My Dad’s Affair

My Dad’s Affair

I’ve never told anyone about my father’s affair. I don’t know if I’m ashamed. I wasn’t even old enough to truly understand the seriousness of what was going on at the time. I was only ten. Anyways, I had known what an affair was even at that age. There was a sitcom I watched with my mom, dad, and sister which showed a family in which the father and mother had already each had a child of their own with someone else before they got married. They had been married only a short time and soon after the woman cheated with her ex-husband. That’s how I knew.

My dad liked that show though. One time he said it was one of his favorites because he always found it so funny how the dad played with his kids. He’d laugh as we watched him chase his sons around the house acting like a wild beast with a dreadfully laughable roar or when he would lift them up high in the air to make faces at them only to act like a normal father at other times. I agreed with him that the dad was the most fun to watch, but I admire my dad more than the one in the show even though the show made life look so good. I had known that the people in the show weren’t real, but I liked the idea of the husband forgiving his wife. I knew that my dad would be the same type of man to do that. Things like that made held my attention and praise on him alone.

My dad was a tall dark haired man with a thick layer of hair throughout his body and defined creases around his eyes due to all of the strained expressions his job would force him to make, but it gave a sense of sincerity to his face. His skin was rough and tanned, but he was clean-cut and well dressed whenever the occasion called for it. I had felt protected by him my whole life and I was very proud. His job as a construction worker didn’t make a lot of money, but I wouldn’t have traded the childhood he gave me for money. He had raised me as well as a father could have and I had felt that I was his greatest treasure because back then he was mine.

I always loved the days I spent working with my dad. I loved what he did and I loved going to help him out when I didn’t have to go to school. Some holidays, when it was just a staff day at school and my dad had work in the morning, he would bring me with him to the site he was working on. I remember the first time he did this he gave me his gloves and let me carry some cement that had been torn up from the old abandoned playground we were working at. I picked up the biggest pieces I could carry, with the stones rubbing against my chest through my shirt giving me my battle scars, and dropped them off at his truck so that I could run back to get more. The red marks on my chest served as a reward after the long day of hard work. I liked getting battered and dirtied with my dad. Helping him was like being the sidekick to Superman in my eyes. He would call me lieutenant to signal me to come over and get some more cement or to help him lift something and it would make me feel like I was just important in getting the work done as he was. It drove me to keep on helping every chance that I could get. He liked having me around and was glad that his job gave him the ability to bring his kid with him, when it was safe enough of course.

With or without me he would come back from work with a filthy shirt, usually covered in grayish dust from the tearing up of cement. Every day I waited for my dad to come home. It meant dinnertime, family time, and laughing together around the TV in front of his favorite show.

When he got home he would always go straight into the shower and then he would be out ten minutes later to eat dinner.

My favorite meal that I always asked my mom to make was four-cheese lasagna with fruit salad. I loved strawberries so I made sure to ask her if she was going to put them in and she sometimes would ask for me to help out because I always requested them. I always reminded her that she did it best. Her lasagna was one of the few meals in which she wouldn’t trade out the tastiest ingredients to make it healthier for us. She would stick to the recipe because she wanted give us a treat.

My sister, August, loved the lasagna most of us all. When she was seven she started trying to learn how to make it alongside my mom because she thought if she helped it might get made more often. She was right.

My dad loved my sister so much. He would call her his Only Sweet Baby Girl and his Little Princess almost every time he saw her and it would constantly put her into such a prideful, yet innocent, mood. I was envious sometimes. I wanted him to use a nickname with me around my family as well. I wanted to have the sort of nickname that would tell me he would do anything for me, but I knew my dad. He wanted to build me up and make me strong. He wanted to strengthen me and make me more of a man even if it meant denying me the praise that he gave my sister.

He would always call me lieutenant at his work though and when he had to go run to the hardware store to get some supplies he would say, “Hey lieutenant, will you come with me to the store?” I always went because I liked being alone with my dad most of all. My sister couldn’t have him then and I wanted him to see that I would go anywhere for him and I would follow him everywhere to help him out.

