Fulfilling

It had been a long while since I'd seen him, and I'll admit- I was nervous about the meeting. He had let me choose the place- said he didn't really know any of the joints around here- and I'd chosen the Moon and Sixpence. Low-key place where we could find some semi-privacy and a few good drinks. Maybe even some nibbles, who knows...

I approached the pub feeling more than a little sick. It was a feeling uncomfortably akin to a first date, but so much more horrifically worse. The emotions involved in this went way beyond any that might be connected with a potential romantic encounter. I took a deep, steadying breath and pushed open the door, managing to be equally terrified of him not being there, and of him already waiting.

Turned out he was waiting.

He'd taken a table about halfway back on the left, and already had a drink in hand. And he was smoking a cigarette, of all things. He'd never been one to smoke when I'd known him. He caught sight of me and I guess my face must have announced my disapproving shock, because he gave me a wicked grin as if to say, Hey, we're all adults here! But I noticed that he stubbed it out pretty quickly. We might both be adults, but I got the feeling there was a part of him just as anxious to not disappoint me as I was to not disappoint him.

I made my way over to the table and he stood up and suddenly I couldn't move- what was the protocol here? Did we hug? I'd never in my entire life wanted so badly to fling myself into the arms of another human; it was something I'd imagined countless times over the past sixteen years, but now that the moment had arrived I felt... frozen. Almost shy. The lump in my stomach rose to my throat, and I willed it to stay there, damn it, and to not make its way up to my eyes.

And then he opened his arms and I didn't care about anything but falling into them, wrapping mine around him and crushing him as hard as he was crushing me. He smelled like warm leather and Old Spice and jet fuel and yeah maybe those are all cliched man scents but whatever- it's what he smelled like, and the memories washed over me so that I didn't even care that I was drowning, and the lump in my throat completely ignored my instructions and broke, flowing out my eyes and streaming down my face, and he just held me tighter, held me until I couldn't breathe and I still didn't care because here he was at last, at last...

I don't know how long we stood there, but eventually we broke apart, and I groped blindly for my chair and he said,

"Ah shit, sweetheart- I didn't mean to make you cry."

I let out a shaky noise that might have been translated as a laugh and responded, "It's okay. I cry at the drop of a hat anyway. Don't you remember how you used to call me Sarah Bernhardt?" He grinned his devilish grin again and took a sip of his drink.

"Yeah, I do- geeze you used to holler about the tiniest things. It was hard as hell sometimes not to laugh at all your so-called sufferings." I raised an eyebrow and signaled for the waitress.

"Which is probably why you usually didn't bother!" He shrugged.

"Guilty as charged."

I ordered a gin and tonic (chilled, no ice) and while I waited for it we just sort of stared at one another. He, of course, looked exactly the friggin' same. Me- I know I was showing the years. How could I not? I didn't dare ask how it felt to see me this way, to see me as an adult. I was afraid of what the answer might be.

"God you're beautiful," he finally said. "You look so much like your mother."

"Funny, she says I look like you," I accepted my drink from the waitress with a nod and a tiny smile, and took a sip. The juniper hit my tongue and I immediately felt more in control of myself. "You should see your son. He looks even more like her. Which is to say, a lot like Grandpa."

"Well that's good. Your Grandpa was a good looking guy."

"So's my brother."

"Well he comes by it honestly."

We were silent again for a while. I knew I should say something- I was the one who had yearned for this meeting, after all- but I didn't know where to begin. I had so many questions, but I didn't want it to be an interrogation. I had so much to catch him up on, but I wanted to hear him talk, not me. I just wanted it to be natural- just the two of us shooting the shit, maybe talking philosophy if we got enough liquor in us. My brain flailed helplessly until I saw his eye fall on my wedding band.

"You got married," he said softly.

"I did."

"And I wasn't there..."

"Yeah you were, Daddy. Your spirit was, anyway," I started laughing and crying at the same time as I relayed the great Wedding Crasher incident, how a big gorgeous husky had somehow made its way into the Botanical Gardens and gone cheerfully about its goose-chasing business right in the middle of my wedding.

"We all agreed it was your trickster spirit," I explained, and he grinned again. God, he never smiled- it was always a grin with him.

"Well maybe it was. Who knows- my doings of the past few years are a bit fuzzy, you know?" He took another sip of his drink. "Does he treat your right?"

"Daa-aaad..."

"I mean it. I only get this one night to be all fatherly, and I want to know whether or not I need to spend it shooting out some guy's kneecaps."

"Honestly, Dad. Yes, he treats me right. I wouldn't have married him, otherwise. You think Mom would have raised me to take any shit?" This got a full laugh.

"No, I don't imagine she would. Hell of a woman, your mother."

"I know."

"So do you like being married?"

"Did you?" I shot back, eyebrow raised. He nodded, but not just in the way that means yes: it was also the way that means, I understand. The left side of his mouth quirked up as he responded,

"I'm glad you found someone to take care of you."

"We take care of each other."

"Well then I'm even more glad."

He signaled the waitress back over, told her to bring each of us another round. As she left I took control of the conversation again.

"Will you tell me what it was like? When you first met Mom?"

And he did. He told me all about falling in love with her, and knowing he wanted to be with her the rest of his life, and the insanity of marrying someone after only three months. He told me the fear and wonder of knowing his child was growing in her womb the first time- and again the second time. He told me about what it felt like to fly, to be alone with God in His silvery courts, far above the mountains. He told me how he felt about religion, and politics, and all the things I'd wished for so many years to be able to talk to him about. And we agreed on a lot of things, but we also argued- of fucking hell, we argued about some things- but it was so good to have that chance. And by the time the pub was closing down and kicking us out I felt like maybe I was starting to get a grip on the man my father was.

"How much time do we have left?" I asked as we wandered into the crisp, clear autumn night.

"I have to leave at sunrise," he said. "Which is in about... five hours."

I was silent for a moment, face turned up to the stars. "You want to go for a drive?"

***

Two hours later we were at the coast. Specifically at my little slice of the coast: Short Sands. We sat on a piece of drift wood that was actually more like a tree, and watched the black water push white foam back and forth, just like we were passing a bottle back and forth.

"This is where I learned about passion," I confessed. "This is where I finally met God. When I surf I think I understand how you felt when you flew. I understood why you'd crawl back to base with a broken clavicle, and not get it seen to- because no amount of pain was worth being grounded."

"Your mother told you about that, huh?"

"Mom likes to make sure we remember you weren't a saint."

"Oh does she?"

"She does it at my request. Someone has to balance out your mother." He laughed at that, and told me a few more stories about him not being a saint.

More hours passed, and I did everything in my power to ignore the gradually lightening water. I wasn't sure when he'd disappear. How do the Powers That Be decide these things? Would it be when the sun cleared the horizon, or when its rays finally touched him? Would it be all at once, or would he fade out with the ocean mist? Should I watch, or shouldn't I? Could I bear it again?

In the end I laid down with my head in his lap, and he stroked my hair, singing the silly little lullaby he'd written for me when I was a child. I thought sleepily to myself that I should have remembered to bring a guitar...

When I woke I was alone again, face pressed hard against the bleached-bone tree.