Falsehood

Sometimes I watch rivulets of raindrops drag along the glass pane and twirl my pale brown fingers along the cold glass, following. They’re skeletal almost. Tired now. Maybe the food was meant to do good. I did not touch it, except for the corner of the plate. The bouquet of roses on the table perforates my vision of the shared, familiar nose.

“Always hope you're doing well.”

A falsehood. The quick movement of the chair, a contrived hand and an exclamation.

The innocent victim is marked. On the table, the shaken-out, spotted, corner-bent pages slump as an arduously slung black strap snaps in frustration. Pages, further loosened, dunk into the fore, sink. These days, my head reaches above my father’s bent frame. I don’t know how to look up till he takes his leave.

The soft cream paper against numb fingers is a comfort, familiar, the one edge not stained by the spilt drink. I make for a quick rescue. Once home I can maybe stand the noble spine upright and place it in front of the dust-covered fan in my bedroom. Or lie it backwards along that very spine, perhaps? Its head swivels to a familiar motion, old gears groaning with each turn. I really should have had a look at that a long time ago. I really should head home.

I use the bulk of napkins to swaddle the child of my imagination: my loss, my personal derivatives of identity written in smudged black ink on the front page, marking twenty dollars for all that I am, all that my ideas are worth, all that will surely be another’s – a $20 reward for any soul who may retrieve this little black beauty if lost.

I’m hollow. I’m hollow inside most days, or maybe not as apt. Not as eloquent as I once was in the younger years I now imagine. The feigned confidence, the shine of lustrous hair, an unforgettable face and a mind to wound, the most prolifically academic mind in my school year. I recall the truth – I don't think that was ever me. I spent far longer in my imagination and worse, far longer in my nostalgia imagining the past, the past of what could have been if I had done such and such differently. It’s okay, I know I’m not her.

Convincing yourself takes compassion, energy. Where is home? Why is it that growth can leave me so lonely?

I can feel the liquid drip, first hot and then cold, along my tired wrist. My skin jumps back on reflex, I move forward with intent. A puzzling future awaits most. I know this, just as you likely do. But at that moment of extinguished hope, I wonder. I wonder between quick, hard breaths, harsh on lungs masked as operational. I wonder why I can't breathe.

Maybe I should have swallowed down the rebuke, held off my pride. Just asked him. How could it be that he ever thought of me? Thought to give me this now?

Hoping another “well” while taking your leave is perhaps a necessity for growth. It’s even reminiscent of each school year since elementary where I had to say goodbye to the cubby marked with my name in peeling masking tape. The third piece of tape I had scribbled onto in childish penmanship that year. That teacher, who may or may not have nurtured me; that friend with the pigtails or too-short cropped hair, the result of a zealous parent's failed D.I.Y., long before cellphones; that cute someone who had been a bit of a crush; bittersweet memories like the reddened marks on sweaty palms from my last ride (or rather, skid) down the playground slide. They are fragments of beauty and tortured growth.

What feels the most familiar, I realize in time when my body outgrows it, is that old slide against widened hips or the jarring landing once my feet hit the ground. It’s the weirdest moment of whiplash even though I thought I knew what was coming. Bounce back? Why, it's more of a bounce forward, nearly faceplanting onto the woodchips and dirt. Those fragments seem known, yet as I walk through those spaces, a new coat of paint is applied. When someone older had exclaimed how things had been before, or told me a snippet of a story, of history, well, now I become it too. A maker of a story, my truth. Not a falsehood, but certainly shaped by particular perspectives.

Why am I always getting lost in thought? The much-loved, soaked swaddle has possibly my last few good ideas. Ever. Not just the record of what me convincing myself to eat two nights prior. It does not matter that the stranger, though biologically familiar, presents himself now.

I pray, I pray that the ink on these pages do not become too murky to tell apart; that the soft embrace of its skin in my palms, against my chest, does not change; morph beyond the wet bend of wavy pages.

$20,000 is the bid for my loyalty, for the callousness of a father who does not mind steal the property of his wife. An absent entity amidst those childhood memories and the bullies that knew that little to no repercussion would await them. It took me a long time to even tell my overworked mother.

This is my inheritance. I keep some of myself concealed in the back pocket of the notebook: the worn photograph, a dimpled smile. Feeling for them, luckily I breathe out, they remain inside. Intact.

$20,000 is the penance of my mother's husband. Children are expensive, each crinkled bill measures of my youth without him. I do not want it. I don't know entirely all that I want, but I know it will still be lonely. His presence fleeting even in the same room.

I am left disavowed, a daughter disbelieving with a guarded sense of self. Why do fathers betray their daughters? When they think there is nothing worthy about them, nothing left to protect. Not enough to protect.

I may carry my falsehoods for a long time. But the couple thousand helps. It’s the only thing on the table not drenched apart from the aged scrap of memory. I am make-believe to him, but I am still very real. I heave out a few more breaths, eyes watering at the corners. I press a hand to my lips to quiet the sound of expelling lungs, lest the concerned waitress approach. We share our humanity in doses and softening eyes.

I lost my father in between meals. Once at age six, and twice today. Mother has passed now and she cannot comfort me. It's a falsehood that they return. They never stay. He didn't and I am as I am to this day. He didn't, but I am still here. I wish him well too. It's almost like it never happened.

When the pages dry, I will write in it again. Pale brown fingers to the soft skin, resilient. Holding despite … holding in the way I wish he chose to when he first remembered he has a little girl.