I was 35 when I saw my father for the last time. He'd invited me to spend three days with him at his house in Santa Monica. The call came early in the morning, and though I usually would've let it go to the machine, Janet jumped out of bed. She was one of those dutiful people who always answered the phone, "just in case." I was surprised by the call and even more by his invitation to come for the weekend. Honestly, I probably would've said no, but he'd been going through some hard times lately and I didn't have the heart.
When he picked me up at the airport, he seemed odd. Or maybe I should say he seemed OK - happy even - the way I remembered he'd look after a couple glasses of wine. I'd promised myself on the plane I wouldn't bring up my step-mom unless he did, but in the car I couldn't think of anything else to talk about and the silence was getting to me. "Everything good?" I asked. "Everything's great," he answered. I was starting to get annoyed that he didn't seem more troubled. My wedding was a month away and I only made the trip because I thought he needed someone to talk to.
"Was it peaceful?" I finally blurted out when we exited the airport's garage. He bent over the steering wheel looking up to the sky for a moment. "Beautiful day, no? You don't get many days like this in New York."
I didn't say anything, and for the rest of the ride to his house, he didn't either.
My father's home is decent-sized, not too big, but it's close to the beach so it's expensive. It's built in a classic Spanish style with the usual red-tiled roof and a courtyard that lies between an outer archway and the front door. "This is the way the hidalgos lived," my father proudly said to me, as he always did when I came to see him.
I noticed as I entered that everything was put away and clean. I don't know what I expected. At the time, I'd never lost anyone close to me. I guess I thought the house would be a big mess: the smell of rubbing alcohol mixed with stale flatulence - the kind of stuff you think of after seeing one too many hospital dramas on TV. But the house was spotless. The living room furniture had been dusted and polished. There were no dirty dishes stacked in the kitchen sink. Even the knickknacks - souvenirs from the old country that were supposedly made by gauchos, but that I suspect were actually made in Indonesia or Taiwan - were placed around the house in meticulous museum-like displays.
"How do you find the house?" he asked.
I told him I thought the place looked great.
"Yes, I do, too," he said smiling as he looked around. "After Pam died I decided I needed someone to help me clean the place. Jenny's fantastic."
I said something about the house seeming quieter than usual, but he didn't register. He went on instead to explain how he found Jenny, and how helpful she'd been getting the house back in order after the funeral. I was relieved my dad ignored my comment. Of course the place was quieter. Half the household wasn't there anymore. My stepmom's high-pitched squeak welcoming me home had always given me some kind of reference point, and without her, it was like I was out at sea with my dad, lost and restless.
"You know," he said in an uncharacteristically small, hesitant voice, "this is your home, too. It always has been. Pam felt the same way." I thanked him and went to the guest room to take a nap.
I woke up a couple hours later and found my father frying empanadas in the kitchen. This is a family ritual with us. He learned to make them from his father who'd been a cook in Argentina, and to this day I think that watching him make those fried dumplings was one of the few things that still connected me to my relatives in South America. It also is one of the few things that used to connect me to my dad.
Whenever I went to visit, he'd make them for me. Janet thought this was his way of telling me he cared about me. "A non-verbal cue," she'd explain, "typical of men of a certain age." She was always quick to add, though, that food could never be a substitute for a real emotional connection. Honestly, when I saw my father take a couple empanadas out of the pot of boiling oil, I was glad that Janet had stayed home. Even if she was right, I loved watching my father cook. As a kid, I somehow knew there was something special going on when he was in the kitchen - the way he lost himself while chopping a vegetable or tasting a sauce. I wanted to be part of that world.
"They're cooler on the bottom," he told me when he finally looked up. "After lunch I can show you the new flowers I planted last fall." I tried to tell him I'd love to but my mouth was already full of food. He went on: "Pam always loved roses. During her last week, I'd pick one every day and bring it to her along with her medication." He went back to the stove and put another four empanadas in the pot. His face had lost any hint of the smile he'd been flashing since I arrived. Over the crashing sound of the boiling oil, he asked ask me a question: "Alejandro, I know this is none of my business, but do you really love her? You don't seem like a man in love."
I put down the empanada I was eating. "What are you talking about?"
