I feel the vibration in my hand as i slide it open. Area code: 323…but no name. Who might this be? is all I could think. You see I never really expect that area code because back home, there is no one who might call. There is no one who can be called family. Because a family is one who cares, who at the minimum shows interest in you and you whereabouts. One who just doesn’t call your mother when they need her financially or because there are problems.
Being cautious…I text back asking “who is this?” but seconds later I get another call..same number. I answer waiting attentively for that voice. That familiar yet unknown voice from home.
It’s him. Shocker. How long has it been? I think to myself. His voice is so….so….impenitent , so “as a matter of fact it’s your birthday today so I’d thought I just might call you today. You’re not going to believe that I just found your number this morning. Pity. This morning? Coincidence? Questionable.
One call. Lasts 135 seconds. Nothing said but a “happy birthday”. Not knowing that those words, those words mean little to me now, because happy does not manage to fit in the context of those 24 hours. Not knowing that all these years he has cut me, bruised me, played with my mind. These mind games that I can no longer take. Either he paints the picture or he continues erasing because I can no longer take an unfinished product with unclear messages and unfinished thoughts.
I am no longer a puppet willing to play his games for his security and his pride to lean on when he needs that sense of reassurance. He can no longer come back every time he needs to feel he has a daughter. A daughter is not someone you just call on her birthday when you JUST found her phone number, that morning. She is not just one you come to when you need money to get out of jail. She is not one you try to convince to tell her mother to stop child support. She is not one you just give a hug to and expect her to surrender to it. She is not one you should expect to keep quiet. To not say the truth. To not question your actions. And to expect your silence in return. And your wandering gaze that pretends to know where it is looking.
A look that follows that comfortable spot on the floor, the corner of table, an empty, cold wall. Whose direction brings a slump to the shoulders, neck and head. And whose meaning is more than any words can explain. Pity.
The number is unfamiliar. It changes. But then it doesn’t. it always comes from that same familiar place. That number changes so much, like you. They say a leopard can’t change its spots, but you, you change without notice. So insecure. So unexpected but expected. Expected from a person who shows no stability. Who has no knowledge of what having a daughter means. Who has no interests in knowing the value of a daughter.
They say I must not judge a parent. But you, what title can I put upon your name when you cannot stand up to the word father. When you think you can just come on father’s day and claim that position? When you think it’s that easy so receive something, tangible or not, from a person that is merely a biological trace of your existence? It’s not. It’s not easy. You cannot claim to be a father when the womyn you loved, if you did, has done all the work, and alone, she stays. You cannot claim to be a father when you showed no respect to the womyn you loved, if you did, and didn’t officially meet your daughter until she was the age of 5? 5? What is wrong with this picture?
So a phone call on the morning of her 20th birthday not only spoils the rest of her day but it reminds her of the constant physical and emotional struggle her mother, the womyn you loved, if you did, goes through every day of her life to care for her daughter, something you never did.
Those 135 seconds of brief, indifferent, pitiful dialogue a are mere reflection of the time you are willing to spend on her and her whereabouts, when you don’t even know where she is on that day?
That one call is enough proof of your insecurity, and selfishness that you have displayed all these years. These games are just calls. Calls that disappear in the airwaves of technology and that to the rest of the world mean nothing. ..
