My Father, The Oppressor, The Immigrant, The Patriarch, My Hero
It seems the world at large conspires to tell your father that he is right to be in charge of his family, to demand that seat at the head of the table.
I am notorious for having a spotty memory, so forgive the lack of detail in this story.
My family — me, my younger sister, my mother, and father — were on vacation; we were traveling through a small-ish town, and would be stopping for the night before heading to our final destination. We were hungry, and though we drove past roadside restaurant after restaurant, my dad wouldn’t stop at any of them, despite my mom’s urging. Instead he quickly sped past each one, eventually making a loop around the town. We finally drove to our motel, and after a screaming row between my parents, “we” settled on the hotel lobby restaurant for dinner.
We ate, silently; my dad ripped through his steak and then left the table while my sister, mother, and I remained. That night, I called my then-boyfriend from the hotel stairwell, crying and whispering, “Why does he do this? Why do they do this?” into the phone, the door propped open with my shoe. Swap out incidentals — how old I was, the type of phone I was using, where we were — because the same scene repeats…
