The Steeple and the Light

When I walked into the house, the table was set and the food was steaming. My father rose, his chair screeching loudly on the tiles. The plates were empty—had he waited for me? I stood stock-still as he hugged me. I had expected screaming, curses in another language. My mother watching, empty-handed on the sidelines. That’s what happened the last time I was here—who could blame me for a pessimistic streak? I set down the wine I had spent too many minutes agonizing over in a grocery store aisle and tried not to think about how gaunt my father had become, how his arms around my shoulders seemed ready to snap.

And that was why I stayed put when he held me, I told myself. I didn’t want to cause him any pain.

#

There was so much about the house that hadn’t changed in the decade and a half since I’d left. Compulsively my gaze had wandered across the new things—the sleeker landline, yet another portrait of Jesus clasping his hands over the mantle, my brother’s football gear strewn across the living room. But I was startled to realize how much I recognized, had once called mine. Muddied watercolor sets, a bent hula hoop, an illustrated hardcover edition of Huckleberry Finn. My parents weren’t hoarders, but I had always known they didn’t like letting things go to waste. They had immigrated here from a country where things were harder and scarcer, and in coming to America they had expected so much. They hadn’t figured on me, I knew. It was a terrible shock, and it wasn’t fair for anyone.

On the table were the same foods my mother had made when I was growing up. Fried milkfish, oxtail soup, white mounds of rice with more waiting in the cooker. A whole heap of chicken adobo, the dark oils glistening on the plate. My teenage brother sulked at the other end of the table from me, his phone lighting up beside him with text messages, as we said grace. For lack of anything to do, I dug in. It was hard to find Filipino food where I lived now, and the last time I’d had it had been a letdown, overpriced fusion with all the flavors dulled for less adventurous palates. With my brother across from me, my parents on either side, and the sting of vinegar and garlic in the air, I felt the strangest sensation. It was as if I’d never left, as if something had wiped its sleeve across the slate.

But that feeling only lasted a moment. There were too many reminders of how much time had passed, and it was impossible not to think of the reason. I was now old enough to be in the habit of bringing a bottle of wine when invited to dinner; my mother had gone out of her way to make a feast, like some form of peace offering, and it wasn’t Thanksgiving. My brother was no longer a baby, but lanky limbs and zits and scowls.

“How are things?” my father said, accent heavy, vowels pronounced. So there was one more thing that had stayed the same.

I met a beautiful girl, I wanted to say.

But we were sitting in the living room now, and I’d just noticed the corner of my old chess set poking out from beneath his armchair.

I’d tried to play chess with that beautiful girl once, in one of those open-air bars with board games and a dizzying number of beers on tap. She didn’t know all the rules, and we simplified things by playing checkers with those same pieces instead. I didn’t know how to tell her how much I loved her. I tried often, but it never seemed like enough, couldn’t contain all the pages my heart had started scribbling the second we met. So telling my father? It was completely beyond me. There was just something so sincere about the way she’d slid her knight all the way to the far end of the board, like she meant to throw my queen over its shoulders and ride off into the hills. She’d just been messing around, all to make me laugh. It was a small, silly thing, but I couldn’t forget it, how freely she had wanted to give me joy.

“Work is good,” I said, even as my phone buzzed in my pocket. She knew exactly where I was today, and why, and I had a feeling it was her name lighting up my screen.

“Making good money?” My father’s thick eyebrows were raised over his crinkled eyes.

“It’s enough for now,” I replied.

“You went to a good college. You should be making more,” he huffed, as if he knew my salary. As if he had been around to watch me attend said college in the first place. But I knew that would always be his response, even if I was making well into six figures.

“I’ll get there one day,” I said simply, and silence lapsed between us again. On the TV screen was a football game set to mute. I realized I was pushing back my cuticles. I wasn’t a foot tapper or a leg shaker; my hands always bore the brunt. “Jojo’s, ah. Tall now.”

“Jonathan,” my father said gruffly. “Not Jojo anymore.”

I laughed awkwardly. Of course my little brother didn’t go by the nickname we’d given him while he lay in his bassinet. There was a massive age gap between us, and though somewhat of a stressful surprise to my aging parents, I couldn’t help but think of him as their second chance. By all accounts, he was doing everything right. Always in sports, a girlfriend on his arm. Dressing and behaving exactly the way a teenage boy should. He was practically a person now, and I’d missed most of his journey getting there.

