The day that my father came home had both begun and ended badly.
         I was standing outside of my discolored and crumbling high school, huddled in a corner when he drove into the parking lot. I was bundled up in a fat fall coat, a sweater, a pair of hand-knitted mittens, and a multi-colored scarf that was so long, I had to coil it around my neck numerous times to prevent it from strealing. My backpack, heavy with homework and over due assignments, hung low on my back, causing my coat to rise up, allowing cold air to travel up my spine. Eventually it forced me to pull it down into its place.
         I hadn’t noticed that it was him, either because I didn’t want to or I was so preoccupied with keeping warm and shielding my face from the bitter wind, that I hadn’t registered his presence.
         His car, a sleek BMW, which hummed like a content purring cat, came to a stop in front of me. It stayed there and I didn’t dare look up to glimpse through the tinted windows, thinking that the well-off driver inside would take my curious stare as something offensive.
         I wasn’t exactly sure how long I stood there, cursing the cold and the lateness of my cab, when the passenger window slowly opened. I glanced up, nearly biting my tongue upon seeing the face that stared out at me from the vehicle’s leather interior.
         “Em? For heaven’s sake, get out of the corner and in the car!”
         My father, his young face smiling brightly up at me, reached across the passenger seat and popped the door open.
         I had the urge to turn and run, my legs shaking with the effort to keep me in the spot. I bit my lip and glancing up at the gray, cloud-covered sky, stepped up to the curb and reluctantly got inside.
         My father smiled wider, and once I’d slammed the door, he revved the engine and pulled smoothly out of the parking lot.
         We were both silent for a long time. I glanced out the window, my arms crossed over my chest and my backpack perched on my lap. I kept my eyes on the side view mirror, studying the headlights of the Dodge Caravan that drove closely behind us. I watched how it’s lights bobbed even at the slightest bump in the road and I wished I were back at my school, braving the elements.
         I would have preferred it actually.
         “So,” my father said, “ How’ve you been, Em?”
         I sighed, curling in my body tighter, “its Emily…don’t call me Em.”
         I noticed my father’s look of surprise out of the corner of my eye and I smirked once his attention was back on the road.
         “Okay. Emily.” He tried again, the enthusiasm drained from his voice, “How have you been?”
         I shrugged, “The usual…and if it had been anything other, I wouldn’t tell you anyway. You’ll just end up forgetting that like you do everything else.”
         My scarf muffled my voice, but I knew he had made out the scorn, just as I had intended.
         “Em…”
I cast him a sour glance.
         “Emily,” he sighed, “ Please don’t be like that…you have to understand that was eighteen years ago. I was young, I…”
I scowled, “What a pathetic excuse. You’ve said the same thing since I was twelve.” I snapped, my eyes pouring all of their hatred on him, “It’s been six years! Why not get one of your stuck up interns to make up some new excuses for you?”
         I stuck my feet purposefully on the dashboard, soaking it with dirty mud prints.
         “I’m sure it would be a nice reprieve from their no doubt unbelievably boring workday.”
         My father frowned at me, his fingers tightening on the stick, while his thumb began to tap irritably on the steering wheel.
         I grinned snidely, “Oh, what’s this? Ray can’t take a joke? And your yearbook said you were the class clown.” I paused, pursing my lips.
I flicked my eyes toward him, taking in how tense his jaw was, how suddenly, out of no where, his normally well groomed hair appeared out of place. His tie, which on every occasion was tucked neatly in his jacket, hung loose around his neck sticking out like a limply wagging tongue. He looked oddly disheveled.
         I couldn’t look at him any longer, he just seemed totally out of it. Instead I refocused on the blurred world outside my window.
         “You’re mother called me today.” He said quietly, the car jerking to a stop at a random light.
         “She called you?” I murmured in disbelief, “Why?”
         He sighed, “She had to run out for a while and she didn’t want you to go home to an empty house.”
         I frowned, “Mom said that?”
         My father nodded, pulling ahead as the light changed and said, “Shocked me, too.” I noticed how his head cocked to the side, his eyebrows rose, and how he pressed his lips together, “It really shocked me.”
         I glanced away, my head cocking to the side.
         “You’re stuck with me until tomorrow.”
         I nearly regurgitated my heart.
         “What?” I hissed, sitting sharply upright, “Tomorrow? Why? What is she doing?”
         My father cast me a fleeting glance, his face lightening with amusement, “She didn’t tell me…honestly, since when has she told me anything.” He grinned, “I wasn’t going to get you, but I changed my mind at the last minute.”
“As usual.” I muttered.
         I pouted, reaching up to tug aggressively at my scarf that was now toasting my neck. I muttered angrily, slandering my mother under my breath while feeling the pang of guilt as it burst in my stomach at the very thought. I instinctively pushed it back, ignoring it.
         “Don’t look so ticked.” My father said, smirking, “It’s not that bad.”
         I glanced at him my head snapping around to send the full glare of my ragging eyes at him. I thought I noticed him flinch.
“Do you,” I spat, “Want me to jump from this car?”
He looked indifferent and even shook his head as the car slowed and rounded a corner in the road. He said nothing.
I growled, “Well?”
The corners of his lips perked a bit, “You can if you want, although,” he paused, his eyes scanning over my face, “I know you won’t.”
I flicked the handle to prove my point, but it did nothing to change his maid, making my pride sink slightly.
I only then just realized that my father was no fool. I frowned, my hand returning to my lap.
That was a first.
“If you really want to,” he said a moment later, his face smooth like marble, “I can pull up by the harbor, it’s only right there.”
I glanced out the window and sure enough the cool, motionless pool of polluted water skimmed by my window. The more I stared at it, the deeper I frowned, suddenly disgusted by the idea of wanting to leap from the car.
My hands turned to fists as I lay them on my lap. My father smiled, his laugh lines surfacing and his cheeks rounding…
“He looked so much like Dennis Quaid.” My mother had said, laughing as she folded the clothes that occupied her bed.
I stared up at her, pairing socks.
She sighed, “He was such a handsome man.” Her eyes fell on me as she gathered up the folded clothes, “Always looked the happiest with that smile brightening his face.”
She touched my head as she passed me, heading to my room to put things away.
I stared at the socks in my hand, wondering why she had said, ‘was’.
I was nine.

