Someday I'll See You, Too

I invited him because of the chocolate cake.

Or, at least, to see if he’d still bake it, now that he’s left us.

Or maybe just to show him what it feels like to think you’re loved, only to find that you’re used.

He’s brought the cake, my father. And now he’s standing in the corner looking at his sixteen-year-old daughter and her friends and her friends’ parents and also the wife who kicked him out two months ago because he had sex with another woman.

I’m fairly certain that no one’s said a word to him other than, “Oh good, you brought the cake,” because everyone knows what he’s done. So I think he’s realized at this point that it was the cake I wanted, not him. Just to verify, I look over at him and tell him with my eyes, You’ve had your use. What are you still doing here?

He comes over to kiss my forehead and wish me a sweet sixteen, and I tell him to bring home a piece of the cake. Not because he deserves to eat it but because I’ve learned the art of spite quite well, and I’m fairly certain that piece of cake will remind him just how much no one talked to him. He cuts a slice and puts it on a paper plate and leaves.

Of course, I hate him for my own sake, but really I’m doing this for my mother. Now that he doesn’t love her anymore, she’s lost her power to hurt him. I, on the other hand, hold the unalterable title of offspring, which, to my father’s credit, means he loves me. It also means that I can dole out retributive justice on my mother’s behalf.

Except that, after the party, my mother does this thing where she asks me, “Why were you so mean to your father? You barely even spoke to him.” And then I do this thing where I stare at her, dumbfounded, and ask, “Why weren’t you meaner?”

In fact, I’d like to give her permission to punch him in the face.

But she just shakes her head. “Oh, love,” her voice chokes. “Oh, love, don’t lose him because of me.” She’s pushed her cheeks up toward her eyes as far as they’ll go, trying to keep the tears from coming out. They come out anyway. She brushes them away with the backs of her hands, but they come too fast for her to keep up.

“Mom,” I moan. “It’s not because of you that I’m losing Dad. It’s because of him. Just like it’s because of him that he cheated, not because of you. You have to stop blaming yourself and ask who hurt who.”

“Oh, love,” she says again, still wiping her tears. “You have so much to learn.”

Which is really not the thing to say to an overconfident sixteen-year-old, but for some reason I realize right now that I am an overconfident sixteen-year-old and that actually she’s probably right that I’m completely naïve, and also my mother is sobbing in front of me right now, so I bite my tongue.

Instead, I ask a question. “What do you want right now, Mom?”

Which is how I end up knocking on Dad’s apartment door for the first time. He’s living in a building designed to house unfaithful husbands, the kind where there are big, metal knockers on flimsy doors with peeling paint, and you can tell that no one ever lives there for long. When I get to Dad’s peeling door, I pull back the knocker and let it fall, hard. The door opens before I can knock again, and there he is, and there it is. My dad and his apartment.

“Come in, come in,” he ushers. “It’s not really anything. I’m not going to stay here long, you know.”

My eyes trace over the almost-empty rooms. A small kitchen table, as battered as the front door. A red love seat and a mustard couch. Three floor lamps. The kitchen is the only place that seems full, bowls and whisks cluttering the counter, drips of food splattered on the cabinets, a perfect dusting of flour on the floor. And then I realize that it’s the residue of cake-baking. The bowls are lined with batter. The food splatter is whipped cream frosting. The flour is from lining the cake pan.

“Have you honestly not cleaned up for five days?” I scowl, turning away from the mess. I give him those eyes again, like he’s a used Kleenex.

“Josie, can we please –” he interrupts himself, dragging a hand down his face. “Can we please just be together? Not fight or sass?”

I make myself remember why I came in the first place, make myself replay Mom asking me to please see him and love him so she can tell herself that I didn’t lose him for her sake. And when I make myself do this, I also let myself see how tired he looks. His rumpled hair, the sag in his eyelids, the way he seems to barely pick up his feet when he walks.

“Yeah, Dad,” I agree reluctantly. “We can just talk.”

I sit down on the red love seat, and he sits on the mustard couch, and we make awkward eye contact. I want to look away, but instead I remind myself of all the soccer games he’s come to, all the dinner’s he’s cooked. All the times he’s laughed at my jokes when Mom just rolled her eyes. And I keep looking at him, looking until he breaks the silence.

“Josie, I hope you know I’m really proud of you.” The words come out strained. “The way you’re taking care of your mom right now. I just want you to know that I’ve noticed, that I see you, what a wonderful woman you’re becoming.”

Which is exactly the wrong thing to say to your daughter when you’re the reason her mother needs taking care of in the first place. But, for my mother’s sake, I bite my tongue.

Instead, I ask a question. “Where are you going to move next?”

“Oh.” He has to reorient himself from the heart-to-heart that he was trying to have. “Well, I don’t really know, honey.”

“But not here.” I say.

“Right. Not here.”

“I mean, are you moving in with that woman?” I ask, trying to make it sound curious instead of mean.

“Oh, honey, no. No, I’m not going to see her again.”

“Wait, what?” My chest feels tight, my face hot. “You blew up our family, and you’re not even going to see her again?” Which are not the words I was expecting to come out of my mouth, but now they seem like a perfect indictment of my father's failings.

“So betraying Mom was just a little side gig? Just something to do when you were bored?” I’m standing now, fists clenched. “Like one of your dumb, fancy beers, something nice to take off the edge, then throw away?”

I storm into his kitchen, stomping through the mess. “I bet your fridge is stocked with those stupid beers,” I accuse. I rip open the door of the fridge, ready to show him the stockpiled evidence of his sins. “See!” I shout.

But I don’t see. The beers aren’t there, and my chest is heaving, and Dad is still silent on the couch. In fact, there isn’t anything there. Nothing except that slice of chocolate cake, six days old and draped with plastic wrap.

And my anger, billowing and righteous, recoils into the pit of my stomach.

“Dad,” I whisper. “Dad, what?” The truth of it is sinking in, the disaster in his kitchen and the emptiness in his fridge. His gaunt frame. His pleading voice and eyes. The fact that the only thing he’s cooked in a week was that cake.

He’s got his hand over his face again. “How can I even explain to you?” he chokes. His eyes look so glassy, so worn.

“I don’t know, Dad,” I murmur back. “But maybe you should try.”

So I bring two forks and the stale piece of cake, and he tries to explain about the differences between love and friendship and sex, and also how they’re all the same, and how he and my mother did the first two but not the last, and how he’s lost his best friend. And I don’t understand, not really. But I try, and he tries, and I tell him that next week, I’ll bring the cake.