A List of Gifts I Have Received
By Rory Perkins
1. From my mother
A photo album the day she almost told me why my father left. A way to feel like I knew the whole story, while saving me from the parts I was too young to handle. The parts that came to me from other sources only years later, when cousins and uncles assumed I knew, apologizing when they realized I didn’t, as if I hadn’t wanted to know. As if I didn’t spend every moment trying to unpick those parts of myself that I cannot explain and must therefore come from him.
A new identity to give people when they asked about my childhood, although to me none of it rang true. At school people found out, as teenagers are prone to do, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t fight back when they called me unloved. Instead, I thought of all the ways that their own fathers had probably messed them up. Convincing myself that the threat of absence was worse than the real thing.
Nights while she was at work and I could study the man that kept appearing in the photo album. The pictures themselves, which were taken through windows and around doors, like he was an animal in the wild, too dangerous, or too skittish to approach. I searched his face, which looked heavy, so unlike the paleness of my own, for signs of the man my mother had told me about. The man who had not been able to commit to a single woman, but swore he loved them all the same. The man who could go from crying to shouting in a matter of seconds and hadn’t even stayed for the birth.
An explanation when girlfriends asked why I could never settle, why I never seemed truly happy. It is him I would tell myself, as if my father resided in me somewhere, the conductor of whatever life I had failed to build. Even when they told me it was just an excuse and I started to believe them, I couldn’t help wondering what darkness, what anger, was laying dormant, waiting for the right moment to come out.
A shopping list of unanswered questions when I met him for the first time. Questions about the veracity of Mom’s stories and whether I could pin the source of my anger on him. Questions about his life, and all the experiences that had been taken from me. Whether playing catch was just something out of the movies or the reason I had never gotten into football.
The urge to flinch when he reached out to shake my hand, preempting the violence I had inferred from Mom’s anecdotes. Disappointment when he smiled, proving himself in that moment undeserving of every resentment that had been festering in my mind.
A sense that I was betraying her trust as I walked around the block with my father, talking about everything and nothing - exams and hobbies and everything I had assumed was uninteresting.
Gratitude that I had disproved the existence of the man she had described. The ability to say goodbye without asking a hundred awkward questions, to shake his hand again and not squeeze down until the bones broke.
2. From my father
My life.
THE END
Author Bio: Rory is a British writer focusing on shorter works. He has been published in Vast Literary Press, SoFloPoJo, Passengers Journal, and Artam's The Face Project (forthcoming).