comedy and drama

Last night, Andrew looked at me, briefly, out of the corner of his eye.

“You want me to leave.”

I didn’t nod but I didn’t shake my head either.

My boyfriend gentle man with periods of violence. Not real violence, the emotional kind. His feelings kick the shit out of him. He’s tall, standing six feet two, although he swears he was once taller. We're twins. My feelings kick the shit out of me, too.

“Dad,” I say to the ceiling, “He’s leaving, isn’t he?”

The night before their separation, my father didn’t speak to my brother or my mother, just me.

I learned young there was no point in asking why.

“Your mother’s leaving me, isn’t she?” he asked, hacking a dart outside our house as the night laid upon the sky.

“Probably not.”


“She means it this time.” He looked so confused, like, how could she mean it this time? My question was, how had she not meant it before?

“No. Probably not.”

“Your brother is not going to take this well.”

“No, probably not,” I said again.

“You’re going to have to be strong for him.”

I nodded.

“I told you don’t get married, kid.” His hands were shaking and his coffee spilt over his pants. “Shit,” he said, not like he was shocked or burnt, just disappointed.

That’s how I see my father always, drinking coffee and smoking. But how much do you manipulate your memories? Do I just place the coffee in his hand, the smoke between his fingers?

I know that it’s only because he’s gone that these things spin around me, echoing on and on.

People think I’m like my mother because we both laugh a lot and have blonde hair. Those are ridiculous and superficial similarities.

Once, when I was a girl, my mother told me, “Your father suffers from a strange condition of chosen loneliness. He has a lot of friends and no one knows him. He knows he’s smarter than everyone but feels stupid a lot. People want to be close to him but he doesn’t let anyone in.” We were watching television. I remember the deadpan expression on her face, how she was laying on her stomach with her head in her hands.

And, “Oh shit,” I thought. “That’s me.”

I have always been my father’s daughter even though I never wanted to be.