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“I’ll walk to my house,” I say as I open the door.
“Jamie, your house is too far to walk.”
“I need the fresh air,” I reply weakly as I let my feet take me away from the car.
I hear his door close and he calls after me. “Let me drive you!”
I shake my head again. “I need to be alone, Chris, please.”
I don’t really notice if he’s agreeing or not. I just keep walking. I keep walking until I finally recognize where my feet have taken me. A half-smile breaks on my lips when I see the only place I could have gone to. The only place my heart has chosen.
The relief relaxes my body, and the numbness slowly fades away. I stop in front of him, but I know the respite is short-lived when a spike of pain comes back. I shouldn’t be here.
“Hey,” I breathe.
The expected silence is still heavy, and I completely give up as I fall to my knees.
“Hey, Dad,” I sob as my knees hit the ground next to my dad’s grave.
I don’t visit often. There is still the flicker of a flame of anger toward my dad. The fact that he’s dead doesn’t take away the fact that he was willing to sacrifice us for this city. All Aaron and I wanted was to get out alive. All my dad wanted was to defend Stoneview. A city that paid him back by letting us all down.
But I miss him.
I miss him so much and I have nothing left.
All I have are the memories of him and me. I feel like he left us yesterday and yet our memories now feel like old tales. Like stories you tell your kids without truly remembering them.
‘Oh yeah, I remember that time Dad took me to that steak place in Silver Falls.’
‘Sure, I remember when he, Aaron, and I watched the All-Star game on the big TV.’
Yes, I remember how he was. He respected Filipino culture, taught us Tagalog, and cooked delicious meals for us. He taught us to get blessed by putting his knuckles to our forehead. He would never go to work without doing it. He talked about his parents being from Laguna in the Philippines and used to tell us about the Villa Escadero where there was a restaurant at the bottom of the waterfalls.
He hated shoes in the house, loved macaroni and cheese, and couldn’t watch one football game without falling asleep. He liked fixing things, objects, people, cities. He respected the law, he had a sharp moral compass. He and Aaron didn’t get along. Aaron was too rebellious, like my mom when she was younger. They both thought me and my dad were boring rule followers.
He wasn’t very tall, and Aaron had already outgrown him by the time he was fourteen years old.
I do remember him. But every day it fades a little more. His voice isn’t so clear anymore, I can’t remember the exact effect it had on me. I don’t remember how much darker his skin was from mine.
Was my head to his chest or his shoulder? Did he hug with his arms around my neck or around my waist? I can only remember my mom reading me stories, did he ever do it? Was he as beautiful as the pictures remember him? I don’t remember the sound his steps made around our old house. I know I used to wake up to the sound of his boots walking past my room when he came back from a night shift. But why can’t I remember the sound they made? Were they squeaky? Heavy? Dragging?
“I’m sorry, Dad,” I sob. “I just don’t remember anymore.”
I curl both my arms on the hard headstone and rest my head on them. I can feel the cold emanating from the stone.
“You’re cold,” I cry.
It takes me a few minutes to admit why I came.
“We’re in trouble, Dad.” I grab a snail that is making its way up the stone and put it on the grass. “Mom…”
I don’t want to admit it. Is he going to be disappointed? Is he going to hate us?
“Mom and I did something bad. We stole from the Bakers. And now she got caught. I don’t know what to do. I’m so lost. I’m so lost without you and Aaron. Without Mom.”
I take a deep shaky breath. “I don’t even know if you noticed, but Mom didn’t give Aaron a place to rest. She thinks he’s still alive. Does it make me a horrible sister if I think he isn’t? Because if he is, why didn’t he come back for us?”
I readjust myself and completely sit on the damp ground.
