All The Time
He had always felt he’d known the Lord’s ways and how best to act in His name, but if there was anything Skip had learned from the past three years, it was that there was a lot he didn’t understand.
Gripping the pencil in his hand, he leaned forward as if to write…and then let his arms go loose. Nothing. In frustration, he pinned his pencil between thumb and forefinger, shaking his hand to bounce the end rapidly off his pinky. Come on, he could do this, it had to be done every week. He shifted his grip on the pencil as if to write again, sighed, and put it down. He leaned forward and pressed his head into his hands. The leather of the chair creaked and he let the pressure of his hands and the creak of the chair bring him back into this space. The varnished, golden wood of the walls came back to him first, then the dark green carpet. He was sitting in the middle of the room at his desk, the floor lamp was next to him, the wastepaper basket on his other side.
As the other furniture started to fill itself in around him, Skip leaned back in his chair. There was a beat of silence before he became aware of the tick, tick, tick of the wall clock and glanced up. The hour was on the five, the minute a little past the twelve.
Praise be to God.
With new energy, Skip sat up, flipped his leather-bound, sermon notebook closed, tossed his pencil in the drawer, and stood up. He’d write the sermon tomorrow. Sometimes you gotta work when the Lord moves you, he’d told Tar —
Nope, nope, he wouldn’t keep thinking about her. He reached down for his satchel and tossed his notebook in next to his laptop, then grabbed his sweater off the back of his chair and left his office. He pulled the door closed behind him and locked it, then swung by the break room, plucking his empty lunch bag from the fridge. Spinning his keys on a finger, he turned and exited the building.
The day was warm and beautiful, something Skip was still getting used to after such a gray winter, and he relished his drive home ahead. All he had to do was keep his eyes on the road, enjoy the warm breeze, and otherwise, he didn’t have to think at all.
Oh, Sam was coming for dinner tonight. He’d forgotten about that. It was 5:45 and Skip was home, in his kitchen, checking the calendar. He felt a slight, residual twinge seeing only his younger daughter’s name in the small rectangle, but quickly waved it away. Of course it would only be her.
It looked like Theresa, his wife, wanted to make lasagna and broccoli tonight. She’d written it under Sam’s name, along with “dinner rolls?” He’d leave her to think about the bread, but he’d go ahead and start on the rest of dinner.
It would be nice to have Sam home, he told himself, his little girl, his little baby angel. She didn’t like it when he called her that, but it made him laugh. He was glad he could still tease her. It was nice to be on decent terms with a daughter.
As he started pulling ingredients from the pantry and fridge, Skip tried to reframe the situation. It was nice being on good terms with Sam, sure, but he should be on good terms with her! She was his daughter, to be on bad terms would be unnatural. Honor thy father and thy mother. Simple! For a child not do so would be a disgrace, would be—
He sucked in a deep breath through his nose. No, no, that wasn’t right. Sam didn’t deserve this. A smart, kind girl like her should be able to win her father’s approval on her own and not just when held up against her sister. And she had! Skip approved of everything she did! She was in her final year of school, studying to be a teacher, she dated nice, Christian boys that made him proud, and she volunteered at the local animal shelter; all things he approved of. End of story.
Skip got out the big pot, filled it with water, and set it on the stove. He flipped the burner on high, waited for it to boil, and poured the lasagna noodles into the water.
It’s just that Tara’s leaving had fucked up— Nope: Tara had left them, abandoned— Try again: Tara— He took a deep breath. It was just that Tara, his eldest, refused to come home. And that he had tried too hard to get her back, to win her back, but she refused and refused and wouldn’t call him, would only email—
Skip slammed the lid onto the pot and sat down at the island, holding his head in his hands. It was ok, it was ok, he just needed to pull himself together, he could do that before Tara got home. Deep breath. In, 1, 2, 3— Sam. He could do that before Sam got home. Oh for the love of!
Skip surged up and paced back and forth. Why did he always do this? Why couldn’t he just be happy when Sam came home? Why did he always have to think about Tara? Why did he always have to make this about the daughter who wasn’t here instead of the daughter who was? He figured he might put that pacing to good use and started to grab the rest of the ingredients. It was Tara’s birthday recently, he reminded himself, of course you’re upset, you could only write on her Facebook wall and shoot her an email while Theresa called her and Sam? Who knows! She could have even visited her for all you know! He threw his hands up, then caught himself, froze, and took a deep breath. Her birthday had been a week ago, and she’d left three years ago. He should be over it by now but he just…wasn’t.
Skip heard a key in the lock and tensed up as his wife entered the house. “Hi honey,” she called, and he heard the closet door open and the sound of hangers. He focused on that, clenching his fists around his jar of tomato sauce.
Theresa sailed into the room, her wavy blonde hair streaming behind her. “Hi baby,” he said, a little hoarse. He cleared his throat.
“Did you start dinner?” she asked, impressed.
Skip smiled a little. “Just started,” he said. She extended her arms to him, coming closer, and gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the lips.
“Thank you,” she murmured, pulling back.
