Cordelia
was saying what she was always good enough to say: It’s not your fault. It couldn’t have been. He’s an adult. I called the house and spoke to this aunt of mine, whose voice I didn’t recognize too well. I have stilted memories of visiting her home, the chairs with the woven backs and a cat I used to chase around; in between stutters I tried to imagine my dad there, and then transplanted from there to a hospital room. The image stuck fast in my mind, and brought with it a fresh burst of nerves. I bit out a promise to my aunt that I’d call back, that I’d speak to him. That I wanted to know how he was. Later my mother said she spoke with my aunt too, and that he’d be just fine. From there it’s anyone’s guess what I did with the sticky note upon which I had written his phone number, because I sure as hell don’t know where it went. I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to know how he was, but there’s a dishonesty too, in letting these things be lost. I didn’t look for it too hard, and I didn’t call back. And I haven’t tried to call since, which makes it about five-odd years since we’ve spoken. I think about him often still. I think about how I don’t have the grace to soften the sting of not missing him, and likewise I don’t have the guts. The silence between my father and me carries within its corridors a sound of its own now, a glacier cracking from the bottom. Its purpose is righteous at every turn, justifiable from every mouth, but I don’t know how to let it be. I want to think about him, because the alternative culls a chill from my skin harsher than that cracking glacier. As if he could disappear if I don’t give him leave to linger. I give the memory of him space to breathe in, and little else. Sometimes guilt grips me like a panic attack, and I don’t know if it’s mine. When that happens, I sit and try to think about how sweet it is, being one person in seven billion. The statistical impossibility of being the sorriest person in the world, for this and every other wrong—it’s warm. It’s comfort enough to sleep and dream on.
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