"Actually," Bryce stopped my train of thought. "I coach little league Sunday afternoons, in the field behind the hockey arena. I always swing by for a coffee and Danish beforehand. I'm a creature of habit."
An image of Bryce wearing a snug baseball uniform flashed into my mind. It caused a smile to twinkle across my face. Stop that, I scolded myself. "So, what team do you play for?" Oh. My. God. I hoped that didn't sound as bad out loud as it did in my head. I tried not to blush as I added, "Giants or Bears?" Which were both common names of little league teams.
"Neither actually. We're the Grizzlies."
I laughed. "So, giant bears?"
He laughed too. "I guess so. I never made that connection before." A silence fell between us after that. It was too brief to be awkward, but long enough that we both noticed it. Bryce caught my gaze and held it while I took a sip of my coffee. "Are you headed to your father's today?"
I swallowed, then nodded. "Lauren is supposed to call me when she's out of church. We'll go together." There was safety in pairs. While I doubted my father would attack me on sight, his reactions were difficult to predict. More likely than anything, he would choose to ignore me. After all, he had made it very clear that I was dead to him, and ghosts can neither be seen nor heard.
"Last night, I got the impression that things are tense between the two of you?"
"Who? Lauren and I?" He shook his head. "Oh, you mean my father?" He nodded. "Well, he and I have always been two forces acting in opposition. So yes, tense is the word I would use. I'm certain he would use words like insubordinate and ungrateful."
"How long has it been since you've seen each other?"
I felt shy about being so open to someone I barely knew. In an aim to be nonchalant, I shrugged, "I'm not sure. What decade are we in again?"
He immediately saw through my attempt. "That long, huh?" He said with a raised brow. "Do you mind if I ask why?"
"To be honest, I can't remember," I lied, not wanting to divulge too much to the handsome stranger before me. "I guess, at first, it was my fault. I left this town without even saying goodbye. I was so eager to find myself somewhere else that I abandoned everyone here."
"You haven't spoken a word to each other since then?"
"No," I gazed past Bryce for a moment and out through the window that looked out onto the street. A memory was floating to the surface, and I pushed it back down into the depths, lest I got lost in it. "We spoke on the phone once, several years ago."
"And?" He prodded.
"And we haven't spoken since. So you can imagine how well it went." It had been when I had told him I was gay. That conversation had ended with the proclamation that I would be damned to hell — followed by the declaration that he and my mother would have no part in it. I had tried to call a few times after that, but my calls went unanswered, and my messages unreturned.
"Well, maybe now it won't be as bad. Time has a way of taming even the most stubborn horses."
I laughed a little to myself. "Have you met my father? The man can't hold his temper or his liquor, but he's mastered how to hold a grudge."
"I have met him several times," Bryce leaned back in his chair. "This may come as a surprise to you, but he's an old man now. An old man who lost his wife. He may not have much fight left in him."
I stared into my empty coffee mug, saying nothing. "Look, can I give you some unsolicited advice?" Again, I said nothing, but I lifted my gaze to him, in wait. "Your father doesn't know who you are now, and chances are, he doesn't care."
"Sounds like my dad," I interjected. "What's the advice?"
"Reintroduce yourself." I tried not to roll my eyes, but his statement made it difficult. He smiled at my reaction. "I'm serious. Twenty years is a long time. A lot can change, especially people. He hasn't seen your progression. He doesn't know who you are. In his mind, you're still the same, seventeen-year-old boy who ran away. You have a golden opportunity to make a new first impression. Don't waste it."
Maybe Bryce was right. Perhaps that is what would turn the tide and carry me finally to shore, but a nagging feeling dulled my sails. "What if he still can't accept me or who I've become?" I asked.
Bryce shrugged. "It's a crapshoot, but it's a game worth playing if you win."
"And if I lose?"
He rose and dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table. "I'm at the ballpark until two o'clock. If you lose, I'll buy you a beer after. You'll need it."
A drink with Bryce didn't sound like a consolation prize.
As we pulled up to my childhood home, I was surprised that my memory of it was so clear after two decades of trying to forget. The giant two-story custom-built home was everything I remembered. It was big and cold, like my father. The yard was surrounded by a clichéd white picket fence, which he had built and painted himself. To the right of the house, a gate in the fence opened to my mother's garden. Normally, it would have been a riot of colours, but my mother had been too sick to plant that spring. As soon as Lauren turned the car off, the front door of the house opened. My father, looking tired, emerged onto the front steps. Lauren had told me that he had not been sleeping well since our mother’s passing. The day before my arrival, she had scurried to the town pharmacy to fetch him a mild sleep aid. It must have worked, for it was unlike him to sleep through anything, especially church.
I barely recognized the person who stood waiting to greet us. Bryce had been right; he was an old man now, already sixty-five. I knew how time worked. We were both twenty years older, but I was unprepared for the sad reality of it. My sister had watched the gradual ageing process. For me, it was as though my once robust father had aged overnight. He seemed smaller and less intimidating. He was thinner in the face, but inches had been added around his waist. His thick mane of brown hair was now grey and had receded to a thin crown that left the top of his head exposed. Deep lines framed his eyes and his cheeks, a roadmap of his life. If I could follow them, where would they take me? I found myself wondering what I had missed during the years I'd been gone. What battles had he faced? Were his wrinkles badges of honour or injuries of war? But more shocking to me than his change in appearance was the change in the way he moved.
He descended the porch stairs and came toward us. I noticed his movement was slower, more precise, as though his joints ached from arthritis. It was hard to believe he was the same man who had slammed me into walls or fractured my wrist. He was a shell of the man I remembered and feared, and I was disheartened by it. At thirty-seven years old and having lost my mother, I was under no illusion that my father was invincible. Yet, seeing him the way he was at that moment, rather than the image I had frozen in my mind, was sobering. So much time had been lost to proud silence.
As he approached, I tried to judge his mood, but when he glanced at me and said, "What the hell are you looking at?" it answered any questions I had. His personality had not been as softened by time.
"Daddy, you said you'd be nice," Lauren frowned.
"I am being nice, but he's staring at me like I'm behind glass. It's pissing me off."