My Father V

Three days on the road should have been enough to make me want to fly out of the car and kiss the ground...but not this ground. We were staying with family friends on my mother's side because I knew my father's place was tiny and full of cigarette smoke. This man has been dying of congestive heart failure for longer than my daughter has been alive, but that doesn't stop him from enjoying a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. He's old school, and not really the kind that believes chivalry more of the kind that thinks racism is acceptable if it's not mean...that is not an actual thing, he just likes to believe it. He's getting better though and his racist tendencies are almost all gone, I was hoping it would start after the birth of my son who is half Chinese but alas, it started when the good lord started tapping him on the shoulder. My dad isn't all bad, not all of my memories are awful or traumatizing...there was good times and happiness. But that ended the year I turned 16 years old and he left my mother after 20 years to go back to his ex wife. Maybe I took on a lot of the resentment I believed my mother held, or maybe I just knew that he was never a good husband to her...although none of you would ever be able to witness it. I try to keep that out of my mind and act accordingly because what happened was none of my business although it affected me the same.

We had the two spare rooms set up and my brother was getting the kids in the car to take us to my father's. I stood on the front step and looked over the city I had come to hate, wishing I could leave and digging to find some strength I'm not sure I even have.