Round-Trip Tickets

A flight arrived ten minutes ago. I was curbside in my car, waiting for my company to arrive. Dad and his wife were coming for a five-day visit. What on earth had I gotten myself into this time? I knew; I just knew it would end badly. It always did. Still, he was my dad, and I always thought there was a glimmer of hope that I would be wrong. I wasn’t. It was just another disaster in a long history of failed attempts to love my dad.

The Party Begins

The sliding doors opened, and out walked my dad and his wife, a tiny little thing from Colombia whom my dad had met when he lived with my mom several years earlier. I’ll tell you that story one day. You’ll have to come back to read it.

I got out of the car and went around to help load the luggage. My dad came over and gave me a hug, and then his wife did the same. We loaded up and were on our way home.

When we arrived at the house, my husband helped carry the couple’s things upstairs.

Resolve

“Okay, I can do this. It’s only five days,” I promised myself. I figured that if I just made a point of not giving in to his baiting for a fight, we could sail through the week and go our separate ways with one nice memory under our belts.

The first couple of days were pleasant. My dad was warm and jovial, and he was quiet most of the time.

She spoke very little English, so it was difficult to translate for my husband, even though we did. Dad did most of the legwork, and I filled in any gaps. Dad’s wife tried to speak what little she could with my husband, even though the accent and the struggle to make our complicated language work with her Latin tongue made it difficult.

It is difficult for foreigners to learn our language, so this was somewhat expected. Although she lived here in the States for many years, she never learned it well enough to speak it with confidence. But we muddled through.

Pleasantries

We spent the first three days taking them around the sites in the town where we lived. We went to the city a few times to take in the sights as well. But there was really not much to show two people who knew places far grander than these small Midwest plains.

They lived in Miami, and before that, in other large cosmopolitan cities. Of course, they both came from other countries, so there was that as well. It seemed boring to me at times, too. I grew up in cities like Palm Beach, New York, Denver, and Dallas, so where we were then felt like the boonies. It was quiet and peaceful, though; a laid-back lifestyle with the stresses of city life left behind us.

We liked our little slice of peace, but for them, it must have seemed lackluster.

“Look! Here is a wheat farm.” “Isn’t it pretty how it waves when the breeze hits it?”

And “Oh, look, another wheat field!” “Don’t miss this one; it’s a different wheat farm.” I had to change it up, or it would sound boring. I know, but it is.

Stench of Rotting Fish

Life was slower here. After many years of chaos and tension, I survived with my dad; this was the perfect spot for me. I was far enough away that he could never just pop in, which suited my need for distance. Dad and I were better off farther apart than closer. I’ll tell you why.

Dad had a saying. “Company is like fish.” “After three days, they stink.” Never was this truer than of my father.

Three days were enough to let my guard down, to settle into the false delusion that we could make it through this trip unscathed. Three days were enough for the novelty to wear off for my dad and for his good behavior to dwindle. And that’s when he had to do or say something that always ruined a good thing. It came early in the morning on that third day. The fish had rotted.

Dead Resolve

I was lying in bed with my husband. We had just woken up and were whispering our good mornings to one another. My dad, always an early riser, was not seen having his cup of coffee with his wife, who was enjoying her tea. They were talking in the living room, on the other side of our bedroom door. We slept with the door ajar because we had cats. They slept with us all night but needed their litter box on the back porch, which they accessed through a dog door.

Anyway, I could hear Dad and his wife talking. That’s when it all went to crap. My dad told his wife he wanted to take the calendar with them.

The calendar was a token from my husband’s company. Every year we received this useless thing, and out of homage to my husband and his career, I hung it in the kitchen. We had recently received it, and it lay on the coffee table in the living room.

The next words my dad said to his wife were that he wanted to take this cookbook I had, but he didn’t want to put it in his suitcase because I might search for it and find it.

Now I know what you are thinking. Did she actually search her dad’s suitcase on visits? No, I never did. Not until this very day did I consider that I needed to. But henceforth, I needed to; it seemed.

My mom used to say, “When someone accuses you of something, it is because they themselves are guilty of that thing.” This was never truer than with my dad.

So Dad told his wife this while I was now listening, livid. I thought she would reprimand him. She did not appear untrustworthy, but I was wrong; she went on to tell him she could hide it in her suitcase because I would never dream of searching hers. She was right. Those thoughts never entered my mind until that day.

When that little woman spit out those words, I looked at my husband and gave him a look that made him ask what was wrong. I recounted the conversation, and he was flabbergasted. He didn’t understand why they would try to steal from us. He told me he’d be more than happy to give it to my dad. I wasn’t having any of it.

Calling a Spade a Spade

I got up, put on my robe, and went into the living room, where my dad was sitting. I believed his wife had gone upstairs to do the deed. As I looked him in the eyes, I coldly told him he didn’t have to steal from us. All he had to do was ask. I was not one to say no to a request if I had it to give.

Dad immediately went on the defensive, refuting the accusation. Then I told him I had overheard his conversation. He fell silent. I told him he could have the town items. He again denied trying to take them without my knowledge. I shook my head. Then I told him his wife was never permitted to come back to my home.

I always knew my dad was a snoop and a thief. I never thought it would be me on the receiving end of those acts, but who was I kidding? He was always like this. I tolerated it because he was my dad. I tolerated a lot from him over the years. But from her? No.

She was a stranger in my home and chose to be deviant and deceitful to my face. Even after my dad had told her what happened, she came to me on the side and said she would never say such a thing, suggesting stealing from his own daughter. She was a liar, too.

Beginning of the End

I had my dad visit a couple more times over the years, two more to be exact. Once in that same house and once when we moved closer to the city for our son’s activities. Each time, it was a disaster.

The family moments ended two days later, when I left them at the airport curb. I never trusted them again. When my dad came for subsequent visits, I locked everything of value in our safe and left nothing I could not spare in plain sight. Thank goodness for round-trip tickets. The visit was over; the fish had been taken out with the trash.

I was a glutton for punishment. It took me too long to accept that my dad was unredeemable in his deceit. He never stopped lying or hurting me. Not until I stopped letting him.

I’ll share those stories with you as I find the courage to write them. Some are unbelievable even to me, and I lived them.

(Published by Quirky Rants on Medium, August 2026)

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