A Scene at the Riagio

The prompt: Your main character is approached by their long-estranged parent who wants to reconnect. How do they react?

A SCENE AT THE RIAGIO

I was twelve years old when I left home for the first time. It was after dark on a mild October night when I wandered outside of my two-story house, past the driveway and onto the empty road. I kept walking and walking until I found myself at one of the playgrounds my father used to take me to as a younger child, back when I still could’ve been the son he’d always wanted.

I tried settling myself in one of those plastic tunnels little children were supposed to crawl through for fun, having decided that it would be as good a place as any to sleep for the night, but when I closed my eyes in that uncomfortable tube, all I could picture were spectral boogeymen stepping out from behind the trees outside. Every single sound – the rustling of the leaves, the soft creaking of the empty swings, the pitter patter of small animals scuttling across the dirt floor – put me on edge, and it was starting to get chillier than I could bear.

I held myself and tried to be still, but I started shivering. I couldn’t tell if it was from my fear or from the cold. I kept picturing those shadowy figures encroaching around me, circling the playground and getting closer and closer. I kept imagining a swarm of dark, hollowed faces suddenly appearing down at the opening by my feet.

After a few minutes, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I made my way out of the tube to find the playground empty and shimmering in the moonlight. I thought about finding another spot to sleep, but I knew I was too spooked to stay, so I started to make my way home. Not a single car drove by as I walked back on that same stretch of empty road, but even so, I kept looking behind me to make sure I wasn’t being followed.

I’m not sure what I was expecting to find when I got home. Perhaps my father would be a wreck at the dining room table, hiccupping too-late apologies into the air, consumed by the regret of having made me feel so unwanted that I’d run away. Perhaps my mother – usually so silent and meek at his side – would be in hysterics, screaming into the phone at some officer and telling him he wasn’t doing anything close to enough to find me.

I know that it’s selfish, but I guess I was hoping to find that they actually cared about me and would miss me if I was gone – that their lives would be made worse by my absence. I wanted to walk through the front door and see them clamber over to me, feel them wrap me in their arms and say things like, “Where have you been, we were worried sick!” and “Are you okay?” and “Don’t you dare do anything like this ever again!”

Instead, I walked through the door and everything was uncannily calm, exactly the same as I’d left it. My father was sitting in front of the television, sipping on a can of beer and watching two men toss crass jokes back and forth. My mother was still cleaning in the kitchen, humming old hymns to herself while washing up the dinner mess. Neither of them had even noticed I was gone. Or maybe they had, and they just didn’t care. I’m still not sure which scenario makes me sadder.

Either way, my disappearance had left the household warm and undisturbed. I felt my grand, after-dark journey shrink into a small, lonely thing and I quietly made my way upstairs and to my room, defeated. I looked at the clock on my bedside table and realized the whole escapade had taken less than an hour, even though time had seemed to stretch on forever. It’s strange how everything feels so long and full when you’re a child. The park was full of cold, dark things, the house was full of cruel indifference, and I was full of empty chasms.

I changed into my nighttime clothes and crawled into bed, hoping to quickly put the whole ordeal behind me, but I couldn’t help thinking of how different things might’ve been if only I’d been different. If only I had been the boy my father wanted me to be. If only I could be like all the other boys. Maybe then he would’ve kept me close and noticed when I was gone. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had to be gone at all.

*

I was seventeen years old the day my father caught me in bed with another boy. My parents weren’t supposed to be home until later that evening. I thought I had that whole stretch of afternoon safe and to myself.

I didn’t notice the sound of their footsteps coming up the walk, or the sound of the key in the lock, or the sound of the front door opening. I didn’t hear my mother shuffling out of her coat, or my father coming up the stairs, or even the creak of my bedroom door. I was lost under the covers with a boy I barely knew, and the world outside could not get in. I was lost in the newness and perfection of that wet-hot moment, in that mess of limbs and breath and sweat. And I was happy to be lost for once, until my father found me.

All those sounds that could have warned me – could have saved me had I listened – but all I heard was my name, a sharp-edged admonition in my father’s steady voice.

