‘Hello, son.’
My father, unannounced as usual. ‘Dad. This is a surprise.’
He adjusts his scarf. ‘In the area on business. Thought I’d drop over and say happy birthday to this guy.’ He’s all smiles and humour as he cuffs Nate’s shoulder.
‘Wrong kid,’ I say.
‘Just testing.’ Dad laughs, shrugging his mistake away.
‘There’s cake,’ Nate says. ‘Leo’s eating it with his catcher’s mask on.’
‘This I need to see.’ Dad grins, stepping in from the cold. I hold in my sigh as I move aside to grant him access, hating that I don’t feel as if I have any option.
‘Susie,’ he says in that convivial, ‘long time no see’ voice he’s so good at as he unbuttons his long wool coat and unwinds his scarf. Always a sharp dresser, my father, an eye for a well-cut suit and the ladies, my mother once said.
‘Alvin,’ Susie says, her smile guarded as her eyes flicker over his shoulder towards me. I shrug, nonplussed. ‘You’re just in time for cake.’
I watch him as he laughs and charms the boys, a card with money for Leo, a bill from his wallet for Nate’s piggybank. They sit either side of him, pale against his West Coast tan, basking in his praise.
‘The Red Sox, huh?’ he says, nodding at Leo’s uniform. ‘My team. You’re a chip off the old block, kid.’
‘Me too, Grandpa,’ Nate says, lifting his sweater to show my father his favourite Sox T-shirt. I watch them tumble over themselves to impress him, and it’s as much as I can do not to shove him back into his expensive coat and send him on his way. My kids don’t need to try to impress him.
‘You guys should all come out to California in the summer,’ he says, as the boys barrel out of the room at the sight of the neighbours’ kids in the street. ‘They would love the beaches.’
‘We have beaches,’ I say.
Susie looks as if her face is aching from fake-smiling her way through the last half-hour. It speaks volumes about how little my father’s in touch that he doesn’t know about our marital problems, and volumes about my relationship with him that I’ve tried to skip over it since he walked in the door.
‘More cake?’ Susie says, clearing the table.
Dad puts his hand up, a hard no. ‘More than enough sugar for one day.’
He’s like that. Has a pious way of making himself seem virtuous at the cost of the people around him. Susie takes the cake back to the kitchen, probably questioning if she’d been a little heavy-handed with the chocolate frosting.
‘How’s work, son?’
I nod, tell him the bare bones about the upcoming Salvation exhibition. He narrows his eyes at mention of the island, and then laughs, too long and too loud.
‘That the place even exists is news to me,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Way your mom used to talk about it, dragons and pirates and all that kids’ stuff.’ He’s amused, enjoying himself. ‘Tell me, did you find treasure, Captain Mack?’
It’s enough. The jovial tone, the ever-so-slightly superior note. This may not be my home any more, but it is my house and he’s leaving. I pick up his coat and hand it to him.
‘I’m just seeing Dad out to his car,’ I call to Susie.
She pops her head around from the kitchen. ‘Bye, Alvin. Thanks for dropping by.’
My father looks at me for a silent, assessing beat before slowly getting up and following me down the hallway. I don’t look back until we’re beside his car on the sidewalk.
‘Did I do something wrong?’ he says, and one could be forgiven for thinking he’s clueless. The hint of challenge in his eyes says differently, though.
I look at him, trying to decide if it’s worth the effort.
‘Today, or for the last twenty-five years?’
His eye-roll is so subtle you could easily miss it, but I don’t.
‘Come on, Mack, you’re a man now, and a father. You know it’s no bed of roses.’
No bed of roses. His words hammer home how differently we view the role of a father. His permanent sneer is making my fist itch.
‘Being a father isn’t supposed to be a bed of roses,’ I say. ‘It’s not just pretty for a while and then disposable when it’s useless to you. It’s a forest. Constantly changing, growing, evolving. It’s shelter and roots and branches to climb and leaves to break their fall.’
He doesn’t come back with anything. Maybe I’ve got through, or maybe he just couldn’t give a damn. Either way, this conversation ends on my terms.