I left a coconut candle burning on too long
in my clean kitchen, above my clean floors,
somewhere in Ohio,
a singular wasp is crafting a bulging nest next to the door that I actually want open
out to the outside world.
My Mum once promised that animals have memory, especially wasps,
that if you ruin their homes, they will remember.
It's best not to poke them. But I also learned from Facebook that you could easily remove a wasp nest with gasoline in a jar.
I just wish it were gone, so that I could open that back door to let the air in.
With the coconut candle still burning, I reached for my father, my phone dialing for his,
and it is with the sun lightly on my back that I hear him pick up.
I've always wondered a specific question.
A question that I wonder if other daughters ever had,
what if I dated a 52-year-old, as a 24-year-old?
What would he think? How would he react?
How do I want him to react?
So I lied on the phone, my imagination running quickly, that I was seeing a white man. 52. That he has kids and a late wife. A lawyer. He treats me well.
My father's initial reaction was "wow, he's much older than you."
Which I retorted quickly with a "but you and mom are 30 years apart. It's just a 28-year difference here, so it's not as bad as you think."
I knew what I was poking for. I knew what I wanted to truly know. It's a mix you know?
What does he really think about the age gap he has with my mother, and would he treat a similar age gap any differently if it was his own daughter?
I've always wondered, you could say.
He followed up quickly. "It's good he's white at least, but if you were to marry him, he would write off his house to his kids. You'd have nothing."
There was no anger. Not even sadness. He was just calm. I was searching for a drop
to fall into the lake and move it.
How silly I am.
I should have known his reaction, his answer, his hesitations if any,
would be the very same to
the first time the lake moved.
I once asked him months ago, on the phone,
because when you're a daughter like me to a father like him,
the easiest things to ask are spoken never in person. I'd be too vulnerable.
My face too easy to read and his face too cold to give an answer I'd need
but fuck what I want,
because even as the truth fucks me over,
the truth still captivates me.
So on the phone, and never in person, I learned that it was a different time back then:
"Girls her age marrying at 23 is actually quite old. Girls matured much earlier back then, because of hard work. Your mother was beautiful."
"I wanted to pursue her, so I asked the district officer what her home address was, and followed her home."
"I wanted to marry the poorest woman in the country. Who had a pretty face. Both, I needed. And that she's close to Buddha."
Maybe what you wanted, I wanted to say, was a pretty retirement plan.
A set-in-stone home health program in the body of a young wife, once your gout is overgrown and once your brain can't decide the difference between a spoon and a fire.
I must give him some credit.
He's pretty freaking smart.
But the first time the lake moved,
was when I asked a different question.
"What would you do if you found out my boyfriend hits me?"
The lake was still still. The sun was setting too slowly, giving me enough time
to examine the surface. This metaphorical surface. Because I ain't been to no lake out here yet.
Where not even a small fish was flipping.
His voice a calm blur, "It's your decision. It's always your decision and I won't get involved. You're old enough to make your own decisions."
And that's when the lake moved.
I didn't know I was waiting all my life to be calm,
believing my father would be kind as long as I was his girl. That there was no
moment's difference between me at 10 and me at 24.
I am now a woman, so I must protect myself? That he won't want to
intervene?
And that's what this is, isn't it?
Or is it, by admitting that he would want to do something for me then,
that he should do something about it now?
The art of the deal
is admitting no wrong.
Rather, it must be my own wrong
if my partner hurts me, because I chose wrong.
And that you'd never protect me, or fight for me, or be angry for me, --
can you please just be angry for me and grab the gun,
can you want to set his house on fire,
can you please just come and grab my hand,
can you beat him to a pulp the way you beat someone else's husband
when you were 14 and saw a man abusing his wife in the streets?
how are you so capable of protecting strangers,
but be so devilishly, unforgivingly calm when it's about us? about me?
Now that I've learned the truth, I won't forgive you,
but I get it.
Because needing to do any of that,
means you must do all of it, right now.
God, the crude awakening
the one I wished I died never understanding
because now that I do
see him as the truth; I'll never have the father I imagined.