“Of course,” said Skip. “I left the dinner roll question to you, though.”
“Hmm…” Theresa glanced over his shoulder and tapped the side of her face in thought. “I’ll see what we have.”
The two of them worked in the kitchen, crafting their meal.
“Are you excited about dinner with Sam tonight?” Theresa asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, it’ll be good to see our Sammy girl,” he said.
His wife hummed in agreement. “Me too.” She pulled something out of the cabinet. “Do you think we have enough time for corn bread?” Theresa asked him, holding up the blue Jiffy box.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t take too long, does it?”
She shook her head, “No, it doesn’t.” She considered the box a moment more. “I’ll make it,” she decided. Skip nodded absently. “How was your day, hon?” she asked him.
Skip paused a moment, then lifted the lid on the pot to see how the noodles were coming along. “Pretty good,” he said. He mustered up a tight smile. “Couldn’t write the dang sermon, though.”
Theresa was silent for a moment and he imagined her regarding his back. “Tara?” she asked, and he let his smile slip from his face and sighed.
“When is it not Tara?” He lifted a noodle with a spoon, testing its consistency. Done.
“Skip—”
“Hold on,” he said, picking the pot up by the handles, “I have to drain this.” He turned abruptly around, heading to the sink, and in the process, heard something knock over.
“Skip, the burner!” Theresa rushed past him and turned off the gas, rescuing the remaining half-box of pasta that had fallen on it in his haste to get to the sink. The burner went out with a whoof and the box was just barely singed. Skip clenched the pot tighter. He hadn’t meant to— He had just— It was ok. Nothing had burned, things were fine. Equilibrium had been reached.
“Sorry honey,” he managed to croak out. He turned and saw his wife’s incredulous face. Nothing burned,” he tried. When she continued to say nothing, he turned back to the sink.
“You got a colander there, Smoky Bear?” she asked him. Shit. “No?” Theresa brushed past him, pulling one from a low cabinet and placing it in the sink. She gestured to it and Skip, his face crimson, shuffled forward and poured the pot into it. “Skip, what is going on?” she asked him.
“Nothing!” he said. “It’s fine, I’m getting it under control.”
“Are you?” she asked, gesturing to the stove.
Skip grimaced, but refrained from answering her question.
He asked about her day while he constructed the lasagna and she prattled on about how Dr. Yakowitz had mixed up two patient’s files at work and how it was really time for him to retire, he was seventy-two, for Pete’s sake. Skip laid down noodles and then ricotta cheese and then sauce and then more noodles and tried to get lost in the story. It worked for a second, he had met Yakowitz and the man was as old as God, but then the front door opened again and he was immediately dropped back into his own headspace.
“Hi mom, hi dad!” called a voice from the entry hall.
“Sammy?” Theresa called. “We’re in the kitchen!”
“Ok!”
Skip heard footsteps behind him and then heard his wife say “Ohh!” and the two women rushed forward to hug each other. He turned around. Sam’s bangs, blonde like her mother’s, were in that awkward phase where they were too long to hang straight over her face but too short to be tucked behind her ears. He waited for Sam and Theresa to break apart and stepped forward to gave his daughter a brief hug.
“Hi, honey,” he said, placing a kiss on her cheek.
Sam caught them up on school, life, volunteer work, and Skip continued to lay the pasta out. Sam and her mother didn’t really need him to have a conversation; two peas in a pod, they were. Theresa and Sam used to talk and talk and talk, while he and Tara would sit back quietly, sometimes listening, sometimes not, but definitely their own little group. A little something of Tara seemed almost to be in the room with them now, and he imagined her just out of sight, leaning up against the counter by him. Shit. He’d already preheated the oven, so when he sprinkled the last bit of cheese on top, Skip picked up the casserole dish and turned around, heading back for the oven and nearly collided with Sam, who was getting a glass of water. Sam gasped and Skip jolted the casserole dish out of the way just in time, but then, sickeningly, he felt it slip from his slick fingers and plummet to the kitchen floor.
“Oh my god,” said Sam, mortified. “Oh my god, daddy, I didn’t mean—”
Skip heard blood rushing in his ears, felt his face grow hot, felt tears prick at his eyes. No. No no. He wouldn’t cry here, not in front of his family.
A wet sniffle punctuated the stream of words he couldn’t hear and he forced himself back into the moment. Sam was crying. She’d always been his sensitive one, the one who’d felt too much for others. Theresa was rushing forward. He couldn’t be here. Theresa was reaching her arms out for Sam. He couldn’t be here. Sam was looking at him—He could not be here!!!
Skip mumbled something, probably It’s ok, honey, but his throat was thick and his eyes were threatening tears and he had an incredible urge to run, so he did. He ran from the kitchen to the steps, yanked his shoes off at the bottom to keep from spreading pasta sauce all over the house, and bolted up the stairs two at a time. Oh Lord, Heavenly Father, help me, help me please. There was sauce all over his pants, he could see it on the kitchen floor, the cabinets, it was on his shirt, there was broken glass in the kitchen, he had to clean that up, clean that all up, but instead he was running, running down the hall to his room, no, he needed to go somewhere else, somewhere he didn’t need to worry about getting sauce on things, he turned around, ran to the bathroom, and slammed the door.
