Daniel
~Last May~
“Good morning,Daniel.”
Three innocuous words, but somehow my father managed to pack those suckers with enough censure, impatience, and foreboding to make me regret picking up the phone. He was magic like that. And me? I was an idiot. Fool me once, Dad, shame on you. Fool me seven hundred and forty-three times, and I should really know better than to answer the damncall.
“Dad. Everything okay with you andMom?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, and just like that, the pleasantries were over. There would be noHow the heck are you, Daniel? What have you been doing with yourself since the shit show last Christmas? Where are you living, how are you handling the total implosion of your career and friendships, can Ihelp?
No, if I wanted those lines written, I’d need to write them myself, but for some other character. Someone who hadn’t fucked himself over like Ihad.
“I was simply calling to see what time you and Ingrid would be arriving at the house, since you haven’t bothered to email and let usknow.”
I was stunned into silence for a second becausewow. There was a lot to unpackthere.
I took the phone into the living room and plopped down on the ancient sofa that had come with the little cabin I’d purchased on the outskirts of Nowheresville, New York, already feeling a headache forming behind my eyes. I hadn’t had a migraine since January, when I’d left the city, and all it took was five seconds of conversation with the man who’d spawned me to bring oneback.
Like I said, he wasmagic.
“Dad, I’m not coming thisweekend.”
I would have thought that would be obvious. Our last conversation, sometime after the eggnog martinis but before the caterers had brought out the lavish Christmas feast, had hardly been the kind to inspire filial devotion, unless there was a son out there whoenjoyedbeing told he was adisappointment.
“You’re a Michaelson, Daniel. You’ve been quick to accept the privileges that come with being a member of this family, but you refuse to live up to our expectations. Is it any wonder your marriage failed? Is it any wonder your friends don’t want any part of youanymore?”
My gut twisted painfully,remembering.
“Find a new career,” he’d said.“Your last endeavor was lucrative, but not stable. Do something that will allow you to support a family and put that college degree your grandfather paid for to use foronce.”
Basically the old “get a job and stop being a freeloader” conversation, but with a Michaelsons-of-Madison-Avenue twist: get a job we can brag about at the country club, preferably one that brings as much prestige as your writing career did, but that won’t crash down around your ears and taint us by association.Again.
There was a reason I’d put that life behind me. There was a reason, a very good reason, why I’d kept my cell phone in a drawer since moving to this cabin, and had avoided any interaction beyond an exchange of pleasantries when buying groceries or getting quarters for the laundromat. There was a reason why sometimes, these days, I got startled when I heard another human voice because I’d spent most of the winter and all of the spring as a virtualhermit.
People were awful. When you were successful, they flocked to you like pigeons at the park, greedily pecking at the crumbs of your happiness. But when you had nothing left to give them, every one of them would fly away, and one or two would shit on your head as theyfled.
I wouldn’t forget again. I’d get it tattooed on me ifnecessary.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Daniel,please,” my father said. He made it sound like I was a toddler who wouldn’t put on his shoes, and I swear when he talked to me that way,I felt likeone.
“Dad, Ingrid and I are divorced—it was finalized over a year ago. What in the world made you think I’d be bringing my ex-wife to your house in the Hamptons for Memorial Day? And since I haven’t spoken to you or mom in months, what made you think I’d be coming in the firstplace?”
He sighed. “Because it’s tradition, Daniel. Everyone is expectingyou.”
Expectation was literally the worst word in the human language. To expect something was to basically set yourself up for disappointment, and to have someone expect something fromyou?Even worse. So muchworse.
“You’re going to have to get over it,” I said brightly. “I’ve already got planshere.”
My father sighed. “Where ishere? And what’s more important than being with yourfamily?”
I chuckled to myself. If I could tell him I was sunning myself on the Riviera or communing with Buddhist monks, he could work with that. Sigh about my temperamental artist’s nature and collect sympathy from hisfriends.
“Tiny little cabin in the middle of nowhere. I bought myself an old pickup and I might try my hand at writing country music lyrics. What rhymes with, ‘I’m way too old to justify my life to myfather’?”
A sharp inhale. A pause. I couldseehis jaw twitching in my mind’s eye since God knew I’d seen it enough inperson.
“Fine. I’ll tell your mother not to bother having your room made up. And from now on, we’ll assume you don’t wish to be included in our family gatherings. Goodbye,Daniel.”