One night my dad came home from work two hours later than usual. My mom had called him several times and we ended up eating dinner and watching TV without him. I made my mom save the show for him so that we could watch it the next night, so we just left it to record on the VCR. She kissed me on the forehead and called me sweet and then she told me to choose something else.

By the time my dad got home it was about 8:20 and the sun had been down for two hours. He always came home when the sun was about to go down. Usually I would be playing basketball outside in the court on the neighbors hoop so that I could be the first one to see him when he pulled into the driveway with his dusty truck. Playing basketball with my dad was something I couldn’t wait to do. We would play on the weekends at the neighborhood park and he would win but he always gave me a chance. He would purposefully miss-dribble the ball to let me steal it and sometimes when we played together we would get so sweaty that he would go buy my sister and me an ice cream.

I noticed the pure red drop of moisture streaming down from his otherwise clean forehead. It landed on his white shirt, covered in grayish powder and wet stains of red, but other than his clothes he didn’t look as dirty as he usually did after getting back from work. When he trudged in and had a different look on his face than I was used to. His forehead was wrinkled and his lips trembled with almost a frown as if he were angry. He walked right past us to go shower as we watched the TV.

My dad was usually a loving man, but he would have to be hard on my sister or me if we upset my mom. I tended to be unhelpful with chores in the house unless my dad was around because I didn’t look up to my mom like I did to my dad. I liked to make her happy and she cared for me well like any mom would, but I just played games in my room or play basketball outside rather than helping her with dinner and doing the house work. I had always thought that helping my dad was more fun than helping so I didn’t like to bother with boring house chores even though should never pestered a hate for them into me. Sometimes she would get annoyed with me though because I would ignore her simplest requests so she would go get my dad or call him at work and have him talk to me. I always listened to him when he told me that I should help out.

Once my dad got back to his room I could hear the shower squeak on as he turned the knob and then the water hit the curtain as he was getting in. He stayed in the shower for almost twenty minutes and came out silently. The three of us had just sat down at the dinner table to have dessert because we didn’t want him to eat alone when he came out. He walked through the hallway slowly and when he got to the table I looked up. My mom stood up and kissed him on the forehead while I was poking at my dessert with my fork. He then asked if we could take it into the family room, so we took our fruitcake while he took his meal and we sat down on the couch, planning to watch our show. Within a minute of sitting down my dad started to speak. He said, “Kids, why don’t you go to your rooms and finish your desserts there for tonight.” It happened very quickly but we soon both agreed. After I had gone back to my room I decided that I wanted to pour a cup of milk to go with my cake. I quickly walked past the family room and once I was in the kitchen I went and opened up the fridge door as slowly and silently as I could. I then let it close with a soft seal and popped the cap off of the milk. I snuck over to the pantry to grab my favorite cup and while reaching up for the handle I knocked over another glass.

I stood still. “I’m sorry daddy,” were the first words that left my mouth. I hated myself. I knew my dad was having a rough day and I had to be the one to ruin the night. Before, I had even had hopes that we might still watch our show, but I knew that it probably wouldn’t happen after what I did.

“Henry,” he said in a strong and steady tone, summoning me into the family room. I stood for a few seconds thinking of what I would say before I moved. I thought to myself, “I’m sorry dad. I was reaching up to get a cup for milk and there was a glass in the way, I’m sorry.” Then I left the kitchen, walking around the baby blue counter thinking of its smooth texture except for the dried breadcrumbs from when my mother made my PB&J that morning. I swiped some onto the floor behind me and regretted it immediately. My heart rate probably doubled as I entered into the living room.

The room felt like it was full of people. It felt stuffy. I felt like I could barely get inside of it because there were simply too many people in the way, but it was dead silent. I could even hear my sister crack her door open to hear what he had to say. I thought he would be furious because he was having a bad day, but when I looked up at him he was leaning forward, body slumping downwards, and his arms were supporting his head against his knees. He still had the wound on his forehead above his right eyebrow. It wasn’t dripping anymore but it was pure red and the gash looked painful. He raised his eyebrows as he looked up at me and I could see the sad creases form around his eyes.

