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Family Matters

When I was eleven, I was really embarrassed to admit that I didn't have a dad. I never started wondering why until my friends started talking about their dads. They'd talk about the baseball games their dad would take them to, or how their dad taught them how to fish, or how to throw a football. I always felt awkward when they started talking about things like that. I just couldn't relate, and when you're a kid, exclusion was the worst feeling in the world.

My dad left when I was four. I didn't remember him very much to begin with; he didn't spend a whole lot of time with me and Mom. He only spent a few days with us and he never stayed very long. The only memory I actually had of him was of us sitting at the dining table, me eating my cereal and him reading the paper. If I looked at him for too long he would tell me to eat my cereal. That was the only thing he'd say. He was gone by the time my sister Chloe was born.

My mom raised us by herself, working three jobs to have enough money for food each week. We didn't live in the greatest part of town, and it was hard for her to earn enough money for the rent. She'd come home late from her jobs, bone tired and hardly able to stand on her feet, but she'd still smile at us, tuck us into bed and help us with our homework if we needed it. She hardly ever showed how much the stress got to her. The times when she cried, she closed herself up in the small bathroom in our apartment, trying to stifle her cries so that we couldn't hear her. We always did, but we acted like we didn't.

I knew Mom would still called Dad every once in a while, and those phone calls always made her sad. Ever since he left, I'd always wondered if he would come back. Sometimes when I was younger, I would just sit in front of the door, waiting for him to walk back inside and greet us like nothing was wrong. Mom didn't like when I waited at the door. When I did, she'd promise to take me out for ice cream, even if we couldn't afford it, just so that I'd do something other than wait for Dad to come home. This went on for years, but he never came back.

I never thought about going to find Dad myself until we were given the invitation for Parent's Day in my fifth grade class. My friends were all excited to show their parents what they did in class, and even spoke about the different jobs that their parents had, but as I stared down at the flyer announcing Parent's Day next week, I felt really uncomfortable. For the last two years, my mom had been too busy to make it to Parent-Teacher conferences and asked me to bring home the paperwork for her instead. Something told me that she wouldn't be making it to Parent's Day this year either. As my friends spoke about what they were going to show their parents when they came, I started thinking about what it would be like if Dad was actually around.

I thought about having him take me to baseball games and teaching me how to throw a football. I thought about all the boy stuff we could do, just me and him. No Chloe. No Mom. Just me and Dad. I got excited as I thought about it. There was so much we could do if Dad lived with us. We could have dinner together and Chloe and I wouldn't have to wait until Mom came home to help us with homework. Dad could even come to Parent's Day since Mom had to work! The longer I thought about it, the more sure I became. I wanted to go find Dad.

I picked up my sister from the elementary school, coming up with ideas about how I was going to find Dad as we walked back to our apartment. I knew the bus schedule, I'd ridden it by myself before, but I'd never rode it all the way across town. I didn't know how much the fare would be, but I knew I'd have enough. I'd been saving my allowance for a few years so I could buy something I really wanted. When we got home, I pulled out my money jar, put it in my backpack. I had to dig around through the drawers in the kitchen, but I found the small piece of paper Mom had written Dad's address down on. I took that as well. Before we left, I made sure my sister's coat was properly zipped up.

"Are we going somewhere, Conner?" she asked in her innocent seven-year-old voice. Her short blonde hair was pulled into lop-sided ponytails, the ones she tried to tie them into since Mom had to go into work early today.

"Daddy?" she repeated. "Where's he at?"

"He's across town. We're going to ask him to come home with us so we can have a real family. Wouldn't that be nice? Don't you want a real family, Chloe?"

She looked a little confused. "Does a real family have a daddy?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's why we're going to go find him," I told her. "We're going to have a real family, Chloe!"

We walked to the closest bus stop, and waited half an hour for the bus to come. The driver looked a little worried that we didn't have an adult with us, but I told him that we made the trip to our Dad's house before and that we knew where to go. He let us on after I gave him the money from my money jar. When we sat down, I asked the old lady next to us which stop would be closest to Dad's address. She gave me the information, and I realized that the trip was going to take a little longer than I originally thought. Chloe got bored quickly, so I let her draw on the back of the notebook I had in my backpack.

"Don't you think, Chloe?" I said while she drew. "Wouldn't having a Dad be great?"

"I dunno know, Conner," she replied. Her lips pouted out fully. "What's wrong with just Mommy?"

I deflated a bit. "Because having a Dad would be better!"

Her blue eyes watered. "But I want Mommy!"

"Mom will be there too," I said quickly. She sniffled, but the tears didn't fall. I continued when she looked okay: "But it will be better with a Dad too."

The bus arrived at our stop after an hour. I led Chloe off the bus by the hand, assuring the driver that we were fine and that our Dad was supposed to pick us up. He seemed reluctant to leave two kids at a bus stop by themselves, but he had a schedule to keep and drove off. I waited till he was out of sight before leading Chloe down the street.

There were a lot of big houses on this side of town, bigger than the ones in my neighborhood, and it took us a while to find the one we were looking for. It sat on the corner of the street, a big two-story with red shingles, blue paint and a shiny Lexus sitting in the driveway. My hands grew sweaty as I checked the numbers again on my paper.

"Is this it?" Chloe stage-whispered as we walked up to the door. I shushed her and lifted a hand to ring the doorbell. For a moment, I couldn't do it. My stomach felt like knots and my nerves building the longer I stood staring at the red door. I felt every emotion bubbling up inside me: every thought, every instance, every dream I'd ever had for almost every year of my life. It came down to this moment. My hand shook as I pressed the button.

