Page 50 of Losing the Rhythm
“Yeah.”
“Do you need to think about it right now?”
“I mean… he’s here. He’s close by. I saw him after seven years. How can I not think about it?”
“Let me say it in a different way: What is there to think about right now? He’s here. He’s going to be around for a little bit. What more is there to think about?”
“Sounds like you’re telling me to go with the flow.”
“Pretty much. Before he came, you wanted to see him. Now that he’s here and you saw him, did that change? Do you no longer want to see him?”
“What if he’s expecting me to react a certain way? While we were talking, I didn’t feel the need to go running and crying into his chest. I didn’t feel the need to touch him. All those memories and emotions, and I couldn’t even touch him.”
“You don’t need to perform for him. Or for anyone. If you don’t want to cry in his chest or touch him, you don’t need to. There is no reason for you to pretend, and I think he understands that too. Take your time. Maybe later on you’ll want to do that stuff. But for now, get to know each other.”
“Strangers meeting for the first time,” I whispered.
“He only ever knew you as little Cadence, his little girl,” Justin said. “The teenage you is a stranger to him. I’m sure he feels as awkward as you do.”
I didn’t know what it was about Justin. He always hit me where it was the heaviest, dispersing that darkness in me. He was the very first person I talked to about being abused by my mother. I gave him more details than I’d given anyone else in my life before. And now, here we were talking about my dad, and once again, it worked.
I was already feeling more clear-headed.
Swallowing all the emotions that wanted to bubble up inside of me, I stood, swiping one of the filled bowls.
“I’ll start rinsing these off,” I said and ran away from them.
I wasn’t deaf to the fact that as soon as I got up, they had fallen silent. I ruined it for them. They were trying so hard to create a friendly environment for me, and I went and ruined it.
Seth had already pulled out a huge pot, so I dumped the seeds inside and filled it with water. When I was elbow deep in the pot, trying to separate more of the seeds from the guts, Seth came in.
“You’re doing a good job, considering you’ve never done this before.” He leaned against the counter next to me, looking down in the pot.
“I’ll admit, I looked this up when you mentioned we would roast the pumpkin seeds.”
“Not bad at all,” he said before going silent.
For a little bit, all we could hear was the sloshing of the water as I moved it around. At that point, it was more to distract myself than to clean the seeds.
“You didn’t tell him,” Seth said in a lower voice.
“Tell who what?”
“Your dad about your mother.”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Our entire interaction”—my voice dropped into barely a whisper—“I couldn’t stop thinking about how the man before me was a stranger. I didn’t know him. And so when he asked about Lindie, I just couldn’t tell him the truth. Any of it.”
“You don’t make it a point to tell people anything about yourself.” Seth sighed. “He’ll find out. Whether it’s from you, or from elsewhere. I can’t imagine he doesn’t know anyone around here. He might reach out to them. Would you rather he find out that way?”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now.”
“Fair enough. I just don’t want you regretting anything.”
“I should call him, shouldn’t I?”