“Daddy, why are you sitting there like that? Won't the bad guys find you and kill you?” my innocent voice asked as I looked up at him with curious eyes.
My dad looked down at me with a smile and then returned his gaze back to the computer screen. “What I'm doing is called an ambush, sweetie. You see, my team is spread out across the grounds hiding in the bushes that so when the bad guy comes by, we can surprise him with an attack,” he explained as he moved his mouse cursor to where his other team members were hiding.
I nodded in realization as I watched a tank roll up in the distance. Immediately, a discreet noise sounding like a voice came through my dad's headset. I watched my father's fingers nimbly type across the keyboard and then move to the mouse, setting up an attack.
“Copy you on that,” he replied as he made his “puppet” grab a flare and throw it out into the clearing where the tank sat. A bright light flashed on the screen and guns sounded off. A few more rounds were fired and the sight of a tank catching fire showed on the screen. “We got him,” my dad commented, receiving a muffled cheer in reply.
“Yay daddy!” I exclaimed as I grinned largely and looked up at him. He smiled back and kissed my forehead before returning to his game. I continued to smile as I watched his character run through the fields towards the bunker where he usually stayed.
Our visiting days were usually spent like this, me watching him play some type of online game that dealt with war or the air force. Although it seemed boring, I usually looked forward to it during the weeks for those were the times where we got to know each other just a little better than before.
My dad quit his game and stretched before standing up from his chair.
“So what do you want for dinner kiddo? I'm up for anything,” my dad questioned as I stood up from a wooden chair.
I looked down at the ground in thought before replying, “Can we have ribs today?”
He nodded his head with a smile and walked out of the room while saying, “Sure thing, let me go get it ready. You should go pick out a movie in the mean time.”
“OK!” I exclaimed as I skipped past him and into the barren living room. The only items in his dark living room (my father preferred the blinds to be shut for he usually slept through the day) were a coffee table, a couch, and an entertainment center.
I knelt down on the carpet in front of the shelf that held all of the DVDs and looked through the selection with concentrated eyes. My brown orbs caught on the movie titled Contact and a small smile lit up my face. I grabbed the DVD from the shelf and took out the disc from the case.
“Here's your plate, honey,” my father mentioned as he placed it on the coffee table and sat down on the couch with his dinner.
“Thank you daddy!” I exclaimed while I took my place next to him and glued my eyes to the television screen. The familiar face of Jodi Foster appeared before my eyes and immediately my dad began to inform me on the happenings in the movie.
“It's actually quite interesting,” he commented before biting into a seasoned piece of rib meat. “I'll take you on an astrology trip one of these days actually. We can go look at Mars and Saturn,” he promised as he looked at with me a smile. I broke my gaze from the screen for a tiny moment only to look back up at him and return his smile.
“I can't wait...”
~*~
Tampa, Florida
I sat in my room with the fan on high and the window open, desperately trying to get some air in the room. Currently, I was lying on the bed reading a book while my dad sat in the next room working.
I had found out earlier that when he moved, he instantly got a job with one of his online friends, dealing with building websites. He rarely had time for games now, but yet he was always on the computer. He didn't need to continue his work at home too, but it kept him occupied when there was nothing else to do, therefore, he worked “overtime”.
A small sigh escaped past my lips as I flipped the page and scanned my eyes over the small black text. Truthfully, I wasn't really reading. I was only doing exactly what he was doing, keeping myself preoccupied.
I wonder when there's going to be father and daughter time? I thought as I threw the book to the side and stared up at the ceiling.
The whole point of my trip coming out here was to visit my dad, whom I hadn't seen in a year since he moved. He managed to sneak in all the other visits with my grandparents in the time that I was here, keeping the time for me and him far on the horizon. An other sigh found its way out of my body as I turned my head to look out into the hall way. My father's cat, Psycho, sat in the middle and stared me down with his yellow eyes.
“What do you want?” I questioned rudely as I gave him a dead gaze. The cat only stared a second longer before turning and running off into the living room. I kept my eyes on the spot where he once sat, too lazy to turn my head back up.
“Hey kiddo, what do you want for dinner?” my dad questioned as his feet came into my line of view.
I gained enough strength to look up with him with a plastered smile on my visage and replied, “How about we eat some of that Omaha steak that Gran Gran keeps sending us?”
He chuckled at my suggestion and nodded his head. “Sounds good. Why don't you go pick out a movie while I get that prepared?”
I shrugged my shoulders and swung my legs off of my bed, my head the last thing to leave the down comforter. My feet dragged on the beige carpet as I walked into his living room with a bored expression, thoughtless at the time.
