A Timeless Place

Chapter 49

Spaghetti Sauce and Ambiguous Conversations

I arrived home and quickly pulled out my phone from my pocket to make a call.

"Ah, you're home!" I jumped at the voice coming from behind me in the kitchen. I really was not used to dad being home this often. Slowly putting my phone away, I prepared myself for the conversation I had practiced a million times in my  on the way home.

"Dad?" I wrung my hands together anxiously. I didn't even know how I was supposed to greet a father who had been absent for so many years. Was I meant to hug him? Kiss him? Or just awkwardly wave at him ten metres away as I did now.

"Yes, honey?" he didn't seem to notice my awkwardness as he continued with whatever he was doing. It was just then that I had noticed exactly what he was doing. He was cooking. Yes, cooking! Over a stove top, stirring his infamous spaghetti sauce in a pan as though nothing had changed.

"What're you doing?" I asked just to validate what I could not believe. It was a shock he was here, let alone cooking.

"Well, you didn't want to go out for dinner, so I thought I'd pull out the old cookbook," dad turned around with a large grin on his face. I immediately felt a pang of emotion. I hadn't wanted to confront the thought of my absent dad and a new woman. And he knew that when I had declined his offer for dinner. Yet he still tried to make something out of today for the two of us. I could tell he was trying really hard to fix our relationship. And I didn't want any more drama tonight. So I tried to appear natural.

"Dad, what cookbook? You only know the one recipe," I rolled my eyes at him jokingly.

"Blasphemy!" he pretended to be hurt. "My pies could soften any man."

I giggled, "Soften what dad? It explains the frequent bathroom visits."

"Cath!" dad was affronted. "Not in front of my beautiful spaghetti."

I was surprised at how natural our banter was. Yet I wasn't surprised at the same time. I watched dad try every recipe and fail miserably at every cuisine. Yet mom and I would always sit through his many meals, pretending it was the best food ever even though he could see right through us.

"The spaghetti isn't your child!" I laughed out loud.

"No it's not. But you are, and you're having this spaghetti!" he crossed his arms over his chest with a big lopsided grin on his face.

"Okay, call me when it's done," I pulled my bag over my shoulder and headed upstairs to my room. "I'm going to clean myself up."

"Cath!" dad's head peeked out from the kitchen door-frame as I reached the stairs.

"Yes, dad?" I raised an eyebrow at the sudden nervousness in his voice.

"I-is this okay? Would you like me to cook dinner again tomorrow?" his eyes were wide with a wrinkle of nervousness between his eyebrows and a slight frown of uncertainty. "I mean, I know how you teenagers have a special diet and like being independent and all-"

"Dad," I cut him off. "Why don't we go out for dinner tomorrow? With Laurina?"

His nervous face immediately transformed into a beaming smile. The happiness was palpable in the smile and clashed horrendously with my encounter only an hour ago. The small smile on my face was quickly slipping and I hurriedly rushed up to my room. I had to be alone. I couldn't handle the pain that was slowly seeping in, numbing me once again to a path I knew once before.

-

"My God," I whispered to my reflection in the mirror. I looked at my black dress, my styled curly brown hair and the horrified expression on my face. "What have I done?"

Slowly, the nervousness and fear crept over my skin, tingling everywhere. Dinner! Dinner with a woman that I barely knew who had seemingly caught my dad's attention despite my best efforts all these years to draw my dad back to me from the abyss that had taken him away.

But some part of me already knew the answer to my question. The answer to exactly why I had requested this dinner. And I felt completely ashamed because of it.

I wrung my hands nervously at what I had done but his words rang loud and clear through my mind.

'You've been stuck in the same place this whole time. And you'll always be stuck in that phase where losing your mother is the only thing that defines you.'

His voice was infuriatingly confident in his own words. It was as though he had me all figured out, propped and ready to analyse under a microscope. And perhaps he was right.

It was the same anger that I was feeling now that compelled me to prove to Wes that I was not stuck in that phase. That I was ready to accept my father being back and the very reason he was back – Laurina.

But it wasn't Wes that I needed to prove anything to. No, it was me that I was so desperate to convince that Wes' words were not true. And as a result, I accidentally made a promise to dad that I had never intended on making. By accepting a dinner invite, I was accepting a new addition to a family that a week ago, only consisted of me. And it wasn't just dinner for dad. It was a fresh new page. A new family. Where mom was forgotten and Laurina was here.

What had I done?

I had to fix this. But how? I couldn't give dad false hope that I'd let this woman just waltz into our lives.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was already dialling a number.

"Hello?" a voice answered after the first ring.

"Do you still have that shovel?" I asked Kevin.

"Already loaded in the car," was his reply. "Do you need the body bag as well?"

"No, I'll walk myself to my grave."

"Ahh," Kevin immediately recognised my tone. "What did you do?"

"Something stupid," I sighed in exasperation.

"Did you have to do it?" was his reply. I was taken aback. It was an odd reply. And I took a moment to think about it. Perhaps he hadn't intended it, but it was a complicated and deep question.

"Yes, I guess I did," I replied. "I needed to do it for me- to figure something out, but I'm afraid my decision might be interpreted differently to someone else."

"But it's important to you that you did it?" he asked. Somehow, even though he had no idea what we were talking about, every word in this conversation made perfect sense.

"Yes, I guess it was," how did it appear so easy now?

"Then sometimes, you have to do what it takes for you to figure yourself out, consequences be damned."

"Thank you, Kev," I replied. "I guess I won't need the shovel until the consequences come knocking at the door." Quite literally, perhaps.

"I'll polish it until then," he joked. "Good luck."

I now walked downstairs with newfound resolve. Perhaps I didn't make this decision only to spite Wes or to prove him wrong. Perhaps I needed this regardless. If dad was going to be back in my life, I guess I needed to know why and how. And the first step towards that direction would be dinner tonight.