The Invitation

The envelope bore no sign of its 12,000 mile journey save some squiggly text just over the pagoda stamp. Marcy recognized the uneven lettering and knew it had been written after a particularly long session. How many times had she seen the same scrawl on a Monday morning informing her she needed to pack her own lunch and get the bus to school? She pulled out a piece of pale pink stock card announcing that her presence was requested at the union of her father and a woman with an unpronounceable name. Marcy sat down and traced her finger over the raised rose design of the invitation. She retrieved a bottle of J&B she always kept stashed away for such unpleasant postal occasions and sat back down. The wedding (or whatever it was they did in that country) was six weeks away.

She thought back to the time when she was 8 when on a Sunday drive on a rural highway, a small plane crashed in a nearby field. Her father, with a swiftness and sense of authority she had never before seen, ran to the plane, now on fire. She sat frozen and terrified, squinting, trying to make out his form through the smoke and flames. After the usual parade of brightly coloured vehicles noisily arrived, her father returned, black face and wild blue eyes. He reached for a small bottle in the glove box and after a long drink, he wiped his chin and ruffled her hair. “I told you it was a good day for a drive, eh, kiddo?” It wasn’t until years later, she learned that her father had actually saved the man’s life.

Instead of the usual routine of McDonald’s and a matinee, they headed to his tiny two bedroom apartment in what her mother referred to as the “scuzzball part of town”. Marcy felt relieved to be curled up on the sofa, curtains drawn and A/C turned on full blast. After his shower, he sat in his tattered recliner watching basketball. Marcy was in a half sleep that was punctuated by the crunchy hiss of opened cans of beer. Later that night, after they’d shared a large pepperoni pizza, they walked to the nearby park to shoot hoops.

As Marcy sat at her kitchen table, she could still recall the chorus of the crickets and the plonk, plonk, plonk of the basketball on the pavement. When it was her turn to shoot, her father crouched, sipping from a flask tucked in a side pocket of his shorts, alternating his shouts between encouragement and instruction. When it was his turn, he made her laugh by jumping and twisting in the air, trying for slam dunks, or shooting with his back towards the basket, never making a basket, and getting progressively sillier. Back at home, in PJs and teeth freshly brushed, her father stared at her a long time, head slightly tilted, “You know. You’re the best kid ever. I really love you kiddo.” It would be the only time he said the words.

Marcy calculated how many weekends “every other weekend” added up to and concluded that she had spent approximately 260 weekends with her father. From Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. to the time to go to school on Monday morning, like clockwork for 10 years. Each one had been as awkward as the last, both of them shy as two strangers on a first date. Until he had had a few Old Milwaukees. When Marcy heard the sound of the first can being opened, her stomach shrunk into a tight ball and she went into alert mode. Either he would laugh, play games, and stumble to bed, or the other. Other Dad’s face contorted into deep ridges, its eyes like an animal, its mouth the deep cut of an axe. When the cut opened, it slurred, “You’re just like your mother.” On these occasions, she put her head under two pillows to quiet the sobs, afraid of what would happen if he woke up. As she got older, she willed her face into impassivity as he shuffled past her to bed, reeking and muttering.  She stayed up, watching HBO or porn, occasionally trying to cook. In the morning, looking at charred messes and burnt tea towels, they both felt sheepish, albeit for different reasons.

The year after Marcy graduated high school and fled 1200 miles to university, she nearly stopped talking to her father. Or rather, he stopped taking her calls, later claiming he was working a late shift or had been playing basketball with some guys from work. The rare occasions he did pick up the phone started with the grinding chitchat and ended in rambling, sobbing, or both. Until she was 22. By then Marcy had discovered the full extent of the liberation provided by distance and alcohol.

After the bars had closed and the others in her group were ravenous for tacos or something else they’d regret in the morning, Marcy took a cab home and quickly changed into PJs, grabbed some wine and cigarettes, and sat down next to the phone. At first he was angry at the late time and Marcy’s obvious physical state, but the late hours of Saturday morning soon became a cherished ritual.

Marcy filled her glass for a third time, giving this round an extra splash and thought about those conversations. She had no idea what they talked about but imagined music, God, and her mother played a large role. For nearly a year they kept this vigil until a string of toxic relationships broke the momentum. When Marcy was 25, her father announced he was retiring and moving to Thailand.

“I’m twice your age kiddo and I haven’t had a life. It’s my time now.”

She only needed to recall those last words to know what to do. As she looked at the pile of tiny pieces of pink paper, she whispered the same words as 10 years ago,.

“Well, fuck you then.”