When he opened his mouth I felt the pressure lowering. All of the people whom I had felt before were leaving and my heart rate was slowing down a bit.

"Henry what happened?”

“A cup fell,” I said while looking down at the ground, rubbing my feet together for extra comfort. “I didn’t know it was in the way and it fell.”

“It’s alright lieutenant, I didn’t actually call you here for that. I have something I need to tell you. Your sister too actually, so would you quickly get her?” His head then lowered again as he looked back down at the ground and his sad eyes closed shut.

“Sure,” I said. I could hear my sister’s door tap shut around the hallway and there was a quick movement, which I assumed meant she had gone to sit down in her chair. But as I started to turn around I saw my mom’s face and there was something about her blank expression that made me think things weren’t going to be better as soon as I had hoped they would be.

I skated to my sister’s room, sliding on my socks down the same hallway that led to my room and when I opened the door I saw a plate half full of cake and she was taking a bite. “Dad wants us,” I said. I knew she had already heard, but I didn’t want to waste time saying anything else. She put her fork down as if she had no interest in the cake and stood up to leave the room. I went out with her and I sat across from my father on the adjacent couch with my mom and sister. He started to talk.

“Henry. August.” He paused with an empty look as if he was about to give the news of a death in the family. “Your mom and I are taking a break for a little while. You won’t be seeing me as much, okay? But.” He paused and looked back down before looking up to continue speaking. “I’ll still be your dad.” And he looked back down the ground once more, maybe grieving, or maybe thinking of what to tell us next.

I was immediately lost when I heard him, not sure why he had said it. It came out so abruptly, almost like it wasn’t a big deal and that things would get better. I felt my breath quickening, but I did my best to ignore it because I assumed everything would be fine. I thought that I would be seeing him soon because he called it a “break.” I was used to Christmas break from school and when it ended I went back to school just like before. To me a break was a short thing that meant freedom and that I had time off to enjoy life even more.

I quickly started to ignore what we had been talking about because I still wanted to know why he had been bleeding when he first walked in. I had thought he had been hurt at work, but I then realized that getting hurt couldn’t cause so much trouble. My sister then interrupted the silence.

“Daddy what’s a break? Do you mean you have to go on a trip?”

“Yes, it’s sorta like that sweetie. I will be going away and I don’t know when I’ll be back, but you will see me again all right? I’ll take vacations to come and visit you and your big brother,” he said while almost forcing a smile.

“Why do you have to go Daddy? Won’t mommy miss you?” she asked.

“Yeah dad, we’ll all miss you,” I said. I was still wondering how he might have gotten injured. I wanted to ask him how, but he was strong and I realized he wouldn’t think much of a little cut.

“I’ll miss you guys too,” he said. The longest sigh I have ever heard followed those words and he then began to speak again. “This is just something mommy and I had to decide. You see this mark on my head here? This is what sort of makes it that I have to go away.”

My mom interrupted in a silent voice, “Don’t lie to them Stephen.” She looked different than I had ever seen her before. She was sitting with her arms crossed over her lap and her head was drooping down slightly more than it was before when I left the room, but when she spoke I could see and hear an anger, or maybe it had been emptiness, within her.

“Look. Kids,” he paused while his hand reached back to hold his neck, “ I made a mistake. And it means I have to go away on a break for a while.” He paused once more. “You guys should head off to bed.” Quickly he straightened up his posture.

“But Daddy we didn’t even getta watch the show with you,” my sister whined.

I heard my dad whisper to my mom and then she nodded and immediately went off to her room without a sound. She sheltered her face from us as she got up.

He then said, “Okay kids lets watch the show. Sit down next to papa.”

Even after all that had just happened it turned out to be an amazing night for me. My dad put an arm around both my sister and me and we watched and laughed throughout the whole show. My dad still loved me and it had made me forget everything that was happening, but that night doesn’t hold the same sentiment as it once did. The laughter and smiles we shared don’t make me think of the happiness I had known that night.

