Love, Dad | ONC 2024 ✔️

12| BE HAPPY

"So," I start, fiddling with a loose thread on my denim mini skirt, "Dad never actually took the typewriter with him?"

The smell of roast beef, rosemary and garlic fills the air — a yummy comfort food after the crazy whirlwind that was Los Angeles.

Mom turns around to look at me, a faint crease appearing between her brows. "The typewriter? He didn't." She smiles a guilty smile. "It was in a box in a toolshed all along."

I grin back. "Yeah. Remember how he said he was taking it with him to write his 'great American novel'?" Air quotes almost seem necessary at this point.

It's good that I can recall the sweet moments with Dad and push down the bitterness. Perhaps in time, there will be more of them to come. When he is ready. When we are all ready.

Mom and I sink onto the worn blue couch in the living room.

"Smells delicious." I inhale the mouth-watering scent of meat still trailing us.

"Better than the three nights in a row boxed mix of Mac and Cheese?" Her lips are a thin line.

I had that coming.

"I'm sorry." I look up sheepishly. "I understand we didn't have the money for something more."

"Well, I spent all the extra savings on your Walkman and your waterbed." She giggles. "Now that was reckless."

I wince, remembering the demise my Walkman met under Dave's blue Pontiac tyres.

"I get why you did it, Mom. You wanted me to get excited, to look forward to each of the letters. To have something to hope for, while I study for my final year exams. I was just too impatient. I'm sorry that I lied. I even convinced you I was on a graduation trip. It wasn't Dad who understood what I was going through all this time. It was you."

"No, April, I am the one who should be sorry. You lied to me for... what? A week or less? I lied to you for months!"

"When you put it that way..." I stick my tongue at her.

"I... thought you couldn't handle the truth and I was wrong. I should have trusted you more. Had I told you everything, you might not have stormed off to L.A. like you did."

For a few moments, only the no longer annoying hum of our tiny refrigerator buzzes in the air. I would not replace the beastly machine for anything in the world now, not even for that wide window sunlit bedroom in Pasadena.

"That was clever though, Mom! How did you pull it off?"

Mom takes a deep breath, her voice soft. "When your Dad confessed his work colleague got pregnant and that they both got new jobs in L.A., I was devastated. I couldn't tell you, not after such a wonderful Christmas we spent together. And he was always your favorite." She tears up.

"Mom." I pat her shoulder awkwardly in an attempt of comfort.

"You know it's true, honey. You were like two peas in a pod. I was always the controlling one, the police officer. But you and your Dad? You did everything together."

That's why she knew it would hurt me more.

"I couldn't bear to tell you what happened, at least not until you graduate. And Patrick agreed. Before he left, we convinced you it was just temporary and that we'd be joining him in L.A. soon. I had but one condition. All I asked from him was to write to you. When three weeks passed without a word... well... I had a spontaneous thought."

I swallow. "You tried to keep up the charade."

"Yes. I became him. I wrote those letters, using his typewriter. Two a month, just like Patrick promised. Tried to make it seem like he was thinking of you."