Homeland Elegies(103)

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

Once he’d disappeared beyond the row of tree-tall bouquets dividing the dining room, I realized just how angry I was.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“For what?” I asked. I heard myself. I sounded like an asshole.

“I asked him to make sure you knew. I didn’t want you to be blindsided. I wanted to be sure you knew. So you had a choice.”

“A choice?”

“About whether you were okay meeting me or not.” She paused. “You’ve been part of my life for so many years. I just…I feel like I know you. I know how much he loves you. How much you love him. I just want to…” She stopped, her lips holding in—it seemed—a feeling of sympathy she wasn’t sure I would want to feel from her.

“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s not you. It’s him. He’s been very unpredictable lately.”

“I know,” she said with finality.

And that was all we said. I sat there in silence and stared down at the table. I could still feel my heart in my ears. I realized I couldn’t stay, but I knew I couldn’t leave until he returned. And then, all at once, he was back, slipping into the corner place beside her. He still looked nervous, but I couldn’t deny what I saw before me: he’d never looked so much himself—which is to say, that face I’d known my whole life seemed more clearly what it was, what I’d always known it to be, as if some intervening, disfiguring filter I’d never understood to comprise so much of his appearance had fallen away, and, for the first time, I was beholding him without it. “So,” he began brightly. “The bathrooms are stunning. I highly recommend the trip.” Neither of us replied. He pulled his readers from his breast pocket and picked up a menu just as the waiter appeared and asked me what I was drinking.

“Not sure yet.”

The waiter nodded and turned to my father, indicating his almost finished drink: “Another vodka gimlet, sir?”

“Please,” Father said politely, tossing back the rest and handing him the glass.

“Go ahead and bring the whole bottle,” I blurted out to the waiter, who looked understandably startled.

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“I said, just bring him the whole bottle. He’s probably gonna go through at least that much by the time he’s done.”

“Ayad.”

“What, Dad?! Hmm?”

He looked up at the waiter. “Just the gimlet will be fine. Thank you.”

Caroline was moving along the bench to the table’s edge. “I’m just going to freshen up. I’ll be right back,” she said meekly as she got out and left us.

“Can you be civil, please? Can you stop behaving like a child?” Father glared, then took up the menu.

“Civil?!” I yelped. “I’m the one behaving like a child?! Me?!—”

“I said stop it—”

“I’m the one who needs babysitting through his court case? Drunk in casinos, in jail? I’m the one who’s supposed to be civil?!” If I’d been paying attention, I might have noticed the silence growing around us.

“That’s enough.”

“You’re right. It is enough. You mind telling me what’s going on with you?”

“With what?”

“What happened to all your money?”

“None of your business.”

“Isn’t that exactly what it’s become now that I’m paying for all this ridiculous stuff—”

“Ridiculous? You think I didn’t pay for you? For years?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“‘Just one more month, Daaad. I’ll have rent next month, Daaad.’” His high-pitched, open mockery of my American accent continued to draw the notice of those around us.

“You’ve been using that one on me now for ten years. I couldn’t make it on my own. I needed your help. I know that. I’m sorry! I’m sorry it took me so long! How many times do I have to thank you before you’ll leave me alone about it? I couldn’t have done any of it without you! You’re the only reason any of it happened! Okay!? Does that make you happy!?” I was shouting, and around us, the dining room had gone silent. I thought I felt Father’s impulse to strike me—or maybe this was only the consciously admissible form of my own long-buried desire to hit him—and saw the scarlet bloom rushing up his neck. My heart lurched, stuffing my ears with its relentless throbbing. “You’re an embarrassment,” he said nastily as he lifted the menu again and hid himself from me. I saw the waiter heading for our table with the ma?tre d’ in tow. I wasn’t about to be chastised in public any further.

“Fuck this,” I said, then got up and walked out.

The night was brisker than I recalled. At the corner, whatever was coursing through my veins pushed me into the oncoming traffic. Car horns blared as I wove my way across Madison Avenue back into the park, defiant. The rage felt like a heat that would burn me if I didn’t release it. But where? How? On whom? On what? A young couple passed me, arm in arm. I suddenly wondered if my fists could be used to shake the feeling. To ask the question—I knew—was already to avoid it. I wanted to scream; I knew I wouldn’t do that, either.