After the show ended my dad turned to his left and bent over to kiss me on the forehead and then he did the same to my sister. He held his arms around us for a while and then sent us off to bed. I walked down the short hallway from the living room and went into the bathroom. Before I did anything I stared into the mirror. I was thinking about all of the laughs we had shared and about how the whole night hadn’t changed anything. I smiled at myself and then again remembered the wound on his forehead.

I thought that maybe he had been a hero and broke the law to help someone. Heroes did this sort of thing all of the time and eventually the police would let them go. Then I thought about how he was when he came home. He had looked mad and frustrated. I started to get sad and then I pushed it out of my mind. There was no way I would believe that my dad was a crook or that he had ever done anything wrong. I knew him and he was a hero and I wasn’t ever going to let his image become tainted.

After I had finished getting ready for bed I went to my room and cracked the door open. I turned my light off and stayed as quiet as I could. I wanted to hear if anyone was still awake, especially my dad. All I could hear was something that sounded like faint crying. I wasn’t sure if it was crying though because our dishwasher was always making loud whining sounds at night, but when I heard a sniffling noise I became pretty sure it was him. I then quickly drifted away and fell asleep before I could think of it anymore.

The next morning I woke up and it had felt like a normal day at first. I ripped my covers off of my body and ran to the bathroom to make sure I would beat my sister. We usually got up at the same time and if she would get to the bathroom first I would have to wait and I would always be the one to make us late to school. After I had used the toilet I stood up and stepped on a hairpin. It wasn’t too sharp of a pain, but I had put my full weight on it and it didn’t feel good. I grew angry with my sister. I had always gotten angry inside when I thought about how she left such a mess in the bathroom or when I stepped on her things and it was an anger that wasn’t too uncommon to me on the early school mornings. Many days the wait to use the bathroom would even become too much for me to handle and I would end up yelling at her to hurry up.

However, if I did yell I would always end up remembering my dad and how he never yelled at us unless we were bad, so I always tried to forget about it and not do it again.

Once the pain subsided I was reminded of the wound on my dad’s forehead from the night before. I hadn’t thought of any new explanation for it yet, but I figured that I would be seeing my dad after school anyways so it wasn’t a concern to me at the time.

After I finished getting ready in the bathroom I ran through the rest of my routine and by the time my mom finished making our lunches we were out the door and she drove us both to school. When we were in the car my sister and I would bicker about who would get the flannel blanket and my mom would tell us to share it every time, but we never could. She wanted us to sit in the back of the van together so that we could be close enough share it, but I had always thought she just said it because she knew I wouldn’t give in and then she would be able to let my sister have the blanket because I was being stubborn.

On that morning she ended up grabbing the blanket and throwing it in the front seat right as we started arguing over who should get it. She was more on the edge than usual. I hadn’t seen my mom lose it before, at least not during the ride to school. She was always patient unless we were doing something disrespectful enough that she had to step in. She wouldn’t even get more annoyed than a simple change in tone as I continued to play games in my room while I was supposed to be helping out.

I didn’t know how my mom was so good at putting up with us. I often felt bad about what I did but she never stressed out. I had thought it might have been because my dad was so loving to us all and because he took away all of her worries about our fighting with his gentle and caring actions. He had always taken away my worries. Whenever I was worried about a math test he would help me study and would make me feel like no matter what, he was proud. My mom would have to put up with us more than my dad did and it rarely made her stumble. Even though she was a small woman she was able to take a lot of bickering from us. Her smooth cheeks and soft eyes and lips would always remain relaxed during he sweet lectures. I didn’t mind when she tried to correct our actions because there was never a hint of anger in her.

After she snatched the blanket from us my sister scowled at me and I looked up to my mom to tell her, but when I saw her face my anger left me.

“Mom is everything okay?” I asked with a heavy tone.

No response.

“Mom did you hear me?” I asked again.

“Yes Henry, it’ll be just fine,” she whispered.

