Page 132 of Give & Take

Dad’s used to these barbs though. Or so I thought. Right now, the normally stoic, barely-there workaholic who’s apparently down another marriage, looks so pained, I wonder if I truly wounded him.

“Shit, Dad,” I say. “I?—”

But Dad shakes his head. His thinning salt and pepper hair is more salt than pepper now, I notice. Deep lines etch his face. “No. It’s fine.”

Everyone at the table is silent—every single one of the boys; mom, Deanie, and me.

“I almost didn’t come,” he says.

I hate how that feels like a little gut punch, even though it’s obvious. I laugh, but it’s stilted.

“It’s not funny, Raph,” Deanie says. But she’s defending me—I can tell because her eyes are trained on Dad.

“There’s a deal falling through at the office,” Dad says, “and they needed me to sign all these agreements before midnight, or we lose it all.”

His voice, I realize, has a strange note in it. One I’m not sure I’m hearing right.

“Dad are you seriously trying to guilt trip us for being late to Raph’s dinner?” Deanie asks, voicing the anger I didn’t know I was feeling until now.

“No,” he says, looking so taken aback I actually believe him.

“Then what is it?” I ask, my words clipped.

“Your sister,” Dad says. “She called me. Several times. She said you’ve fallen in love with someone, in BC. Said you might not be back here for a long time, that I better come.”

I snap my eyes to Deanie. She’d gone to the bathroom several times earlier in the night. I’d chalked it up to pregnancy.

Deanie’s never stood up for me with Dad, probably because she’s always fought so hard to get him to notice her. But she called him, over and over again. For me. Maybe I don’t only annoy the shit out of her.

“But even though she called me,” Dad says, “I still didn’t come. I figured there’d be another time. There’s always another time.” He laughs, looking down at his hands. Clasping and unclasping them. “I was holding thispen, about to sign my name. There was this assistant in front of me with this great big stack of agreements, and each one of them was… peppered with those little colored tabs on them. You know, ‘sign here’ and all that. But I had to read everything first. And each tab—” Dad looks at me. Then at Deanie. And then at each of his younger boys in turn.

A sound escapes him, like a little puff of air.

He’s crying.Our father. Crying.

He takes a bracing breath. “I was looking at those tabs, still irritated by all those phone calls.” He glances at Deanie, an apology in his eyes. “And I understood. Like a punch to the goddamned face.”

The younger boys snicker.

“Hey!” Charlie whispers. “Shh.”

“Each tab,” Dad continues “is like all the parts in a life you’re supposed to be at. All the parts I managed to show up for because I knew I couldn’t miss those, you know? The holidays. The birthdays. The graduations. But those tabs…” Once again he schools his features. “They?—”

“How we all doing here?” The server, a young, chipper guy wearing a hat with one of those motorcycle rotors on top and a pair of plaid suspenders, comes by with absolutely zero timing. It would be hilarious if Dad didn’t look like he’d been shot.

The waiter honks the clown nose inexplicably pinned to his right suspender.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “Our father—he’s kind of having a moment.”

“Maybe you could bring him a hamburger or something?” Charlie says, helpfully.

The server seems to register all of us for the first time, his face dropping into horror. “Oh my, I?—”

“Not your fault,” I assure him.

“Hamburger good,” Dad says like a caveman.

The boys laugh again. Even Charlie smiles this time. They’re not as bothered by all this, I realize. And when I look at Deanie, her eyes are soft as she looks at me.

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