I heard the bell chime in the hallway, and footsteps approaching the entranceway. I waited with bated breath as the door was unlocked and opened. A woman with dark hair greeted us with a surprised look.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

I stood straighter. "Is this Richard McKinley's house?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "Do you need something from him?"

I nodded nervously. "I wanted to talk to him," I said. "Please."

"Honey, who is it?" A well-dressed man walked into the entranceway, causing my heart to jump to my throat. I held Chloe's hand tighter as the woman smiled up at what I guessed to be my dad.

"These children say they want to talk to you. Were you expecting them?" she asked. When he turned to look at us, I saw his blue eyes harden ever so slightly. I nervously started to speak.

"H-hi. I don't know if you remember us, but I'm Conner and this is Chloe. I wanted to come and ask if you could come to Parent Day at my school next Monday." I quickly unfolded the paper my teacher gave me, offering it for him to take. He didn't even look at it when he took it from my fingers. "Mom can't usually make it, so I just thought…" I trailed off when I noticed the accusing look the woman was giving Dad, and the guilty, uncomfortable one on his own face.

"Isn't it past your bedtimes?" he asked with a slight edge. "Does your mother know you're here?"

"Um." I swallowed thickly.

"Richard," the woman spoke suddenly. "Why don't we invite them in and you can call their mother." She was already leading us in before he could answer.

The house was even bigger on the inside. There were big, fluffy couches, pretty tables, tons of fancy decorations that I'd only ever seen inside of department stores. The floor was clean and white, as if nobody had ever walked on it before. The best part was that the living room had a huge TV, bigger than any I'd ever seen before in my life. It was hard not to stare as we walked inside.

The woman, whose name I found to be Alice, sat us at the dining room table and offered to pour us glasses of milk. She smiled widely and sat with us, but I could see the sideways looks she gave our Dad. She looked like she wanted to say something to him, but was keeping it to herself. Dad sat at the other side of the table, his hands crossed. The invitation I gave him lay folded next to them.

"So," he began. "How did you get here, Conner?"

"I took the bus," I explained, taking a sip of my milk. It was too creamy, almost as if I was drinking melted ice cream.

"By yourself?" He sounded surprised.

"And Chloe," I corrected. "I've saved my allowance since I was nine and used that to pay the bus driver."

"How did you know where to go?"

"Mom wrote down the address once. I just had to ask one of the people on the bus for directions. Wasn't too hard to find."

Dad looked uncomfortable, unsure what to say. He rubbed at his eyes, leaning his elbows on the table. He looked tired, his business shirt crumpled and half untucked from his pants. He had sweat stains under his arms, and a small coffee stain near the top of his collar. The longer the silence drew between us, the more my image of him started to fade.

"Do you think you can come?" I asked quickly.

He lowered his hand to look at me. "What?"

"Can you come to Parent's Day?" He hesitated, so I quickly started talking again. "It's the day where everybody's Moms and Dads come and talk about what they do. Then we do some games together and even go to recess. If you come, maybe you can teach me how to throw a football! The neighborhood kids tried to show me once, but they needed the ball back to play their game, so I never was any good at it." He was looking at me with this weird look now. The squinty-eyed look that grown-ups always gave me when they felt sad for me. The look made me nervous. "Y-you can come… right?"

He sighed. "I don't know, Conner," he said. "I don't think this is the best idea." He trailed off, letting the comment hang uncomfortably in the air. "Didn't you ask your Mom?"

"She has to work," I repeated. My voice hitched higher. "She can't ever come. Why can't you come?"

Dad looked at me with squinty eyes again. "It's just not a good idea, Conner. I'm sorry." It was hard for me to swallow all of a sudden; my throat felt so thick. I stared down at the cup of too-creamy milk, condensation sweating onto the expensive looking dining table, my eyes tingling with an all-too familiar sensation. I could hear him sigh again. "I'm going to go call Trisha," he said softly to Alice. His chair scraped loudly across the wood floor as he stood up. I listened to his footsteps retreat into a different room as dialed the number to call my Mom.

Alice was nice. She rubbed my back and smiled, asking us about school and our friends. I mumbled my responses, focusing on squashing my feelings inside my head. Dad came back soon, telling us that he called Mom and she'd be over to pick us up and take us home soon. I didn't look at him. He softly asked to talk to Alice for a while, and the nice woman got up to speak with him in the other room. As Chloe and I sat there in silence, I could hear their heated voices reverberating from the other room. The longer we sat there, the more the big, pretty house seemed to close in on me. It felt weird. Everything was too big, too fancy. My eyes burned. I wanted to go back to where everything was small, comfortable and familiar. I wanted to go home. I jumped out of my seat, reaching to pull Chloe out of hers as well.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Home," I responded. I pulled open the red door to the expensive house, turning my back towards it as I led Chloe to sit on the curb with me. She sat next to me quietly, picking at the grass next to her. I kicked at the pebbles next to my feet, keeping my sniffles quiet.

It took thirty minutes for Mom to pull up in our beat-up little red car. When she pulled in the driveway next to the Lexus, she jumped out of the car, running to embrace us both. She was frazzled and worried, still wearing her waitressing uniform, but still clutched us as close to her as possible.

"I was so worried," she whispered. "Thank God you're safe."

As her arms encircled us, I started to hiccup and cry, my tears soaking into her uniform shirt. I felt so comfortable in her arms; I couldn't help but appreciate all the things we had. We didn't have much, but we had each other. I didn't need a dad to make our family happy. It was already happy to begin with.

Mom would apologize for not being able to come to Parent's Day when we drove home, and I would come to find that I didn't really care. I had what I needed, and while it wasn't everybody else's idea of a perfect family, mine was exactly that: perfect.

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