A Narrative on a Broken Relationship

My heart was racing. I could feel my stomach uncomfortably moving around as I sat down on my Grandpa’s brown leather couch. My Grandpa sat on the couch adjacent to me, turning on the TV in front of him to watch the Tour de France, like he does every summer. He didn’t seem to notice my nervousness or queasiness, as he sunk into the couch after grabbing a Scientific American magazine off the glass coffee table in front of us.

I guess he wouldn’t understand why I felt this nervous about seeing his son, since I never really told him how I felt about him. It feels more appropriate to call him my Grandpa’s son than my father, since the word seemed oddly placed on a man like him. I hadn’t seen his son in four years, and in those four years he had only contacted me on occasion, when he remembered I existed I suppose. In those short text messages he only talked about himself, and sometimes his other daughter that he called my sister, even though I had never met her and didn’t even know what she looked like. I just hoped he was being a better father to her than he was to me.

He was in the army, so he was never in one place for too long. In the past four years he was in Tennessee, and before that he was in Tokyo. Now he has been stationed in Virginia, uncomfortably close to my Grandpa’s home in the outskirts of Washington D.C.

I had no idea that my annual visit to Grandpa’s in the summer would result in me seeing the man that I had almost forgotten existed. How would that man feel if he knew that I called my stepfather ‘Dad’ instead of him? I didn’t want to think about it. Just the idea of his anger gave me chills, so I tried to calm down by turning my head to watch the bicyclists on screen furiously bike up a steep road, all of them dangerously close to each other. Seeing the colorful moving bicyclists sweating as they biked up the mountain path was not comforting at all, so I grabbed my phone instead, going straight to my photos and scrolling through hundreds of cat pictures, trying to feel the fluff through the small screen.

Honestly, a small part of me hoped to hear an apology from him, hearing regret in his voice for at least some of his cruel actions. Maybe I could hear an apology for the time when he forced me to put alcohol down my throat when I was seven, and then forcing me to do it again when I was ten. Or for the time when he yelled at me for calling my mom when I missed her, or getting mad that I brought some of my favorite Indian snacks with me because he said that I was only African American and nothing else. Or maybe he would apologize for just being an absolute failure of a father to me, but that wouldn’t happen right? He would never apologize, not for even the smallest of things, that’s just the type of person he was.

Right as I felt my heart rate slowing down and my stomach had calmed down, the doorbell rang and my heart felt like it was about to jump out of my chest again.

“Go open the door Daysha,” Grandpa said, without even looking at me.

He probably knows that I’m feeling uncomfortable about seeing his son after four years of no real communication, but I doubt he cares. Though I love my Grandpa, he has become more sadistic and curmudgeonly in his old age, making him quite annoying most of the time, and completely silent for the remainder.

I stand up, hearing my heart beating in my ears as I walk to the front door and open it, greeted by him, his wife, and his five year old daughter. Their melanin shone in the summer sun, the chocolate of their skin looking almost orange in the sunlight. His green eyes shining, he smiled broadly and opened his arms, embracing me as if we were the best of friends. Not wanting to be rude, I hugged him back lightly, feeling slightly disgusted by his friendly embrace.

We went inside, and he sat on the couch next to me, as his wife and daughter sat on the other couch and watched some cartoons. It had been four years since I had seen his wife, but she was just as pretty as the last time I saw her. I always thought she was really cool, being mixed like me, though she was Japanese and African American, and not Indian and African American. Her Japanese features showed the most on her face, with small eyes and a slim nose, traits that seemed to have been passed down to her daughter. The five year old child didn’t share the green eyes that my Grandpa, his son, and I had. Instead, she had her mother’s eyes, a light brown, quite similar to my brother’s eyes. Whenever I saw the child watching the TV or talking to her mom, I couldn’t help but think of my siblings who were quite close in age. Thinking about them actually made me miss them a bit, something I thought would never happen after the amount of times I’ve been irritated by them.

Grandpa came from the kitchen with some cheese and crackers, the staple snack in the house. After placing them on the glass coffee table, he sat in the lounge chair opposite us, watching me and his son, observing our interactions. By looking at him, I knew not to expect any help from him. Though, I shouldn’t expect any from a man who had lost my trust after bringing his son and his son’s family over to the house without warning me ahead of time.

Turning to face the man next to me, I offered to go sit in the back porch area with him, hoping that he might want to have a real conversation about his past behaviors in private, but he refused and moved on by asking me superficial questions on how school was doing and if I had a boyfriend, automatically assuming my sexuality, even though I was bisexual, though of course he wouldn’t know that.

His questions were the equivalent of what a distant relative that met you when you were a baby would ask you after seeing you for the first time in fourteen years. They were the equivalent of what your parent’s coworker would ask you when they met you for the first time. They were surface level, superficial, face value questions that told me that this man hadn’t changed at all, and that he felt no remorse or guilt for any of his actions towards me in the past. It was obvious that he didn’t even consider any of his actions incorrect or hurtful in any way. Really, what was I expecting? An apology? A reflection on his past behaviors? A real and true conversation between us? Of course not, that would never happen.

But why does it need to? I already have a father. Though not related by blood, my Dad has taught me to be kind, he has given me joy and has been there for me when I needed him. He has taught me the culture that he has brought over from his homeland, India, my culture, without rejecting my African American side. I have my Mom, the one that has been by my side fighting for me since my birth, the one who has protected me as best as she could from this man and the pain that he inflicts on me. I have a brother and sister, real siblings, not this five year old child that I have never met in my life and knows nothing of me. My brother and sister are hundred percent Indian, without a drop of African American blood in their veins, but they are my siblings nonetheless.

Why do I care what these people here think of me? Why do I care what these people do, when they obviously do not care for me? They are not my family. They never have been, and it seems they never will be. My true family is not tied by blood, but by love. And that will last forever.