I noted to myself that he still had the same decorating style as he did in California, barren. I shook my head with a smile and knelt down on the carpet in front of the DVDs. My eyes scanned over the movie titles in curiosity.
“How about we watch Space Cowboys,” I mumbled to myself as I took the DVD out from its place and opened the box. I set the disc in the DVD player and waited for the menu screen to pop up. As I sat on the couch, a picture that sat on the coffee table caught my eye. It was of a middle-aged Asian woman who was extremely beautiful.
“I see you found Xi, huh,” my dad commented as he walked in the room with two plates. He handed me my plate and sat down next to me on the couch. “I met her a year ago. I've been meaning to tell you about it actually, but I never got to it,” he stated as he cut up his steak, avoiding eye contact.
Being the romantic that I was, I didn't care that he hadn't told me yet, so I smiled and placed the photo back down on the table. “That's cute dad! When do I get to meet her?” I questioned as I followed in his foot steps and prepared my steak to eat.
The room was silent for a moment as he hesitated with his answer. “Well, you see, she travels around the world so I don't get to see her as much, but soon she'll visit and I'll introduce you guys,” he informed before sticking a piece of juicy steak covered in A1 Steak Sauce into his mouth.
I nodded with a slight frown as I looked up towards the television screen to see that the movie was on the menu screen. I hit the play button and sat back, letting thoughts of a having a step-mom run through my mind.
~*~
Rocky Mount, North Carolina
The laughter of my father and I rang throughout the room, startling Psycho who sat on the couch between us.
“Help me Tom Cruise!” the voice of Will Ferrel screamed from the television screen. I watched with amusement as he ran around a race track in only his underwear and a helmet, thinking that he was on fire.
“This is classic!” my dad exclaimed as he took a sip from his ever present Mountain Dew.
“It totally represents North Carolina. It's so scary!” I commented in reply after I took a bite from the hot chicken wing that sat on a plate in my lap.
It was the first day that I had seen my dad in three years, and it had gotten off to a good start. First, he picked me up from the airport (I was crying because I was so happy) and then he brought me to his tiny home covered by the giant willow trees that lined his discreet street. The house was built years ago for the tile work in the bathrooms were becoming outdated and the wooden floors creaked whenever stepped on.
His living room was a tad bit more decorated though. Instead of just the couch, coffee table, and entertainment center, there was now a fireplace, a easy back chair, a lamp, and a few pictures of Xi on the walls.
“When Xi comes to live with me, she'll fix it up and give it a womanly touch,” he had stated. With that thought running through my mind, I paused my musing and looked up at him in question.
“How are you with Xi by the way?” I asked with curiosity. I saw his face brighten with the mere mention of her name, so I prepared myself for a long explanation.
“We're great! I actually just got back from a trip with her. We went to Greece for a few weeks in Mikonos,” he started. From then on, he continued to tell me what they did on their trip and how she was coming to move in with him in the next summer.
While he spoke, the more and more he talked about her, the more and more a bad feeling began to grow in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't help but think that my father and I were drifting apart, just how our homes had drifted apart. I lived on the West Coast while he lived on the East Coast, and although we could have easily stayed in contact through emails and phone calls, we hadn't. The only time I had heard from him in the past few years were when he called me to tell me my grandpa had died from cancer and anemia, and to plan the trip that I was on now.
When he was finished with his explanation, I knew from then on that one day, we would be completely split apart, never to hear from each other or to see each other. The thought saddened me, but I pushed it into the far reaches of my mind and plastered on a smile like I always had.
“That's great dad, I'm happy for you,” I commented while I returned my gaze to Talledega Nights. I saw him smile from my approval in the corner of my eye before he continued to watch the movie as well. Talk was dead from that point on.
~*~
Orange County, California
My heart dropped as I read my dad's blog from my computer at home.
“We have done it! Today, Xi and I finally got married in a small ceremony with my mother and her fiancée present. It’s fantastic to have made it this far after so many trials and tribulations! Naturally, we plan to have a more formal arrangement later on, plus we’ll be traveling to China sometime in the next year to perform a traditional ceremony there. I can’t tell you how excited we are for our relationship…it feels fantastic! “
It seemed as if what I had predicted a year ago had happened. We completely broke apart. My father failed to tell me of his wedding, or to invite me to it. I was devastated. I fought back the tears and anger as I read the paragraph over and over again, torturing myself.
He wants to start over...without me, I thought depressingly as I exited out of the window and sat in my chair, staring at my desktop picture. I mused over the phrase and just like before, I tortured myself. I repeated it at least a hundred times before I came to my conclusion.
I suppose it was meant to be, I thought as I turned my head to look out at the blue sky from outside my window. I stayed put while he moved on. He pressed the restart button...
