Once, I asked him straight out why he couldn’t just let his own son live at home for free like every other father I knew.
He looked at me for a long moment, and something moved behind his eyes that I didn’t have the patience to read back then.
“Because every other father won’t always be there,” he said. Then he went to bed.
I thought it was cruelty.
I used to lie awake and imagine how light the house would feel once I was finally gone.
Five years later, before I ever got the chance to leave on my own terms, Dad died suddenly.
His heart, the doctor said. Quick. He was gone before the ambulance reached the house.
For years I had pictured how peaceful the place would feel without him in it.
Instead, after the funeral, I stood in the entryway staring at his scuffed work boots by the door, and I could not make myself put them away.
