I never imagined I would be in this position. It’s Saturday night, and I’m sitting on the living room couch in the house I grew up in, watching TV with my father. It’s only my second week back, but already it feels longer than the seven years I had been living on my own.
This house hasn’t changed much since I last lived here. But somehow it doesn’t feel like home anymore, and I would be telling the truth if I said I wasn’t sure it ever did. When I first walked into my old bedroom, I couldn’t even manage an acceptable amount of nostalgia—I just felt somewhat trapped. Either I’m the kind of person who doesn’t look back or my childhood just wasn’t good enough to revisit. Or both.
If I tried hard enough, though, I’d be able to remember happier moments spent with my father. I’d see Dad and my four-year-old self experimenting with bugs in the backyard despite Mom’s protests about our making a mess. I’d see Dad teasing me that the portrait I drew of our mutt, Terrence, looked more like Mickey Mouse… then I’d see him tacking that same drawing to the front of the fridge with an airplane-shaped magnet anyway. I’d see Dad reluctantly turning away from the basketball game on TV to listen my blow-by-blow account of my first day in Grade Three.
All those memories, however, came from the years before he took that job in an overseas steel company. All those moments happened before the awkwardness and the failed attempts at conversation, which filled the minutes we spent together every time he came home for a visit, showed us again and again how physical distance could make strangers out of a father and his only son.
I suppose I was partly to blame for our strained relationship. I resented him for leaving us, never completely understanding why he had to go to Jeddah when he had a perfectly good job as a mechanical engineer right here. Our house may have been smaller then, but it was comfortable enough for the three of us. And I’m quite certain I wouldn’t have minded not having new sneakers every three months if it meant having Dad home for longer than a few weeks a year.
"Please be reasonable, Paolo. Your dad just wants the best possible life for us," I remember Mom saying when I refused to go with them to the airport the first time he left when I was ten. From my bedroom window I watched him load his luggage into the waiting taxi. He looked miserable—yet he still left.
"My father was never around, too. That’s how men are conditioned by society," my ex-boyfriend Jeremy once said a couple of years ago when we got to talking about our childhood. "To be a good provider is the most important thing, leave the actual parenting to your wives," he continued comically in a mock authoritative voice. That was what I envied the most about Jeremy. He could be so easygoing and sometimes downright flippant about things, while I always got worked up over the tiniest details.
I was seventeen by the time Dad returned home for good, too far into my surly teenage years to even want to attempt bridging the chasm that had formed between us. To his credit, Dad had always just let me be. He took my moodiness in stride. He didn’t bat an eyelash when I decided to go grunge and grow my hair long during my first year in Adamson. His expression was unreadable when I announced to him and Mom that I was gay. While Mom never had reservations about sticking her nose into every aspect of my life, when it came to me Dad usually kept his opinions to himself. Did he think he forfeited any say in my life by hardly ever being around to see me grow up?
It wasn’t too long after college that I found a job as a copywriter at an advertising agency. (My dream to become an artist never did get realized—there was probably more truth to Dad’s Mickey Mouse comment than I was willing to admit.) The salary was high enough to cover the rent of a tiny box of an apartment, so I was out of the house within a couple of months.
But my mom succumbed to cancer three weeks ago, and because decent-enough sons don’t let their sixty-year-old fathers live by themselves in an empty house, no matter how awkward things are between them, I moved back in with Dad. Even though I’m a twenty-nine-year-old single guy who’s very accustomed to having his own space, it felt like the right thing to do. Maybe it was self-righteous of me, but I just didn’t think I could handle the guilt of leaving Dad by himself when there was more than enough space in the house for both of us. While hypertension and rheumatism are common signs of aging, they came a little sooner for Dad than for most. Maybe it was those years of all work and no play taking its toll on his health.
Now here we are, quietly drinking beers on either ends of the couch. On the screen a bald, muscle-bound action star is firing an M-16 while zooming down the highway on a motorcycle.
"So what are you doing, spending time with your old man on a Saturday night? No hot date?" Dad teases during a rare stretch of quiet in the otherwise noisy movie. How the phrase "hot date" found its way into my father’s vocabulary is beyond me.
"I’m gay, Dad. Remember?" I say almost crankily, not in the mood to get into that particular topic, but never one to back down from a challenge. I recall how Mom cried the first time I told them I was gay. True to form, Dad hadn’t said anything, not when I came out to them, not at any time during the years that followed. I have never known how he felt about my homosexuality before, but it looks like I’m about to find out.
"Of course I do!" he scoffs right back at me. "What? Gay men can’t have hot dates? What’s the point of being gay then?" His voice still has that teasing lilt to it, albeit tempered with a pinch of annoyance now. It’s at this point that I gape at him, trying to decipher his mood and not knowing how to reply.
