Page 61 of One Night Only
“I will. Say hi to Paul. And tell him he’s an idiot.”
We hang up and I switch the call over. It buffers for a few seconds as the video loads and then my dad’s face fills the screen. Or half of it anyway.
“Sarah?” His voice booms down the other end of the line. “Are you there? Hello?”
“I’m here. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He sounds surprised I asked. “I got a new phone. I wanted to show you.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “I can only see your forehead. Tilt your…there…perfect.”
“Are you outside?” I can see his face now, more lined than I remember as he frowns at me. “Can everyone hear me?”
I point to my earphones as I shoulder open the door to the deli, stepping back into the sunshine. “Just me. It’s like magic, right?”
“Very funny.”
I lean against the wall as he moves into the kitchen. “Is that a new table too?” I ask, taking a bite of my food.
“No. Maybe a new tablecloth.”
“It’s nice.”
Conversations with my dad are always like this. At least when we’re camping, we can pretend we’re being silent for the sake of nature. Neither of us knows how to talk to the other and we usually have to go through several minutes of stilted chitchat before we either hang up or get to the real reason the other is calling. Last time he spent ten minutes describing his new power washer before he told me about Grandma.
“Where’d you get the phone?” I ask.
“From the team. An early retirement gift.”
“They must really like you.”
“Or happy to see me go,” he grumbles and I laugh even as I feel a tinge of worry. Dad’s retiring in a few months. He decided it on a whim last year, saying he’d have more time to himself. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t think he needed any more time to himself. He isn’t a man with hobbies. At least none that he’s told me about, and besides a few close family and friends, he’s more or less kept to himself since Mom left.
“I was just talking to Annie,” I say, trying to distract myself. “She says hi.”
“Back from her honeymoon?”
“Thailand. They’re coming over for a few weeks for Paul’s work.”
“And then to Ireland?”
I nod, forcing a smile and he sighs.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he says. “I know you’ll miss her.”
“It’s cool,” I say lightly. “I have more than one friend. I’m actually on my way to meet Soraya now. You met her the last time you visited, remember? She said she liked your beard and you had to leave the room because you couldn’t stop blushing?”
“I remember,” he mutters. “And besides your friends? Are you seeing anyone?”
I try not to sigh.
It’s a question he’s asked me numerous times over the years, sometimes hopeful, sometimes resigned, but always asked. Because while Dad has never trusted anyone enough to start dating again, he doesn’t want the same life for me.
“I don’t want you to be alone because you’re scared,” he’d said to me once when he was feeling particularly dramatic. “If that’s your choice and you’re happy then that’s fine. But just because things ended badly between your mom and me, doesn’t mean it’s going to end the same way for you. Relationships are important.”
I had to stop myself from pointing out that it was precisely why his relationship with mom was so important that the betrayal of it ruined his life.
And it did ruin his life. It tore up his family, his savings, his confidence. He couldn’t hide his devastation from me in those first few years. He closed off, withdrawing into himself and when he finally emerged, he was different, quiet and sad. I barely remember how he used to be when we were all together, making Mom laugh over the dinner table, bouncing around me on the trampoline so I’d shoot into the air with a squeal.
