Lunch with a Stranger

It has been early eight years since I have seen my father. I invited him today lunch on a whim. In the hopes that things would be better, in the hopes things will have changed.

I sit down at the table across from him. He doesn’t look well. It has been a while since I’ve seen him, but his aging seems to have hastened tenfold since our last interaction. His hands bear more wrinkles than I remember. The age spots on his skin are more prominent. Gray dominates his hair, or at least what hair I can see poking out from the baseball cap.

”Hey” I said as I picked up the menu. I see him look me up and down and can only imagine what he is thinking. He’s always been judgmental of me. I don’t take it personally anymore… that’s just how he is.

”Hi Stephanie,” he finally greets me.

”What’s new?” I ask. I knew when I extended this invitation that it would come with a great deal of work. My father is the type of fellow who practically needs cattle prodded into talking to his children. I would have to throw conversation starter after conversation starter at him if I didn’t want to spend this luncheon in silence. He ponders for a moment.

”Same shit different day. Although, Bobbi and I went on this cruise down in Florida.”

”Oh that sounds great. How was it?” I find myself surprised that Bobbi, his girlfriend, is still in the picture. He’s never been the long term commitment type, with three divorces and all. With him, I guess long distance relationships last longer.

He starts off into a bragging tale of their adventure. My father was always good about having the ‘biggest fish’ story. This tale begins to sound like that again.”So, they screw up and don’t have our reservation. So, obviously I complain and tell Bobbi how unacceptable this situation is! Well guess how they decide to make it up to us? They put us in one of the master suites on the ship! We are talking huge! A living area, a walk out patio, a hot tub in the bathroom, this room was gigantic!”

The story just gets grander and grander. I nod in the appropriate places, not because I actually care, but because it’s the polite thing to do. Who was he trying to impress anyway? I make sure to add the “amazing, beautiful, and lucky” comments when needed.

My father and I have a love/hate relationship….as in I love to hate him. Not because he cheated on my mother and left her to care for her two kids on her own. No, that is between them. I was fortunate enough to develop my own feelings toward him through his many years of action or inaction. I decided when I invited him today that I was going to stop tiptoeing around him. He was either going to like the woman I have become or not. I am too damn old to play these games and if I am too old, then he sure as hell is.

He continues on with his tropical adventures and I continue to listen. There is no actual conversation taking place; I am just convinced he likes to hear himself talk. The waitress arrives just in time…. I am on the verge of sticking a spoon in my eye. We both order the special. I wonder if we have other similar tastes in common, or if this is just a coincidence.

“You know,…” he says, interrupting my contemplation, “you got my age wrong on my last birthday card. I’m 71 not 70.”

”Ah. Yeah, sorry about that. I did realize that after I had sent it.” I stop to take a drink of my tea. “But, you spelled my name wrong on my last Christmas card, so I’d call it even.” I try to make it sound like I am playing when really I am biting my tongue trying to not list off the mistakes he’s made. He doesn’t drop it.

”I added an ‘s’ to it.” It’s not a question. Ever since I got married 8 years ago (which was probably the last time I spent more than 10 minutes in his presence) he has always been writing my name as a plural, no matter how many times I correct him.

”Yes, you did do that, but you actually misspelled my middle name, too.”

”It’s Ann, isn’t it?” This one is a question.

I nod politely, “Yes, but you forgot the ‘e‘. A-n-n-e.”

He grunts at me.

“Like I said, let's just call it even.” He dwells on the fact there was a mistake in his card. I dwell on the fact that we mail cards when we live in the same town.

The awkward conversation is followed by an awkward silence. I find myself starting at the tablecloth, it is vinyl and plaid in design. Reminds me of a picnic table. It crinkles beneath his fingers as he drums them on the wood. The clinking dishes in the kitchen chime their own melody. He picks up his spoon to stir his own tea. I stare at his right hand. Cocking my head to the right, I look at his index finger where the final joint is missing. I’m pretty sure he’s told me the story of how he lost the end of his finger, but I don’t remember it now.

”How’s your brother doing? Still living at home?” he asks, rolling his eyes. I immediately find myself on the defensive. The hair is standing up on the back of my neck. His tone is saturated with judgment and disapproval.