But what about mine?

I was seized, suddenly, with the need to tell my father everything. How hard college had been, all the part-time jobs I worked before, between, and after classes just to make ends meet. The suffocating corporate cubicles I trapped myself in just to feel secure. All the relationships I had thrown myself into, wanting so badly to find people and places to call my own, because I had been cast out from mine. I didn’t want to upset him with these stories; none of these thoughts were shots or accusations. I just needed him to know everything I had been through. Somehow, in a roundabout way, I wanted him to know that in the end everything had turned out alright.

I had a stable income, a nice apartment, and a girl I wanted to propose to.

That last part was the hardest to say out loud, and maybe that was why I felt that it above all had to be declared.

But there was the chess set lying on the ground between us, and my father had grabbed the remote to turn up the volume on the game.

We said very little for the rest of the night. Nothing personal, nothing of substance.

Was this acceptance? Tolerance? Did simple coexistence mean things between us were finally mended?

What did it mean about tomorrow?

If that was the case, it was a hollow victory, if one could even call it that. I had won through my inaction, through mutually agreeing to sweep things under the rug. Had I finally become the obedient daughter they had always wanted?

“Are you still hungry?” my mother asked, handing my father a beer. My coming here had been her idea, and she’d been fretting on the fringes, watching us all night.

I shook my head. “Can I have one of those too?”

She looked uncertainly between me and my father, whose eyes were glued on the screen.

“I’m 32,” I reminded her. “It’s fine, I’ll get it.”

The last time they’d caught me with alcohol I was 17, loitering in a park with my friends after a movie. I didn’t blame her for needing a second to recalibrate.

#

I always knew I was going to be the first to break. My parents were excellent at bottling up their feelings, at letting things go unsaid. On the third morning after Mass, I suddenly turned to my father and said, “Do you hate me?”

The ignition was running, and my father’s hand lingered on the keys.

“Why would you say that?”

“Because—”

It seemed ridiculous to have to give him the synopsis of why I had been kicked out. Why he had kicked me out, and left me to fend for myself.

The homily hadn’t been anything worth writing home about; I had zoned out and thought about the beautiful girl who had texted with me for hours as I lay sleepless in my old bedroom last night. But maybe there was something about the ritual of Mass, and all the candles, and the organ droning, and the gold trim on the priest’s robes. It had taken me to a still, quiet place, where all that faced me were the thoughts that had built up in my head ever since I’d arrived. I burst into tears. My father considered me for a second, then switched off the ignition, settling back into his seat.

I wanted to confess to him about the girl, and all the girls who had come before.

I wanted to ask him if he hated the girl he’d caught me with, back when I was 17.

But the words stuck in my throat, tangled and garbled and shoved themselves down. My father sighed, reaching over to the glove compartment, and handed me a tissue. Beyond the dashboard of the car the sky was a perfect blue, the church steeple rising towards the clouds.

“It’s a nice day,” he said when I quieted down.

The tissue, mascara-streaked, was balled up in my fist.

“When is your flight tomorrow?” he asked.

I told him.

“I’ll drop you off.”

I realized how close we were sitting. His shirt hung loosely on his bony shoulders, and his belt was notched with a conspicuous new tightness. His beard was going gray, and I wondered when in the long stretch of years that had happened. My mother, too, had visibly aged, and I’d noticed it right away, when she’d first answered the door. It was inevitable; fifteen years were more than plenty to change anyone. But I couldn’t help but feel that I had been the one who withered them.

“Dad—”

“You should come again for Christmas,” he said. “…unless you have plans?”

“Can I bring a friend?”

For a long moment, my father said nothing. I wondered if he recognized the euphemism, which had escaped me before I could stop it.

“It’s okay with me,” he finally said. “Ask your mother.”

As we pulled out of the parking lot, I leaned my head against the window. Familiar streets flew by. I knew them, but they didn’t know me. And neither did my father, though he sat so closely beside me. But this was more than I had before; this, finally, was real ground one could begin to stand on.

I rolled down the window and let the sun stream through.