Four

            Mom walks into my bedroom in indistinguishable steps. The light coming from the halls silhouetted her tiny figure. I close my eyes and pretend that I’m soundly asleep, adding bits of snores for more effects.

            It was always like this, she would make sure that I’m already drowsing off to slumber before she could even sleep herself. I was expecting that I would hear the creaking sound of my door closing, but instead, it was the bed squeaking with its metal springs below and I feel the left side of the cushion being pressed.

            “I know you’re not sleeping,” she whispered and I can catch the small cracks of her voice in between words.

            She had been crying.

            I open my eyes in a hindmost manner and the first thing I see is my mother, smiling down at me like she used to.

            I remember Mom smiling at me for so many times that I could not count them anymore because I only know how to count from one to a hundred back when I was six. From then on, the numbers became infinite enough that I had stopped trying.  I remember Mom smiling because I won in an all-state junior archery competition. I remember her smiling because I had trouble learning how to reheat my pizza with the microwave when I was eight. I have memorized every line of her lips as she pulls off that grin that has always warms my insides. I have studied the angle of its curve that I can sketch it without her looking at me. It was often because I wasn’t doing my best in a certain job, but she would smile at me like I’m the most perfect person in the entire universe and tell me to come over her and she would kiss my head and say, “You’re better than me, actually,” or “Do you think I can shoot at the target myself?” After some time, I’d feel pleased.

            But this time, her face was a pure image of unmistakable misery, the bags under her eyes start to darken. Her smile, however, is still genuine and I am guessing that she might just be attempting to hide under a mask, with her real feelings intact inside.

            Well, at least she tried.

            “Yeah,” I say softly, “I can’t sleep.”

            “I know, of course you can’t. It’s hard to really sleep when you think about a lot of things.”  And right now, I sense that she’s thinking about Millie, and the tight conversation our dinner had gone through.

            She lies beside me sluggishly, caring less that I’m already a teenager and I don’t need anyone anymore for limitless hugs and kisses after nightmares.

            Yet I let her be, because maybe she’s the one who needs me this time.

            “And it’s harder when you’re horribly broken,” she continued.

            She wraps an arm around my chest and lulls me back to sleep. But I know too well that she’s not here to help me go back to my slumber. She’s here because, “There’s something wrong.”

            She pondered about this for a long while before responding, “Well, I couldn’t sleep either.”

            I ask why.

            “It’s your father,” she said.

            When he talks about Dad, it’s usually about missing his steamed fish fillet or his chicken curry or the way he would look at her in the eyes like the moon and stars just aligned blah blah blah. “Missing him again?” I was irritated by my inner thinking. Really.

            “Phil, I don’t think there was ever a time that I didn’t think of him.”

            I undeniably agree. She often tells me that he’ll come back. We know he will, despite of what other people say that he won’t. Mom and I are still holding on to the last thread of hope, of him standing outside our door and patiently waiting to embrace us.

            She switches the lamp back on and we both sat up. Looking down, she begins to fiddle with her fingers, giving it a shot to reverse the topic. But with the sudden shine forming in her oceanic eyes, I knew she can never avoid it.

            “We got news from the US Navy.”

            We never heard from Dad’s team since eight years ago, when they said he is currently MIA. And Mom telling me that she just got a message makes my face brighten up and I can feel my heart wanting to get out of its cage again.

            “They finally found him. They said he was cast away to an island off the coast in the Pacific,” she said.

            I take it a hint that I am becoming skittish and high-strung because my hand are awfully sweating and my toes are twitching in the most unusual manner.

            He’s coming home at last, I thought. For so many years I’ve felt so accustomed to the idea of growing up without a father, without someone to throw the baseball at me, without someone to be my partner-in-crime to ask a girl out on a date, without someone snickering with me when Mom has her daily tantrums. But now �" now that Mom is telling me about this, now that I am hearing something about my father finding his way back to the shore, I’m undoubtedly awaiting his arrival.

            But at the same time, I’m a lot more uneasy, the jitters of my fingers giving it away and the tension surging its way up to my spinal cords is a bit of a wake-up call for all my systems to function back. Somehow, something is pulling my instigation farther out of existence, because Mom’s face falls right on top of her palms and her back compliantly moves along the rhythm of her faltered breaths.

            “They found him dead, Philip.” She laggardly wipes her sniffs off with the sleeves of her sweater.

            “They found him dead,” she reluctantly repeated.

            Not long after, the tears show up.

