My Father’s Dreams
These are the ways we convince ourselves of things. We tell ourselves that the other guy is lying to himself and never ask ourselves the same. I didn’t get that until Janet and I divorced.
Last March, when we had “The Talk,” which is what she calls it, I didn’t grieve for her, or for us. I only thought about my father and how right he was—about everything. I always thought Janet and I were happy enough. I told her that and then I saw it on her face. The pity. Did my mother see the same thing when my dad left her? Did she think they were happy enough? I don’t know much about my father, but I know he wasn’t ok with just getting by, and Janet’s the same.
These are quiet days for me now. I moved into my father’s house and now I’m supposed to build up, start again. But I am my mother’s son. I’m the one who gets left behind even when I’m the one who had to do the leaving. I may be eating off my father’s plates, bathing in his shower, sleeping in his bed. I may be the one who crossed the country to live in this little house just like he did years back, but I’m my mother’s son. Even my dreams are my mother’s dreams. They look backwards to the past, never to the future.
And so every night, when I fall asleep, I see him in the darkness of my room and then I see myself yelling at him. Awake, I know I can’t be mad at my father. I know I shouldn’t have wasted all those years being angry with him. But asleep, I can lose myself in the long, spindly, irrational threads that connect where I am with where I once was. In my dreams, I don’t have to be fair. I can be a sullen kid again, a kid who can rail against his father for having dreams that took him away. For being right about so much. For leaving me yet again.