Moments of Perihelion

I sit on my bed, kicking my feet a foot above the floor. My wet braids on my shoulders dampen my favorite pajamas (the ones with the ruffles). My father flips the switch. With the shades drawn tight and the lights off, my room is dark and large, a cave I am unused to. I can’t stop the nervous giggle I’m slowly learning other people don’t have.

My mom turns on the flashlight, its cocoon surrounding the three of us, pushing back the darkness. Dad holds up the red bounce ball he brought in from outside, an interloper indoors we normally keep from intruding.

He spins it round until the x he drew is centered in the flashlight’s beam. “This is us,” he says, as he slowly turns the ball in his hands, until the x is on the other side, in the dark. “When it’s night, our house is far from the sun, the flashlight.” He goes on awhile, moving the ball around the flashlight in my mom’s hand, throwing out big words I love so much, tilting the earth so the x is further from the sun, no matter which side is in “daylight.” I kick my feet.

I feel his breath on my face, my mother’s breathing loud on my other side, kneeling in the dark of my room. I have never had their attention like this. I can’t remember ever being alone in a room with them. I am listening for the sound of my sisters or my brother crying outside the door.

I’m trying to think of more questions, to keep them interested. Trying to find a way to keep them here with me in the dark, in the quiet, this little space I didn’t know existed.

In the dark, in the quiet, after I’ve been put to bed, Mom downstairs washing dishes or watching something in the living room, in a different world from me. I can hear it, “…these are the voyages…” coming from my parents’ room. If I can be silent enough and wait just long enough for my sister, next to me, to fall asleep, I can sneak down the hall and lay next to his bed. Laying in that room I can pretend it’s just the two of us, watching this show we love. When he laughs I pretend that he turns to me and gives me a nudge, the way I’ve seen TV dads do.

I’m old enough to know this isn’t normal, that other kids have relationships with their dads that aren’t contingent on sneaking around and not actually getting their father’s attention. If he does notice me, it’s back to bed, with enough yelling that the whole house will wake again.

It’s dangerous, to steal these moments. My mother sometimes changes her routine and comes up before the show is over, or my dad will hear me laugh or sigh (oh, Wil Wheaton!), and then all hell would break loose. But it was worth it, the only time I could feed on this faux-attention that would sustain me for another week of folding up into the woodwork, of being a joke at school and invisible at home.

The house is quiet, my father in his dark basement office, me in my room, “sick.” I think my dad knows I’ve just reached a limit. I know that if I “don’t feel well” I can be home by myself all day, not needing to talk to anyone or explain myself. I have some strange understanding that my dad approves of this, knows I’m not really sick, knows this feeling himself. I don’t know how I am so sure of this.

I hear him grab his keys and call up to ask if I’m feeling any better, if I’d like to go for a ride to pick up something he left at work. I’m downstairs before he finishes.

In the car, going 80, faster than I can remember, he switches on some horrid man who yells about women. I hope I never grow up to be a woman; Dad is so very angry about it. I want to turn it off and ask him about other things. I want the man to stop yelling and for the car to slow down so we can have more time in it. But I can’t think of anything interesting to ask, not with the man’s voice and the dawning realization I won’t grow up to be my dad. We just keep hurtling forward, not looking at each other, silent as the noise surrounds us.

In the quiet of the dining area, the din of the kitchen through the wall. We were late getting out the door, 6:30 instead of the 6 my Dad had hoped for. Traffic will be a killer, but we’ve stopped at the little hole-in-the-wall restaurant — 10 tables and yellowed wallpaper from generations of smoke on the wall, even though smoking hasn’t been allowed for years. Across from me, he tries to flag the waitress for another cup of coffee. His curly hair gone from chemo, his face puffy, that weird beard I will never like. He won’t meet my eyes. I’ve been trying to get his attention, to get him to look at me.

This place, this table, this awful coffee is my favorite part of my trips home — an hour or so when I can try to catch his eye. He’s trying so hard to give me time, but I’m really just not his cup of tea. He doesn’t know how much longer he doesn’t have as we sit here in the tiny diner we would get cheap eggs from on our way back into Boston. I love these moments. I don’t know what we talk about. It was never about the subject.

I have never been able to reclaim that first instance of perigee. The most important person in my little world, giving me undivided attention for even those few minutes. I have sought out these cozy places in the dark, but there’s no returning to the few stolen moments from two people with four kids and interests and vices of their own, trying to interest their eldest in science.

My father died before he really knew me. He was proud of me, he told the nurses at the cancer center about my plans and accomplishments. He had pictures of me on his wall and talked about traveling to see me, but that time never came. We never got beyond the surface level.

I wonder if the time I craved actually came, and I have just forgotten. But I can remember so well the times he would laugh at my jokes and how special they seemed, how rare. I remember how these moments when we were close seemed magical.

I wonder what it’s like for my kids growing up knowing their parents choose to sit next to them, to show them their favorite shows (TNG every Saturday), to stay sober and play board games, or putter with them in the garden. My father’s distance made these things so much more important when we began to dole out our time after the babies arrived.

My kids know they are my favorite. Each one. Favorite isn’t about “best” out of the two of them, favorite is about them each being in my orbit and proving it, time after time. I have other things I care about, other responsibilities, but they know they count first when they need to. And I’ll always look in their eyes and pull them close.

This story was originally published on Medium.com.