"I don't want to offend, mi hijo. But you don't seem excited about having a wife."
"Well, maybe I'm like you," I said. My voice was jittery all of the sudden, and I was annoyed by the tremble in my voice.
He walked over and put a couple more empanadas on my plate. "You're still angry about your mother and me?" he asked. After another minute of listening to the sound of frying dough and trying to avoid looking at my father, I told him I wanted to borrow the car.
"What do you need? I went to the market before you got here."
"I'm just going to buy some beer."
"Beer? With empanadas?" he asked. He'd been in the country for more than half his life and he still thought of beer as being something anglo and foreign. I told him I hated wine and again asked to use the car. He held out the keys so I'd have to walk over to him, and when I reached out to take them, he grabbed my hand. "Don't be angry, hijo," he told me. "I like Janet. She seems...nice."
I couldn't remember the last time he'd held my hand. When I was a kid, I would've given anything for that kind of affection, and now all those years later, there was still a part of me that hadn't changed. But pride being what it is, I pulled my hand loose and told him he should keep his opinions to himself.
"I'm not trying to offend you," he said. "I only want to make sure you're happy. Are you?"
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"It's a simple question."
"I'm happy."
"Good. That's important."
"I guess you would know, dad. You're the expert at doing what makes you happy." I left him there with his boiling pot of empanadas and didn't come home until I knew he'd be asleep.
The next morning I found my father in the kitchen again. "It was a fantastic night, wasn't it?" he asked me. He seemed charged up again like when he picked me up. "Not too cold - not like what you're having in New York right now."
I poured myself a cup of coffee and told him what I'd decided the night before after my fifth can of beer: "Listen, dad, you seem fine. You seem better than fine, actually. I'm going to catch an earlier flight and leave tonight. Janet and I have a lot left to do and anyway, I'm going to see you at the wedding. We can spend some time together that weekend."
My father's mood changed. He began to speak quietly and slower than usual, as if every word required a bit of effort from him. "Please stay. We have a lot to talk about." He pulled up a seat next to me at the kitchen table.
"I'm here now."
"I can't."
"What do you mean, you can't?"
"I mean I don't want to tell you right now. I need time with you to make you understand."
"We're going to have a couple of days before the wedding."
"I'm not coming to the wedding," he said, calmly, almost casually. "That's why I asked you what I asked you last night." There was something about my dad's voice at that moment that made me remember the time he told me he was leaving my mom and me. I think my father believed that if he said something hurtful but sounded relaxed when doing so, it would hurt less.
"You mean about Janet?" I asked. "I wouldn't marry a woman I didn't love. I'm not like you. I don't just up and leave people whenever I feel like it."
My father stood up. "You're a foolish man, sometimes."
My hands began to shake a little and I rubbed them together, but I couldn't hold it in. "Fuck you!" I screamed. I stood up as well, though I can't say why.
"I don't want to fight with you," my father said.
"Well, it seems like you do. How can you not come to my wedding?"
"I can't," he told me. "You wouldn't understand it."
"Look, you don't want to come? Fine, that's your business." I stopped in mid- sentence and looked at him - really looked - for the first time since I got there, maybe for the first time since I was a kid. I noticed the bump he had on the bridge of his nose. I'd forgotten it. I have one, too. All the men in our family do.
"I know you know how much I love this place, but after Pam went away from me, things are different." He sat back down at the table and I did the same. "Have you ever said good-bye to someone, someone you knew you wouldn't see for a long time?"
I took my glasses off and stared in his blurred direction without answering. I thought the question was dumb considering every time I said goodbye to him when I was a kid, I knew I wouldn't see him again for a long time.
"One night," he went on, "the week before Pam died, I sat next to her and she asked me what I thought it'd be like to die. Was there something called heaven? Would we find each other and live together in the clouds? She was having a lot of trouble breathing then. It wasn't the medication, or even the cancer. Nerves, I think. She was always anxious when she was waiting to go some place." My father giggled to himself. "At that point, Pam was waiting to leave me and go wherever we go after we leave this place. Anyway, she looked at me and told me she wanted to die. She didn't want to wait anymore, so she asked me to help her kill herself."