He sees the disbelief on my face and lets out a low chuckle. "Lighten up, Paolo! Having a little sense of humor won’t kill you," he says and I have to wonder how it can sound at once both lighthearted and stern—a joke and a reprimand in one. He takes a little swig of beer, and once I regain function of my slackened jaw I do the same.
"You’re missing out on a lot, you know. There’s a reason women are called the fairer sex," he says and his wiggling eyebrows lets me know he’s still teasing. This is by far the weirdest exchange I’ve shared with my father. I give the bottle in my hand a contemplative look. It must be very good beer for him to be in this playful a mood—or has he always been a joker?
"Well, more for the rest of us, huh?" he adds when I fail to offer any kind of response. He’s chuckling again, and I can’t help but join in this time. But my laughter must have sounded half-assed, because he suddenly stops and throws me a disapproving glance. He sighs.
"Look, you didn’t have to move back in with me," he says quietly. Gruff yet gentle—I will never know how he manages to pull off that tone. I quickly grab the remote control off the coffee table and press the mute button. This can get ugly.
"Dad, we’ve been through this a dozen times. You’re not exactly in tip-top shape. Besides, I promised Mom…" I begin to say in a flat, exasperated voice the same speech I deliver every time we end up having this conversation.
"Your mother is a worrywart," Dad interrupts brusquely, but his mournful eyes belie the curtness of his retort. I know he misses Mom even more than I do.
"Was a worrywart." I whisper and smile sadly, not daring to meet Dad’s gaze. Getting all weepy in front of my father is much too far beyond my comfort zone. We’re quiet for the next several minutes, both staring unseeingly at the TV screen. Just as I’m about to pick up the remote control to put the volume back on, Dad starts to speak in a far-off voice, eyes still glued to the movie playing soundlessly in front of us.
"I had a dream about your mom last night," he says in the same mildly detached tone he would probably use if we were talking about the telephone bill or something. I have a feeling he’s trying not to lose his composure, too.
"She was knitting a long blue scarf, and then I teased her about it being useless here in the Philippines. She scowled at me and said that if we were ever to vacation anywhere with cold weather, I’d thank her." He pauses then mimics, complete with the raised eyebrow and the wagging forefinger, Mom’s signature move, "You wouldn’t want to catch pneumonia, would you?" We burst out laughing. Nobody can question the authenticity of my laughter this time.
"Your mother, always the worrier. Even in my dreams," he quips after the noise finally dies down. We share a small grin.
Just when I start to think our odd conversation has reached its end, he asks, "Did you know that your mom never remembers her dreams, whereas I always do?"
"Hmm. Then I guess I take after your side of the family," I respond, missing only a beat or two. He looks almost surprised that I actually answered. Silence again. It’s not quite as awkward this time, though. I feel like we both need a few moments to digest this strange, somewhat uncomfortable but not wholly unpleasant encounter. I finally put the volume back on, though I can’t really imagine how we can still follow the movie after missing so much of it.
As my mind starts to wander, I remember this particular recurring dream I’ve had in the past. I think I was about twenty when it first appeared. I’ve only had it a few times over the last several years, but the dream was striking enough to be memorable. It would always be set in a wide, open space, sometimes an empty parking lot, often a grassy clearing. It would start with me and Dad facing each other, perhaps two meters apart. He’d take a few tentative steps back then stop and call out to me. I’d stare stonily at him then start walking backwards, gradually picking up speed. I would keep backing away even after his figure dissolves into the horizon. Suddenly my back would hit something, causing my steps to falter. Once I turn around, I’d find my father’s face staring back at me. There’d usually be variations in the middle of the dream, but it would end the same way every single time. I would always be surprised and he would always look delighted to see me. More often than not, at that point in the dream I’d wake up tired and confused.
I snap out of my semi-reverie when the movie’s credits start to roll in tune with the opening bars of a fast rock song.
"Here." I nudge the remote control toward Dad’s end of the couch before getting up and stretching my legs a little. "I think there’s a Jim Carrey movie showing right about now on one of the other channels," I say while collecting the two empty beer bottles on the coffee table. I head to the kitchen and drop the bottles into a trash bin. Dad must’ve heard me rummaging through the fridge for more drinks, because he suddenly pipes up over the din of the TV.
"Get me some chips!" Dad calls out as he flips through the remote, finally settling on another movie channel. I smile wryly, shaking my head. With the beer in one hand, I grab a large bag of corn chips with the other and amble back to the living room.
"I haven’t seen this one before," Dad shares, as I settle back into the sofa. On the screen Jim Carrey is making strange faces at that blond girl who played Bridget Jones.
"Yeah, me neither," I reply, passing him the newly-opened bag of junk food, which he eagerly accepts.
Dad and I had stopped being father and son a long time ago, but I’m beginning to think that we can somehow become friends. After all even friends must have first been strangers.