”Yes, but it works for them. He pays rent to help out. Mom likes it because she doesn’t have to be alone.” My brother is beyond introverted. From a young age, he had a hearing disability that wasn’t diagnosed until he was older. Before this point, people though he had a learning disability when really he just couldn’t hear. This was just one of the first marks that my father put on his record. Truth be told, my brother is 10x more intelligent than him, but I won’t tell him that. He never tried to understand my brother, or any of his kids for that matter.

Our food arrives just at that moment, and for this I am grateful. Broccoli cheese soup and grilled cheese never seemed so divine. I watch as he dips his fries into his soup. This is a characteristic we don’t share. The seconds become moments and the moments become minutes.

“Sho,” I start with a mouth full of food, “how are your brothers?” I have three uncles, all of whom I have zero contact with. This question is a formality at best.

“Tony and Terry are doing well, I assume. Haven’t talked to Jerry since the funeral.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah – screwed me out of my inheritance. Seems to think when Mom cashed in a bond to help me - that was all I was entitled to.”

My grandmother was a strong, powerful woman with impossible expectations and a general lack of empathy. If you asked anyone else, my mother included, most would have called her a bitch; a modern day Elizabeth Bathory. I never felt that way though. She had always been kind to me. She was the only member of his side of the family that had ever attempted a relationship with me. Her efforts were triple that of her own son. Her death intensified the loathing I have for my father exponentially. When she died, he never told me. I only learned of her death months later when her obituary was printed in my hometown paper. My mother had seen it and called to tell me. Immediately after getting off the phone with her, I called my father and screamed at him for his lack of communication. She might have been his mother, but she was my grandmother. He blew me off with a half-assed apology and told me that he figured my mother would have informed me. This had merely provoked another round of rage. Expecting his ex-wife to deliver news she was no more aware of than I was was ridiculous. This event created another few years of silence between us, minus the minimal acknowledged at the funeral. I threatened him with womanly repercussions (throwing a fit in front of his bar buddies) if he failed to tell me when the service would be held. So, I got 10 days notice - I'm sure he saved it for the last minute, hoping I would be unable to attend.

Noticing that I had eaten most of my lunch because he had been talking and I had been listening, I tried to speak a little. “I got a promotion at work.”

“Hmm?” I take that as cue to go ahead.

“Yeah, they had someone quit, so I got to move up. Came with a pay raise and a lot of new responsibility! I practically run the place. Doing this while going to school leaves me with very little free time, but I am proud of myself because I seem to be doing well at both. Being a late bloomer seems to suit me well.” I dive into all the details of my new position and the duties that have been placed on my shoulders. I want him to see that I am a capable person and that he doesn’t need to worry about me needing anything from him. He is making eye contact with me, but it is that kind of eye contact that is more like looking through you. Wait, he’s looking past me. Yep… that seems about right. “Do you know someone back there?”

“Huh? What?”

“Well, you are staring past me. Thought there might be someone you recognize back there.”

“No, No” He refocuses his gaze.

As soon as the plates are cleared we sit grasping at the final strings of conversation. I am trying my best to behave myself and keep my resentful feelings at bay, but the thoughts are creeping in. Images from my childhood are leaking like a sieve into my consciousness… the days when my brother and I had to drag his drunk ass to bed after he got back from the bar… leaving us little kids at the carnival with 20 bucks and not coming back for hours… calling bar to bar until we found him if we needed something when we visited him on summer break… leaving me medication on the outside of my apartment door when I was ridiculously ill instead of checking in to see how I was…never teaching me how to ride a bike… never defending me from boys… never really acknowledging my existence.

As the final conversation pool is all but dried up, it is becoming more and more stagnant. The waitress drops off the ticket. I snatch it up quickly. “I’ve got it.” I announce.

“K, I’ll get the tip.” He stands, reaches into his pocket and throws money down on the table and grabs his coat with force enough to make the chair rock on its back legs.

We walk out, side by side, in silence. I stop when he gets to his vehicle and starts digging in his pocket for the keys. “Well, thanks for lunch, Stephanie.”

“No problem.” I’m waiting patiently.

He jumps in his car, shuts the door, lights a cigarette, and drives off. No hug, no ‘I love you‘… nothing.

I stand there for a moment. Then I give myself the same speech I’ve been giving myself for years. I remind myself it’s nothing I did or didn’t do. It’s not something I am or I am not. It’s all him and it is completely out of my control. With a heavy sigh, I get in my car and head home… back to the known.