I could hear the wavering tone in her voice. Then I saw her eye tear up. She tried to hide it and pull herself together but she stayed the same way the rest of the drive to school. After she had wiped her eyes with her sleeve she reached for the blanket and handed it back to us. I told my sister she could have it if she wanted it. She said a simple, “yes,” and grabbed the blanket. She loosened the seatbelt around her waist and shoulder and then pulled her feet up onto the seat with her shoes so that she was curled up into an eight-year-old sized ball. She then pulled the blanket over her whole body, leaving only her head exposed. I smiled and chuckled and then looked out my window. Whenever my sister and I made my mom sad like we thought we had in the car we would feel bad so I tended to act differently and help out with anything to try to see her cheered up.

The weather where I came from was usually pretty mild in the winter, but that winter had been the coldest I had yet experienced. There had been frost on all of the grass and the chills had driven me to pulled my feet up on my seat and wrap my arms around my legs like my sister. She smiled at me and chuckled back as if she was responding to my laugh from before.

I then thought about how I would play basketball outside of our small condo. I would play it under the pod tree, which always littered the street in front of the neighbor’s house, any season of the year and would run back inside the garage as my dad arrived. I would open the door into the entry way and yell to my mom that he was home.

The car then quickly slowed down and we arrived at school. We got out and went off to class with a harsh winter chill trying to sneak into our bodies through our coats, as if it was trying to distract us from the rest of the world to keep us occupied only with how we felt.

That day at school had felt the same as any other up until the end of the day. During lunch I got to talk to a few of my friends about the night before and about how my dad let us stay up late to watch the show even though it was going to end after my bedtime. I asked them if they had seen the episode and my friend Jim simply responded, “No my mom doesn’t let me watch Family Castle.” After I told him how good it was I quickly decided to apologize and I changed the subject.

Later in the day when we were about to get out of class Jim asked me why we had stayed up so late to watch it. I told him how my dad didn’t come home on time and then Jim looked away like he knew something he wasn’t going to tell me.

I didn’t hang out at friends’ houses very often because I had everything I wanted in my own home, but I wanted to know what Jim was hiding and I had never been to his house so I asked him, for the first time, if I could come over. He said he would have to ask his mom and I agreed and said I would have to ask mine too. When school got out we left class together and he called his mom on his new emergency cell phone. Something I asked my mom for constantly after that day. A minute passed and then his mom said that it was all right for me to come over. He then ended the call and I asked him if I could borrow his phone. I dialed my mom’s work number and the phone rang. She picked up the phone.

“Hello,” she said. “This is Greta Foster. Whom am I speaking to?”

“Mom?” I asked. “That’s not our last name. Who is Foster?”

“Oh, Henry. I didn’t know it was you,” she said as if she were asking a question. “It’s just a work thing. What do you need right now, I’m still at work you know?”

“Yeah, I was just wondering if I could go to Jim’s house today. His mom said it was all right and she would pick us up I’m sure. Can I please? I’m sure she’s nice and.” I was cut off. "Tell him no Henry,” she spat out. “Today just isn’t a good day okay? I’ll need you at home. I’ll make lasagna again,” she said expectantly. She knew I couldn’t resist lasagna.

“Aww why?” I quickly groaned. “All right then, well I’ll be waiting, don’t forget to pick me up please. I’m out of class.”

She sighed and told me to wait by the fire hydrant and I knew where to go. I wanted to ask Jim about what he was hiding still so I told him that I could tell he was hiding something. He asked me how I knew and I just said that he wasn’t good at hiding things from me.

"I think your dad was at our house last night,” he said.

My heart stopped. My dad had never met Jim, and I had no idea why he would be at his house. “Why was he there?” I asked. “He came home from work late because he got hurt, I thought.”

“I don’t know,” Jim said. “He and my mom came back together when she usually does and they were loud. They were laughing though and then they sat down for a little while on the couch. They didn’t eat dinner but they had some drinks.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I said I don’t know,” he responded. “I was just in my room but I heard them get up off the couch then and it was quiet for a while. I think they went off to do something else, but later when he came out my mom was yelling and then your dad was yelling too. When he picked up his stuff he stomped out the door. He yelled again when he left so maybe he hit his head or something. I got scared when he stomped and slammed the door though.”