I leapt off the boy I barely knew and we poked our heads out from under the covers and saw my father standing there. It’s strange because I don’t even remember that boy’s name, or what he looked like really, but I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face, staring at us cowering under the sheets. It wasn’t anger or sadness or even disappointment, which I think I could’ve dealt with. It was an expression of absolute exhaustion – like he was finished and done.

Up until that point, a part of me had hoped that maybe things would be better between us once I left for college. Maybe space and distance would do us some good, and we would find that we really did love each other despite everything. Maybe I would come home for Christmas break, and though he’d grumble and still be distant, maybe there would be some new warmth there, some unearthed affection.

That day in my room, the look on his face made me realize this was just a childish fantasy. That day, a line I didn’t realize was drawn had been crossed. I’d committed a transgression under his roof. I’d become something he could not forgive, and in turn, I could not forgive him.

He left my room without another word and at first I was grateful to be saved from the humiliation of being berated, naked, in front of another naked boy. I didn’t realize then that my father wouldn’t say another word to me for another several years.

I’d been so used to his anger – so used to him drinking too much and then blaming me for disappointing him. I was so used to sitting in my room with my headphones in my ears and still hearing him yell at my mother downstairs – yelling at her for raising a sissy, for coddling me even though she did no such thing. I was so used to his irrational rage, his inability to understand that there was nobody to blame for who I was, that it wasn’t a matter of blame at all. I was so used to his frustration in the face of my existence.

What I wasn’t used to was him pretending I didn’t exist at all. I wasn’t used to him always looking past me, ignoring my every move. He stopped yelling at my mother about me. He stopped referring to me in any way at all. I wasn’t used to him being so committed to letting me know that I was nothing to him, that I was worthless, and this hurt more than his anger ever did.

At first, I thought he was being childish, that he would eventually come around and things would go back to the way they were – not perfect, but not this. But as time went on the silence became even more oppressive, and I realized there was something deeper there – some immovable darkness that would not let up.

My mother was weak. She was scared and didn’t know what to do, so she did nothing. The house was unnervingly quiet that final year I lived with them. The oxygen left any room we accidentally found ourselves in together. I felt like I was suffocating, but I knew I would survive. And when I finally left for school, I vowed never to come back.

I would leave that silent house behind and fill my life with noise.

*

I was twenty-four years old when my mother died. I debated whether or not I should go to the funeral even though I already knew I would. By that point, my parents and I had barely spoken in several years, and that was how I wanted it.

My mother phoned once every few months to make sure I was alive and mostly to discuss practical, logistical things. Whenever we neared the end of one of those terse conversations, it always felt like she was on the brink of saying more, but then a prolonged silence would stretch across the line and we would mumble our curt goodbyes. I’d like to think she felt guilty for leaving me to fend for myself all those years when she should’ve been protecting me.

Sometimes when she phoned and another silence fell, I imagined her saying sorry, a crack in her voice, and I would tear up a bit at that phantom admission – that acknowledgment that my life should have been very different. But it never happened. We always hung up the phone and nothing ever changed.

I would go to the funeral because even though I couldn’t quite forgive her for letting me slowly disappear, I couldn’t exactly blame her for having been so scared and weak. I knew that she had loved me in her own small way, and I knew that if my father were a different man, maybe we could’ve even been happy. I would pay my respects and mourn the life we could’ve had.

I brought my boyfriend to the funeral for a mess of reasons that even now I don’t completely understand. Yes, he made me feel safe and strong, and I would need that if I was going to come back home. But part of me just wanted to see what my father would do – if he would yell at me, or hit me, or throw me out. I think a part of me wanted this, anything but another cold, silent stare. And I guess part of me wanted to show him that I was worth something to someone; that I could be loved just as I was. Even then, a corner of my world revolved around the man who’d cast me aside, and I hated myself for still wanting his approval.

I caught him staring at us during the service. He didn’t look at us with scorn or contempt, which surprised me. It was just a vague curiosity, a lopsided look of confusion. His eyes were red and his face was blotchy and it looked like he’d been crying. He seemed different from how I remembered him – smaller, somehow, sad and deflated. It had only been six years since I’d seen or spoken to him, but I could already see new signs of aging – new wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, thinner hair, a paunchier belly. I’d always thought of my father as invincible, but now I saw him for the sorry man he was. He looked wounded, and I almost pitied him, but the remembered silence steeled me.

