When You Are Gone

Chapter 3

"What about your dad, you've never mentioned him," she'd say.

"There's not much to tell, I never really knew him that much."

"You're talking in past tense."

"Yeah, he's not around anymore."

"Oh my! I'm so sorry is he...?"

"Dead? No, he's pretty much alive, alright. I know because he never forgets to send a Christmas card every year where the caption reads: Pass my heartfelt greetings to Gina and the rest of the family."

"I'm sure he doesn't mean I like that," she'd try to comfort me.

Talking about him was never easy. It dug up the buried, nasty nostalgia of my childhood. A man who I was so damned to call father was the same person that brought me so much anguish to my life. In primary school, I'd just watch the other kids draw and design cards for their fathers for father's day, wondering if any one of them even deserved it because I knew mine didn't. My mother was even called in once by my teacher then – Mrs. Stevenson, one year when I had stubbornly refused to take part in the father's day art project.

"I don't know what is wrong with him. I'll try and talk to him." That's all my mom could utter to Mrs. Stevenson. That evening she sat me down at the kitchen table with colored paper and crayons.

"You won't make it at school, you're going to have to make it here."

Dear dad...I stared indifferently at the purple piece of paper on the table. And then after a while I managed to write, I'm sori that I am not the child that you wanted. I hope one day you can get a child that you can love and I hope he will feel the same and he will be able to write you cards on father's day without being forced to do so. From your son, Roman. I crossed your son out. My mother slapped me after reading the card. I was made to apologize to Daniel and write him a proper card under her supervision but Daniel said it didn't matter and I should not be forced to write him a card if I did not want to so I never did.

Daniel never did for me what fathers do for their children like, teaching me how to ride a bicycle, how to drive, how to stand up against bullies or the pros and cons about love – girls. Instead, I had to learn all that on my own with very little, strained effort from my mother. I remember my first bike ride, I was seven. Daniel and my mother had bought it for me for my birthday. I fell off and badly bruised my knee. My mother told me it's normal, 'everyone falls off their first bike ride'. I cried. She also told me I cry too much for boy. I never rode that bicycle again.

Most father's go fishing with their sons or give them cute nicknames like tiger or soldier. To Daniel I was just Roman or simply kid when he was too drunk to remember my name. With Gina it was different, he loved her more and he never made it a secret. He bought her presents, took her for mini fieldtrips in the Range Rover, gave her piggy-back rides and made her his little princess. Inevitably, Gina was the one who took his absence the hardest. She threw tantrums, had mood swings for months after he left. It was after a long well thought out conversation my mother had with her, making it crystal clear that he was never coming back that the whole situation finally dawned on her. It is not something you want to tell your eight year old daughter or something you expect her to understand but it was the only method that worked with Gina – calling the devil by his name, first, second and last as my mother called it. Only then did she finally accept that he was really gone and also the passage of time made it more bearable – time always seems to heal everything, especially the seemingly irreplaceable voids in your life. But still, Gina had a soft spot for him. I never could comprehend the hold he had on her or how someone could just forget about something and act as though it never happened. They say you should let sleeping dogs lie, hence I kept a fair distance away from Daniel or anything that reminded me of him, including the closet, that sacred closet in the hallway. As did he but Gina never did the same, not only did she rouse the dogs but she fed them off her palms, decorated the path they trod with rose petals and gave them back-rubs and massages.