.
“Lilly, you were always so prone to hyperbole.”
“Harry used to say that, too.” I whisper sadly, staring unseeing at my backyard.
My father pats my leg in response.
“Your imagination has always been your biggest asset and your fatal flaw. You paint scenarios in your mind, my darling, that are always more spectacular or terrible than real life could ever be. If you’ve learned anything over the last few months, I hope that it’s that saying things out loud takes away their power over you. The truth is where all of the real things live. Not in the fairytales we spin or the horror stories we weave. And when you release the truth from the cage of fear it lives in, the truth releases you, too. It’s not always pretty. It’s not always comfortable, but Lilly, it’s who we are.” I turn to look at him and see him watching me with a fond smile on his face.
“Oh Daddy.” I nestle into him, letting my head rest of his shoulder, my arm linking through his.
“It’s a lesson that I didn’t teach you before I left, not in word or deed. But, better late than never.” He grasps my hand and I squeeze his. We sit in a comfortable silence for a minute, my mind grappling with what he’s said and how true the last few months have proven it to be.
“You’re wearing your pendant again.” He says quietly and my hand comes up to touch the small gold pendant sitting in the center of my throat. I found it when I moved back to Houston and I put it back on.
“Fawohodie. Translated literally, it means with freedom comes with responsibilities.”
I lean back and look up at him. “I’d always thought it just meant Freedom.”
