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Lily
*Fresh Flowers*
For the first time ever in Belford, I went to a florist shop to buy calla lilies. It’s the anniversary of the day I found out that my mother wasn’t really at a spa to reduce stress. It’s the anniversary of the day that life, as I knew it, was over.
I didn’t want to go by the mansion to get flowers to bring to my mother’s grave, even though today is a day that I need talk to my dad more than ever. It’s an overcast early summer morning. The sky is the color of my favorite pair of eyes, the eyes that have seen through me and seen me through, since the first time I saw them. My mother was right about everything—especially about me already having met the love of my life when I was fourteen.
I’ve never really talked to her out loud when I’ve come here, but there’s no one else around, and especially after seeing Wes with Susan last weekend—I need to talk to my mom. “Wes wanted to be here today,” I say as I place the fresh flowers at the headstone and clear away the old ones. “I wanted to come here by myself, but I want you to know…I’ve stopped running. I’ve stopped acting. In life, I mean. I’ve let go of my fear. I’m happy. I wish you were here. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more forgiving with Dad. I tried. He tried. I think we’re done trying.”
And just as the words are out of my mouth, I look up and see the man I most need to talk to approaching with a bouquet of purple calla lilies in his hands. He’s wearing a gray suit, as always. He looks so tired, just as Wes had said. My heart aches for him, but it always has. It seems like he can’t look at me. Not because he’s angry but because he’s shy. He walks quickly, and I know it’s because he’s so uncomfortable here. He puts up a front. I never realized it before, but I guess I learned to do that from him.
He places his bundle of flowers on the ground right next to mine and exhales slowly, staring down at them.
“Hi, Dad.”
A little noise escapes from his throat, the saddest sound you’d ever want to hear from your father. “Hello. I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.” He barely glances over at me. I look down at his left hand. He never stopped wearing his wedding ring. He’s fiddling with it now. He’s nervous. It’s up to me to make him less nervous.
“It’s good to see you.”
He nods. “You all right?”
“Yes. You?”
“Sure.” We’re both quiet for a bit, and I wait for him to say something because I can tell that he wants to. “It’s strange that this day is harder to get through than the day she…”
“I know. It is for me too. I’m sure it was difficult for you guys to tell me.”
He nods and takes in a shaky breath. “It made it more real. If it had been up to me, we never would have told you she was sick. We waited until we knew for sure that she wasn’t getting better. Is there anything you wanted to talk about? Now?”
“Yes. I have questions.”
“Okay.” He clasps his hands in front of himself and waits for me to proceed, like a politician at a press conference.
“Are you ever going to respect me?”
“I respect you, Lily. I respect you in the way that I respect fate and life itself, I suppose. I know I can’t understand it or control it, so I try to back off, but I can’t help trying to meddle because I think I know better. And I always realize that I don’t. And that’s humbling.”
“Do you even like me?”
He winces a tiny bit. “That question just makes me hate myself. Of course I like you. You’re my only child. I’ve loved you since before you were born. The only time I ever feel like a failure is when I’m talking to you.” He sighs, such a weary sigh. “Ever since Calla got sick, I’ve felt the burden of you needing me to be your mother and your father, but I can’t do it. I can barely even function as your father. I’ve never been good at talking to women in general, unless it’s about work. I didn’t have sisters. I wasn’t close with my mother. The only woman I’ve ever felt comfortable with was Calla. And she was so much better with you than I was.”
“How did you and Mom meet?”
“She never told you?”
I shake my head. “I know you were both in college, but she always made me guess exactly how you met, and I never guessed right.”
He smiles as he stares down at the flowers. Never at the headstone, always at the fresh flowers. It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile in…I honestly don’t know how long. “We met at a bar on campus. Outside of one, actually. It wasn’t very romantic, but it was memorable. She was drunk and vomiting into a bush. One of her friends was there, holding her hair back. I brought out a glass of water and a paper towel, and she kept telling me she wasn’t throwing up. I thought she was cute.”
I can’t help but laugh and tear up at that, even though I can’t for the life of me picture it. “That does sound adorable…”
“You look so much like her.” He isn’t even looking at me when he says that.
“You think? I’ve never really thought so. I mean, I wanted to. She’s so pretty, and…” I realize I just spoke about her in the present tense, and it made my dad wince again. “She was always so at peace, it seemed. And I always felt like such a mess. So that’s all I’d see when I looked in the mirror.”
God, he looks so uncomfortable right now. You’d think I was talking about tampons and menstrual cramps. I’m about to let him off the hook and end this conversation, but he says, “It hurt to look at you. But I cared more about my pain than your happiness, and that was wrong. That was bad. That’s not what a parent is supposed to do. I’m sorry.”
I refuse to cry.