I just sat there for a few seconds trying to think of a good response to prove that he was lying. “Well that doesn’t make sense. My dad doesn’t even know your mom. How do you know it was my dad when you didn’t even see him?” I asked. I had thought it was a good question. How could he have had any proof? He hadn’t met my father either.

“Well,” he said. “Your dad came over before.”

“Jimmy!” screamed a lady from the street.

I thought it must have been his mom because he quickly said goodbye and ran off to the car. I looked inside the dusty window to see who she was and angrily I locked on her face. I felt like I might have recognized it from somewhere, but I was made at Jim because I didn’t want to believe him. I then thought about her and wondered if she could have been the mean person that was messing things up with my dad. I noted her red hair up in a ponytail. She was also wearing an unusual shirt from what I could tell. It wasn’t something I would have thought a girl would wear, but I couldn’t make out what type it was. It also appeared like there was a little bit of dust on the shirt. I could tell she wasn’t a normal mom like my own.

Once my mom picked me up she seemed like she was in a rush. She asked me how my day was quickly and I then heard the waver in her voice again. She wasn’t crying, but something seemed wrong.

“Your father won’t be coming home today,” she said.

“Why,” I asked. “Dad has to come home. Where will he sleep?”

“Henry. When Daddy talked to you and your sister last night he didn’t mean that we were going on a break. He meant that he had to leave because he made an adult mistake. Your daddy made a big mistake Henry and I think it means he can’t come back,” she said with a quiver, becoming more silent with each word.

“Mom, what’s going on?” I asked. “I don’t like today. Today sucks.”

“Henry, watch your mouth!” she yelled with anger in her eyes and her brows. “You know very well that we don’t use that kind of language. Just because it’s on TV doesn’t mean you are allowed to say it too,” she said, relaxing her smooth face once again.

My mom cared about me greatly. I’ve never seen a mom so well tamed in front of her children. In Family Castle the mom always argued with her kids about stupid things and the kids ended up playing tricks on her until they got what they wanted. I was starting to love my mom more when I saw all of the emotion she was holding back. I was a kid but I could see it. When we got home I went to my room to play my games, but something came over me and I couldn’t force myself to play. I realized that my mom said that he couldn’t come back to us and it hit me that he wouldn’t be there to eat dinner with us that night. I went to my bed and all I could do was lie for a while because I needed my dad and he wasn’t there. I stuck my face in my pillow and I imagined him picking me up to pop my back like he did every day when he was around and for a minute I thought I was going to cry.

I then remembered that my mom always called my dad when she needed him so I did the same. It rang and when he answered the phone he said, “Henry? I can’t talk right now. I’ll see you okay chief? Check under your pillow, I left you a message. Love you Lieutenant.” He hung up the phone before I could reply and I went straight to my pillow thinking of how he had called me chief. He’d never called me that before. When I lifted it up I saw an envelope. It had a basketball sticker on it to seal the opening. I opened it up and noticed that none of it looked like it was in English. At first I was confused, but then I remembered my dad had told me about a language that he used at work when he was preparing to tear down structures. They used it to make sure that everything was prepared and in the right place.

I knew what I would do. I went onto my computer and searched a few things my dad had taught me and I found a site about the type of code they used. It didn’t have enough information for me to translate all of the words, but I started to translate some of the gibberish in the message to what it meant in plain English. I could figure out what some of it meant after a few minutes. After that day I spent every day for the next few weeks trying to figure out what the rest of it said. I never wanted to show it to my mom though because I thought she might take it away. All that I was able to translate after the first day was this: “Messed up. Sorry. I will be back.”

I had no clue when I would see my dad again. I didn’t know what the message meant yet. I then went to give my mom a hug because I missed my dad and she patted my head. She told me she loved me and she called me her lieutenant and then she started to cry. I told her that I would go help August with the lasagna and then I noticed a card in my mom’s hand. Her thumb was holding it open like you might read a book with one hand except she held it upside down while we hugged. All I could read was, “Please forgive me,” and then I went to go help with the lasagna. We didn’t watch Family Castle that night.