We didn’t speak to each other that day. No hellos and no goodbyes. When the service was over, I took my boyfriend’s hand and we made our way back out of that small, quiet town.

*

I was thirty years old when I finally heard my father’s voice again. It echoed from the answering machine all around the front hall and I dropped the paper bag of groceries I’d been carrying. I watched a couple of oranges spill out and roll across the floor.

“I would really like to sit down and talk…” I heard him say, but I wasn’t really registering it, “…the past be the past. Marcia’s taught me a lot and God knows I’ve had time to think about it…” the voice still calm and steady, “…just asking you to consider it. Okay, goodbye.”

My boyfriend (the same boyfriend), came in behind me and asked if I was okay, and all I could say was, “I don’t know.”

My father must have found my number strewn among my mom’s old things. I wondered how hard he’d looked for it. I wondered what he would’ve done if the number had changed or if I had moved.

I knew he knew my address too. I received a letter in the mail a couple of weeks before, which I found so strange and old fashioned, but I realized he probably didn’t know my email address. I couldn’t recognize his handwriting, but I guess I never really knew it that well in the first place. Maybe it had changed, maybe it hadn’t. It felt like I’d gotten a letter from a stranger.

In the letter, he told me all about how different he was. He’d apparently met a woman who helped him realize the world was a bigger place than he thought it was; a woman who challenged him and broadened his horizons – who opened his eyes to see things in new ways.

He wrote about how when my mom died, it really hit him hard, and he went through a period of deep depression. Somewhere in that misery, he understood that being so hard all the time wasn’t doing him any good. He started going to a support group and that’s where he met the woman who changed his life. And now that he was changed, he thought it would be a shame if he didn’t at least try to patch things up with me. There wasn’t an apology, exactly, but underneath his messy script, I could sense some kind of regret.

I remember reading that letter at the kitchen table and sobbing, which made me feel stupid and childish. I hated that something as insubstantial as a few sheets of paper could have such an effect on me, and I realized that my father towered over me, even still, and cast a shadow over everything.

I kept that letter in my coat pocket for a week before tearing it up and tossing it into the trash on my way home from work. He’d written down his number, but I would not be calling. I had nothing to say, and I was angry that it had taken my mother’s death and some woman I’d never met to make him realize what he should have known all along; that he was wrong.

Now, I picked up the oranges and deleted his message from the answering machine.

“Who was that?” my boyfriend asked, rubbing my shoulders.

“No one,” I replied.

*

We met up with our friends at The Riagio that night. It was a drag bar on the east end where our friend Tony performed almost every week. I was growing out of the excitement of wild weekends and I’d come to prefer staying in on Saturday nights, cozying up with a glass of wine and watching trash TV, but Tony said he had a special performance planned and he’d love it if we came to see it, so we went.

We got there at 11:45, a little earlier than his midnight showtime, and the night was already well under way. Pop music blared from the speakers over the buzz of a hundred conversations. We bought a couple of drinks and stood in the busying crowd.

Finally, Tony came out on stage, the spotlights turning to hit him. The music faded, the crowd hushed, and he smiled.

“Tonight is a very special night,” he said to mild applause, “We have a very special guest who came a long way to be with us tonight. Please give a warm welcome to Mama Love.”

The crowd cheered. I heard the opening chords of Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” start to play, and I saw a burly figure walk hesitantly on stage wearing a full face of makeup, a wig piled into an updo, and an ill-fitting sequined dress.

He turned to face the light and I realized it was my father.

My heart stopped. I didn’t know whether I should laugh, or cry, so I ended up doing a little bit of both. He looked completely ridiculous, but he committed to mouthing the words, even though he was clearly out of his element. I knew he couldn’t see me in the crowd, lost beyond the stage light, but I could tell that he was searching.

Something in me opened up, and I found myself wondering about how strange life was - how it only took such small moments for the trajectories of our lives to completely shift. I thought about forgiveness.

The crowd started drunkenly singing along and I cried openly.

My boyfriend, alarmed, turned to me and asked if I was okay.

“What?” I asked over the noise of the crowd.

I could barely hear him; it was so loud.