I stared at my father’s face for a long time, letting the smile rest, linger and burn into my eyes so that it would stay there forever.
She had been right and it made me smile.
“Are you hungry?” My father asked as we drove passed the Fairmont.
I shook my head, glancing from my window to him and back again.
“I’m fine.” I assured him, and he didn’t ask again.
I continued to view outside, staring with envious eyes at the grand houses that lined the street.
When I was younger, I had always fantasized about my mother and I living in one of them, and that my father would be there.
I wanted him to be the kind of father that sang pointless songs that irritated the hell out of you, the kind of father who dutifully woke you up every morning on weekdays with continuous nudges and the flickering of the lights. And the kind of father who tried too hard to be the best father that he could be…the one who gave the best hugs and complemented you always.

“What was your Dad like, Mom?” I had asked her one day.
We had been driving to my dance recital, I was twelve.
She had looked at me, her smile radiant.
“Well, he was funny, always laughing, very courteous. All that good stuff, like your Dad.” She had said, “Why?”
I had looked away so she wouldn’t have seen my doubt.
“Just a question…”

A question burned in my throat as we continued to drive. It fumbled around in my head, lurching and churning like vomit wanting to spill out onto my lap. I opened my mouth, then clamped it shut numerous times, biting my lip.
“Why were you never around?”
There…I just vomited it out.
My father was confused, “What?”
I sighed, “Why weren’t you ever at…at home? Why didn’t you stay with us?” I turned in my seat so that I could analyze his expression.
He peered at me, uncomfortable.
“Uh, well.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and I winced, quickly shifting my eyes back to his face.
“Well, what?” I probed.
He suddenly punched me roughly in the arm, making me jump. He laughed,
“Blue punch-buggy! No punching back!”
I dropped my jaw appalled,
“Stop trying to avoid the question!” I shrieked, shoving him roughly, my hand gripping the gearshift.
His jaw clenched and his eyebrows furrowed. Pushing my hand away from the stick, he geared down for a light. The car stopped a little too abruptly, sending me forward in my seat.
“It’s complicated, Em.”
I let that one slide, “Obviously not too complicated, or you’d have forgotten it all by now.”
He grumbled a bit, then looked at me, “How do you know that I haven’t?”
“Dad,” I said flatly, “stop being a nuisance, and answer the question.”
The light changed just as he moaned.
“You’re mother and I were sixteen when we started dating. We went out for a year or so and she ended up pregnant.”
I rolled my eyes, “And that’s…all you have to say?”
He looked me in the eyes briefly, “It was an accident, Em, a totally random accident. I won’t say it was a mistake, because it wasn’t.” His eyes met mine momentarily again, watching for my reaction.
“We got you out of it, that’s what your mother always said.” He smiled.
I turned away from him, inclining my head, yet still listening.
“When I told my parents, it was a last minute thing, maybe two months before you were due.” He shook his head, sighing deeply, “They had something to say about it,” he paused, “No, they had a lot to say actually.”
His tone made me laugh softly, and I covered my mouth with a hand trying to conceal the smile on my face.
“You have to understand that I wanted to be in your life. I wanted to see you, yet…” he sighed again, pressing his fingers to his forehead, “Its difficult…my parents were horrid, what can I say.”
I shook my head, “Are you being serious?” I asked doubtfully.