            The first time I really cried in front of my mother is when I was fourteen. Clothes, books, papers, shoes, and the currently-released comics were scattered everywhere on the carpeted floor. It was as though a typhoon had viciously broken into my bedroom, knocking all the paraphernalia off my desk. I was about to slam down my “Shelf of Fame” when Mom had popped in, rushing across the room to hold my then chubby cheeks, which was recklessly wet with all my crying �" and also the exhaustion of stomping around the room like an enraged elephant. Mom had clutched me gently under her delicate arms and I hesitantly removed my hold from the “Shelf of Fame” until my arms discover themselves circling her puny waist, her head resting above my short black hair and her kisses landing every now and then on my forehead.

            Her comfort alone was what I’ve always needed.

            I thought I like to accept her customary alleviation, except that I was the one to rather give it to her.

            My now weak arms enclose around her and I gingerly place my chin on top of her head �" the same way she used to do it. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” I keep hushing, beside the obvious affliction spilling around our sobs that it will apparently not be alright.

            Uninvited images of the future dash through my mind �" Mom gathering up the pricks of depression, not minding that it can torture her for years and decades, Grampy keeps missing to refill the cabinet in the yacht and would somehow end up not knowing that there really is a cabinet in the yacht, and then the whole Handler residences would fall terribly quiet because every conversation will just lead to something that concerns Dad �" which I truly never met.

            It’s probably the most formidable thing to genuinely cry over the death of a complete stranger.

            I may have seen Dad in photo albums and heard his name from Mom’s and Grampy’s mouths, but I have never known him for real �" the way I want to understand more of him.

            Mom had told me bedtime stories about him and his daring misadventures in the sea, because I had asked her more than a dozen to help me learn more of Dad.

            “Why Dada leave me?” I had asked, my toddler voice was incredibly high-pitched.

            I remember having the habit of biting my fingernails when I get so anxious. And that time, when I was two, I would get so anxious easily �" too easily.

            “He didn’t leave you, Phil Phil,” Mom had said, using my childhood nickname. “He never left you. He would never do that. He went to the Navy because he has to do something really really important for the country’s safety.”

            My chestnut pupils were broadly dilated as I dream beyond my wildest boyish fantasies. “So he’s a supaheewow?”

            She did not need to hesitate. She nodded, “Yes, absolutely. A navy superhero,” and smiled that similar grin again.

            Grampy’s way of telling Dad’s mysterious chronicles are perpetually identical to each other. There aren’t any differences at all �" not even the tiniest detail.

            Before getting into his traditional episodes, he would start by saying, “Don’t fret,” or “Ease up your faces, children,” or “Let’s all celebrate!” Then he’d eventually dig a little deeper, unveiling the tunnels of my father’s mysterious getaways. “He’ll find his way back home. He always does.” I’m betting he mentioned this more than a million times now, ever since he flew off to wherever the hell his mission is, somewhere past the Hawaiian islands, I guess.

 

            “He’s just missing in action, Sylvia. He’s not dead yet,” he would remind Mom. And the word ‘yet’ has been constantly hanging around his sentences, like he was telling her to just keep holding on to the only vine of hope left and be careful not to slip off. But really, he wants to say that somehow, whatever’s gonna happen, it’s going to happen and that Dad will be dead. Grampy is that much of a coward to not reveal what he clearly longs to say �" which is the truth. Mom and I, however, didn’t have the chance to realize that Grampy was speaking about the realities we’ve been both denying and foreseeing circumstances and possibilities that we have not understood and considered before.

            And now, now that Mom told me herself that he’s gone forever, that the Dad that will come back to our house has an unbeating heart, a frail body, and a blank face; now that we both lie on the bed with each other, my mother still whimpering and shivering from the noisy and clamorous absence of his being, I have finally comprehended that maybe I wasn’t meant to meet him like the stars are not meant to shine with the sun. And even though I despise the idea of why my destiny has taken me to this place right now, I love that I can perceive the point of it getting me towards somewhere better, somewhere I can definitely realize that Dad has been living in me eternally �" and will be forever.

            Beside me, Mom had already fallen asleep. I kiss her head goodnight. I’ve admired her for so many things and right at this moment, I am in marvelous awe of her courage, crying out bravely to me and exposing all her emotions. She used to lock herself in the bedroom at night, cautious that if I see her weeping, I might think that she’s not strong enough anymore.

            And so I stare out the window, to the vast evening sky and pretend that the brightest star up there is Dad, imagining him looking down at me as he remembers that he left his most precious treasures. But he doesn’t need to absorb any more agitation, because he already told the stars to guide me on my way back home.

            Before I shut myself from reality, I whispered to the silent chilly air.

            “Goodnight, Dad. I’ll miss you forever.”

            And I feel a breeze sweep through my forehead, as though someone has planted a kiss.`