"Well, come on in," my father said, holding open the door for me.
I managed a smile and stepped inside. I'd imagined this part of meeting my father, too. I'd imagined cast iron gates of a private estate swinging open to a long, paved drive between neat rows of large oaks. I'd imagined tall, light-filled spaces decorated with modern art and custom pieces of furniture. I'd imagined marble and glass and gold fixtures.
But in the dim light of my father's crowded apartment, I saw old pizza boxes with grease stains on a used coffee table, heavy drapes hanging limply to block the sun, and carpet littered with cigarette ash.
"Kitchen's this way," my father grumbled.
I followed silently after him, stepping over a beer bottle here or a pill bottle there. My father seemed smaller than I expected as we went down a dark, narrow hallway. His shoulders were sloped and he was hunched over, his thin legs moving with stiff, halting movements. We entered an old, dingy kitchen, and I stood awkwardly in the doorway as my father swept an armful of trash into the bin from the table.
"Beer?" my father asked with the voice of a life-long chain smoker.
"Sure," I said, giving him a small, timid smile.
It was only just now after noon, but both my hangover and my nerves could have used a beer. My father opened the fridge and as he pulled out two beers with a clink of glass, I saw that there was nothing else in that frigid blue light but a ketchup bottle and a crumpled McDonald's bag.
The bottle caps went into a drawer of dusty takeout menus and unused packets of soy sauce and even more ketchup. My father and I took seats in what looked like sun-faded lawn chairs opposite each other at the wobbly kitchen table. We each nursed the lingering silence with our mouths on the beer bottles like teething babies.
"So, um, how's your mother?" my father finally asked, picking at some dirt under his fingernails and avoiding my eyes.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair and swallowed a big gulp of Bud Light.
"Yeah, Ma's good," I said. "Everyone's good."
I watched my father absentmindedly scratch at the stumble along his chin and wondered if he could even remember all of our names.
"Um, is it, is it just you here?" I asked.
I looked around me as if expecting to see more than a lonely, empty kitchen, as if I just looked behind this cabinet or into that drawer, I might see some trace of a wife, a lover, a daughter, a friend, a life.
"Yup," my father said, his words muffled by the beer bottle to his lips. "Just the way I like it."
I nodded and retreated back to my beer. The only sound was the metallic click, click of the old clock on the wall.
"How do you like Albuquerque?" I asked.
My father tore a piece of his beer label off and shrugged. "It's a place."
"Quite a bit more sun than Dublin."
"Emhmm."
It was quickly apparent that my father was avoiding my eyes. When I dreamed of this scenario, staring up at the ceiling in bed late at night, I always feared something just that. But in those terse nightmares, my father saw me and avoided my eye because he was unimpressed, disappointed, ashamed. I couldn't help but think that this wasn't the reason my father was looking away from me.
As I sat there at the table, I got the feeling that it was he who was ashamed.
This man, by all indications, had nothing. He was living in poverty with old furniture, old clothes, old appliances. If he was employed it didn't seem to be a career that inspired or fulfilled him. And worst of all, he was alone. He said that was the way that he liked it, but it seemed to me he only said that because it was the only way it could be: he'd pushed anyone who'd ever loved him far, far away.
My father finished his beer and without another word, got up to retrieve another from the refrigerator. He didn't get me one, he didn't even ask. This was not a man looking to catch up with his son over beers over a long afternoon; this was a man who wanted to forget this unfortunate reunion as quickly as possible. I fidgeted with the label of my own beer bottle as I watched my father stare blankly at the clock on the microwave.
A creeping feeling of disgust was starting to crawl up from the base of my spine: this, this was the man I had been living my life for. Whether consciously or not, I had been chasing his approval year after year, making choices because of him, acting in certain ways because of him, ripping away things I actually cared about because of him. I'd created a god out of a man—a sad, simple, pitiful man. In my mind I'd built him up to a brilliant businessman who'd left to create his fortune without the distractions of family. I'd constructed for him a mansion, designed for him sports cars, placed in his bed models, clothed him in designer suits, and mounted him onto a pedestal high out of my own reach. I'd made myself miserable trying to reach a standard no one but myself put in place.
I'd feared not being enough in my father's eyes and here he was, unable to even glance in my direction.
As I continued to stare at him, I saw how much control he had over me. It wasn't even his fault. This man had no control over anything, not even his own happiness in life. I'd given him that control over my life, that all-consuming control. That