His eyes met mine, “My parents didn’t permit me to see you, for they controlled everything in my life, and by the time I had graduated, you’d been born and your mother had dropped out of school. I went away to university, and I came back five years later only to find that you were starting school, and I’d missed it.”
He looked at me fondly and I found myself blushing, unable to look at him without a straight face.
I was thankful and unbelievably grateful to have heard what he had said. Yet, once he’d finished, I had nothing more to say. My eyes zoned out the window again and we’d somehow ended up in Torbay. I didn’t think on it. I was just enjoying the drive.
“You must hate me, huh?”
His voice was strangely subdued when he spoke again, and I shook my head.
“No,” I replied, “I don’t hate you.”
I paused, thinking of the right word.
“I’m disappointed.”
He nodded slowly, “I can’t say that I blame you.” He looked over at me, his expression slightly hurt, “I am too.”

We were driving down a steep hill that twisted and turned, allowing us scattered glimpses of the cozy, wind swept town of Flatrock.
I had only been through there a couple of times, and I liked how it looked. All the houses laid out, facing the raging ocean. I guessed that my father liked it too because he was glancing around, looking at it all surprisingly contented.
“Is there a piticular reason we’re driving around like this?” I asked, my eyes lingering on a vacant playground as it flew past. I had a sudden urge to have him turn around so that I could go back and clamber all over it.
My father shrugged, “I just thought you’d like the drive…your mother said it soothes you.”
He emphasized ‘soothe’ so that it sounded like it was rolling off his tongue, making me laugh.
“Lucky for me, or you would have bitten my head off by now.” He said with a chuckle.
I smiled and nodded, “Yes, lucky for you.”
As Flatrock dissolved into the swampy fog behind us, I realized I had no idea where we were. It didn’t bother me, not knowing where I was, because I had the oddest feeling of security.
I guessed that it was a feeling that fathers fostered…I liked it.

“I really do care about you.” My father said once St.John’s came into view again.
I felt his eyes on me, like someone projecting warm light on the side of my face.
“I want you to be happy.” He added. I guess he was surprised by my silence.
“Em..?”
I turned my head and beamed up at him, “Don’t worry, Dad. I love you, too.”
It felt good to say it, like I had been deprived of it my entire life. It made my chest swell.
My father’s smile was tender, and I liked how it looked on him. His hazel eyes sparkled just right, and his brow arched, wrinkling his forehead.
“Love you, too.”
He reached over then and pulled me toward him so he could kiss the top of my head.
I hugged him as best I could.

We had been driving for about three hours when we pulled into his driveway. It was dark, so I couldn’t really make the house out.
I’d gape at it in the morning.
“Well,” he said, “We’re here, at my pad.” He gave me a cocky smile.
I rolled my eyes, gathering up my backpack, “That’s really mature.” I was monotone.
As we scrambled out of the car, a thought suddenly hit me. I flopped back into my seat, letting out an agonized groan.
“What? What’s wrong?”
My father stepped around the car, looking hilariously concerned.
I met his gaze, “I forgot a physics project that’s due tomorrow.”
My father grinned, “So?”
“Uh,” I said irked, “ It’s due tomorrow.”
I groaned shaking my head.
School was such a pain. The teachers always know how to make your life miserable. I knew I had nothing interesting in the morning, and my physics class was last period, leaving me practically a whole day to complete it.
“You know what, I don’t care. I’ll do it in school.” I muttered, my father laughing as I stepped out of the car and shut the door.
“Just like your old man,” he said mildly, holding me close, “Just like your old man.”