Father--Emma

I used to long for the moments when the house was quiet. Not silent, but quiet. Mom feeding our dog in the kitchen, and Dad in the living room watching golf or whatever debate was on. Not like that night a couple weeks ago, when it was too loud. So loud I could hear every shout vibrate through my bedroom floor; then after, when he slammed the door shut to take a walk at the park it was silent. 

For awhile after, things were normal. As normal as normal could get around here ever since October. Dad took me out to coffee on Thursdays after school, and Mom and I watched TV before we went to sleep at night. 

But, then more and more Dad wasn’t home at night, out somewhere to relieve stress or talk to my brother on the phone away from listening ears. He was going up to visit him in Utah this Saturday since he’d badly injured his knee and needed someone to take care of him. 

Dad and I had talked. He said he was going to leave soon, tears in his eyes, and he wouldn’t be able to make it to my graduation. I was angry, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him so when he was already so broken. He didn’t need the added weight of my scorn, too. Especially when I know he’s done nothing wrong. 

A few days before Saturday, they signed the papers. I saw them when I came downstairs to get my textbooks. I didn’t say anything. 

On Saturday we drove to the airport. Dad asked me to sit in the backseat with him this time, and talk about the debate we watched the night before. I didn’t think anything of it. We talk about those kinds of things all the time. Nothing out of the ordinary. The whole drive Mom was silent. 

When we pulled up to the curb at the airport, I got out of the car to see Dad off, as usual. This time he cried. And cried. And cried. We hugged, longer than normal, and still he cried. I’m not good with words so I don’t say anything, just holding him until he’s ready to go. 

He takes his two suitcases and backpack, filled with almost everything from the house that belongs to him. When he walks into the airport he pauses, turning back around to look at me as he leaves. I watch him hang his head, shoulders shaking, and I know he is crying harder than before. 

Dad never told me what his plans were for the future. After the plans were all made for the divorce, he didn’t communicate directly with me. I waited all week before Saturday, but it never came. Obviously I suspected he would be gone for awhile, but not forever. Not forever, as Mom

told me when she took me out to coffee after dropping him off. Dad planned to stay there with my brother. Finally get a job, buy a new car, get his own apartment.
I didn’t cry that day, but maybe I should have. I’ve never been abandoned before. I don’t really know ​how ​I should feel. What I know for sure is that I’m ​lonely.​ 

I used to wish for quiet and now I have it. I get home every day and there’s no one there waiting for me but my old dog, who’s losing her eyesight and only recognizes me when I come close. I wished for quiet, and I got it.