“…of the cake?”
My father’s voice shook me out of my trip down memory lane.
I blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
He hitched an eyebrow. “Do you want a piece of the cake?” he repeated.
“Oh, uh, sure.”
He picked up the cake box, and we walked silently to the kitchen, where he silently cut us slices and we silently chewed.
Awkward with a capital A.
I wondered where it had gone wrong with us. My father never had issues talking and laughing with Josh. Why did he act so weird around me? And why did I act so weird around him? He was my dad, yet I’d never been able to open up to him fully.
He paid my bills and fed and sheltered me until I went to college, but Josh had been my real sounding board over the years, the one I went to whenever I wanted to talk about my day or had problems—with school, friends, or much to his disgust, boys.
It was more than the fact that my dad was an authority figure and Josh was closer to my age. I had no trouble connecting with professors and my friends’ parents.
It was something else. Something I couldn’t name.
But perhaps that’s just the nature of Asian parents of a certain age. It’s not in our culture to show affection openly. We didn’t say I love you or hug all the time like Stella’s family. Chinese parents show their love through actions, not words—working hard to provide for their children, cooking food, taking care of their kids when they’re sick.
I grew up not wanting for any material goods, and my father paid my full tuition at Thayer, which wasn’t cheap. Sure, he disapproved of my photography career, and I had to fund all my equipment myself. And yeah, he played favorites with Josh, probably because he retained a deep-seated cultural preference for sons over daughters. But in the grand scheme of things, I’d lucked out. I should be grateful.
Still, it would be great if I could hold a normal conversation with my own father without it devolving into awkward silence.
I stabbed at my cake, wondering whether any early birthday surprise had ever been as pathetic as this one, when my skin tingled.
I looked up, and the tingles morphed into chills.
There.
Maybe that was why I’d never opened up to my dad, because sometimes I caught him staring at me like that.
Like he didn’t know me.
Like he hated me.
Like he feared me.