I started rubbing the bald spot on the back of my head. I'm not sure why I do this - I still do when I don't know what to say. "What did you do?" I finally managed to ask.
"I told her I couldn't and I remember she turned away from me, and I was scared she was mad. I reached out and ran my fingers along her shoulders - they were so bony by then but I still loved them." As he spoke, my father raised his hand as if trying to show me with his veiny old-man fingers just how beautiful his dead wife's shoulders had been.
"So what happened?" I asked, still rubbing my head.
"She never said anything about it. It didn't matter. A week later she was dead." My father's hand then dropped to his lap. What only a moment ago had seemed to me a beautiful expressive hand now seemed to be as lifeless as his wife. "Hijo, I know you won't understand; you're like your mother - practical."
I stared at him, waiting for what he had to say next.
"I have dreams," he said, finally.
I still didn't say anything.
"It doesn't happen that much. But once in a while, I wake up and I feel this calm, peaceful feeling - all over my body. That's when I know. I knew I had to leave your mother and move out here because I dreamed it; it's how I knew I should marry Pam and that she'd die before me."
"You're trying to say you're psychic?" I asked. "You hear voices and that's why you left me and mom? Jesus, dad, are you on medication?"
"I don't need that. Things happen the way I dream them, and now I'm dreaming about you."
I knew then my father was crazy, and you can't blame crazy people for what they say.
"She's not right for you. You'll be unhappy like your mother was," he said.
I told him my mother was unhappy because he'd left her.
"She wasn't happy when I was with her either," he said. "That's why I left."
"I thought you left because one of your dreams told you to."
He took a long breath, and for the second time in so many days, reached for my hand. "My dreams just made it clear that me and your mother weren't meant to be together. Listen, the past isn't important. Your mother and me - we're old people. Who cares?"
"I do," I said pulling my hand back.
"Hijo, why don't you come out here? You can live with me, and we can go to the beach and make up for lost time." My father leaned in toward me. "Forget what I told you about my dreams. Forget you're angry about whatever you think I've done to you and your mother. Just think about what makes you happy. You know, do you ever just feel happy? You don't look at a watch when you're happy. Do you ever not look at that nice watch of yours when you're with Janet?"
I told him I was going to get married and that I didn't care about his dreams.
He nodded his head rhythmically as he played with his wedding ring. "OK, Alex. You're right. You're a grown man and I know that what I'm saying sounds crazy, so I'll be quiet."
"Does this mean you're coming to the wedding?" I asked.
"No. I can't," he answered without hesitating, and with that, I got up and went to my room and started packing.
For the rest of the day my father seemed different again. He was still kind but distant. When he took me to the airport that evening, we shook hands and said our goodbyes. I told him he'd still be welcome at the wedding, but he only forced a smile and thanked me for my "kind offer." It sounded like the end of a business transaction more than a good-bye between a father and his son.
I got back to New York early the next morning and went directly to Janet's. She was concerned and asked me a million questions that I didn't want to answer. So I made some excuses and changed the subject. I didn't tell her about my father and his dreams, thinking he would eventually relent and come to the wedding. But I was wrong. He didn't show up, and six months after I left him at the airport, he died - suddenly and in his sleep.
When I got the call from Jenny, I wondered if he'd ever dreamt of his own death. If he sensed it was coming and if that was why he was so desperate to see me. For the days leading up to the funeral, I spent any free time I had between all the arrangements that had to be made wondering about his dreams. I didn't think of much else, and then at some point, I stopped wondering. My father was a lot of things, I decided, but those dreams of his were nothing more than the delusions of a selfish man.
Maybe this is why I never cried for him. Janet was sure that it was going to come. She talked about my grief like it was some kind of storm off in the horizon. She was so sure I felt like I had to lie to her. One day I told her that I broke down at the office, and then we never spoke of it again. But the truth of it - a truth I never thought Janet would understand - was that after his death, there was no one left to be mad at, and I was at peace. That's why I decided to make his house a summer getaway. Janet thought it was a bad idea - us going there. She saw the place as a celebration of my father's escapism, and a reminder to me of all that I'd lost as a child. But I ignored her. I told her to relax and enjoy the place. At the time, I didn't feel as if I'd lost a thing.
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.
