“Did you ever get to see your father?”
“Yeah. My mom was a very independent woman. As is my aunt, in case you couldn’t tell. But they both believed that he had a right to be in my life should he want to be. When I was a baby, of course, they wouldn’t let him take me. From what I understand, he did come up a few times those first few years. Once I was older, though, and could understand what was going on, my mom let me decide if I wanted to start going to stay with my father over my summer breaks from school.”
“And, of course, an adventurous little boy wanted to go explore a whole new country.”
“Of course,” he agreed, nodding. “I had– have–a giant family there. It was a little overwhelming as a six-year-old. That first summer, my mom used her vacation time to come with me for two weeks just to see how I handled it. And, I think, to see my dad.”
“Did they grow closer through the years? Helping to raise a child together. Even from a distance.”
“Yeah, yeah, they did. I think–though she never said it–that they continued an on-again-off-again thing whenever he came to visit for holidays and when she came with me to Jamaica.”
“What was–is–your father like?”
“Is,” he told me. “Ah, he’s the exact opposite of my mother. He’s practically a cliché when you think of a man from Jamaica. Long hair in twists, very chill, nothing gets a rise out of him. He has always been perfectly happy with a low-key island life. Nothing rushed, nothing in haste. I’ve never met someone more at peace with their life than my father.”
“And your mother was more driven.”
“Yeah. Both because she enjoyed it, but also because she was supporting me on her own. And, for a while, Aunt Cat too since she was taking care of me. She was at peace with her life as well, but in a different way. Her days were rushed a lot of the time. But she always found time to make me hot school lunches, to make home-cooked dinners. I’m sure she would have liked Aunt Cat to take on the cooking, but she wasn’t joking when she said she could fuck up eggs.”
“That’s why you like someone cooking for you so much, isn’t it? Because of your mom?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding, eyes far away, lost in his memories.
My heart ached in my chest at that look, at the love and loss there at the same time.
I couldn’t even pretend to understand that loss. My parents meant the absolute world to me. I couldn’t imagine a world without my father to turn to for help with projects, or general life advice or my mother around making grand holiday dinners, showing up randomly on a weekend to hang out with me.
I knew that, eventually, their absence would be a hole I would have to learn to live with in my heart. But later. After my father had walked me down the aisle, pretending he wasn’t holding back tears. After I gave my mother more grand babies to coo over.
Knowing that your mom would never be there for that had to have been a daily struggle for him.
I scooted closer, draping my legs over his, resting my head on his chest, wrapping one arm around him to give him a squeeze.
“Then I decided to go into the service. Mainly out of a misguided urge for adventure. But also because they would pay for the college my mother demanded I attend.”
“Did you, though?” I asked, not sure I had ever heard him mention it before.
“I always planned to. But then Aunt Cat called me one night. And she told me that she had accidentally overheard a conversation with my mom on the phone with her doctor. A doctor she had been seeing for months. To try to get ahead of the cancer that was spreading all over her body.”
“Oh, Lincoln,” I said, squeezing him harder, hearing the thickness in his voice at the memory.
“She had six months left at that point. They had decided to stop treatment. Let her live out the rest of her time in peace. I planned to get off and visit her. Of course. But, fuck, you know how it is. Lots of paperwork. A couple nos before you get a yes. Wasting precious fucking time. I never made it back before she passed.”
He stopped there, voice cracking, losing his fight for control.
Pushing up, I moved over him, plastering our bodies together, wrapping my arms around him fully, holding on. His arms paused then went around me as well, crushing me, making it impossible to breathe.
It took a long time for him to find the strength to keep going.
“I got to come back for the funeral, of course.” The words clipped out, dripping with a bitterness that seemed completely understandable given the circumstances. “Aunt Cat gave me a letter she’d written for me right at the end, when she seemed to sense it was coming.”