Immediately, the tears came. He ignored them at first, worked on getting out of his sauce-covered pants, but soon he was holding his khakis in a crumpled heap and standing there in his shirt and his boxers and his socks and there were tears on his face and snot coming out of his nose and all he could do was drop the pants and slide down the bathroom door. His knees pulled up against his chest, his arms came down on top, and he buried his face in his elbow.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, fuck. He hadn’t meant to get this messy. It was just that he missed his daughter like a limb. He loved her so much and she refused to speak to him! For three years! And he should have known when she went to college and stopped going to church after being the perfect pastor’s kid her whole life, when she started hanging out with her lesbian roommate and all her gay friends, that she’d come back different, of course she’d come back different! It was college, what had he expected! But he didn’t expect this, didn’t expect it to take his little Tare-bear away, didn’t expect for Tara to ever ruin a night like this—
No, no, Tara didn’t ruin it, Tara didn’t ruin anything. Did she? Did she ruin it? No, no, somehow, he’d ruined it, but how did he ruin it? He had no idea how he ruined it. He was just doing what he was supposed to, just doing what any of them were supposed to! It was her roommate, her fucking roommate, making her cut her hair. She didn’t wear skirts anymore, he noticed now on Facebook, though she’d set it so he could see only some of her pictures and things. She’d put a rainbow filter on her profile picture, told him it was in support, “The LGBT community needs our support too, Dad,” but he knew better. It was her roommate, her damn roommate, turning her from the church, turning her into a lesbian, why if he ever—
Nope, nope, he couldn’t think that way anymore, it wasn’t acceptable, wasn’t how people talked now. One of his congregation had said as much to him at the last potluck in the church basement, and he really couldn’t be one of those fire and brimstone preachers. God loved all His children, and equally, and if God could do it, then why couldn’t Skip? How could he profess himself to be a man of God and still have these reservations? How could he be a father and still have these reservations about his daughter? Or was his daughter even gay? Of course she was gay—why didn’t she tell him?
It was cold down there, against the tile, and after the worst of his tears were over, the cold brought him back. Shit. Sam was still downstairs. He’d just left her crying like that. And Theresa was down there comforting her. He’d already put her through the burner thing tonight, and now this? And then he just ran off? Excellent. Just fucking excellent. With a sigh, Skip pulled his head up from his arm. There were two big wet spots on his shirt sleeve and he did his best to ignore them as he stood up. He’d have to change. He wanted a shower, too, and fished his phone out of his pants pocket to text his wife that he was going to shower and not to clean up the kitchen, he’d clean it up when he got out.
Skip took his shower, and by the time he got out, Theresa had ordered takeout and the kitchen was spotless. He’d tried to protest the cleaning, but his wife had held up a hand and said they’d talk about it later. He apologized to Sam, told her it wasn’t her fault, and she nodded, but didn’t seem convinced. They ate a tense dinner when their food arrived, and Theresa tried to make small talk, but Skip could tell they were all glad when the food had been eaten and they could move on with their nights. Sam went home, Theresa went to fold laundry, and Skip went to bed, first to read, and then just to sleep. He prayed before he fell asleep, for guidance, for love. He prayed to reconnect with his daughter, for her to come home, for help in accepting her. He prayed for his wife, too, and Sam, and for help keeping his relationships with them alive while he struggled with missing his eldest. Finally, exhausted, he said Amen and crawled under the covers. He lay there for a long time before he drifted off to sleep.
That night, he dreamed of Tara. The dream was mundane; the two of them were going through their daily routine. They drove to the grocery store, he took Tara to lacrosse practice, and she sat at the table doing homework while he made dinner. Truly ordinary tasks, but there was a sense of peace around them, of comfort. Tara was with him and it reminded him of the best of old times. Just father and daughter. The nicest feeling.
When Skip awoke the next morning, early as usual, he could still feel Tara’s presence, as if she was in the room with him. In the dream, she had laughed at one of his jokes and asked him for help with her math homework. High school, he realized, this was Tara from high school, the last time things made sense. As he lay there, he was conscious of that warm feeling staying with him, not dissipating, and the idea of that was curious. For three years now, he’d felt hopeless every time he thought of Tara, as if there was a rift between them that could never be repaired, but for the first time in a long time, he felt that maybe, just maybe he could get this feeling back, this comfort between them. He missed not just his little girl, but that feeling of equality they’d settled into in her last years of high school. He’d felt as if he could relate to her as a friend and not just as a father. Yes, if he were going to try and fix this, it would have to be as a friend, not a father trying to tell her what was best for her.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Skip got up and trudged to the bathroom. The warm feeling stayed with him. He could do this. He could fix things. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could do this. He used the toilet and washed his hands, letting the warm water wash the soap bubbles away.
Maybe he would write her another email today.