Daddy’s Home

I knew the sound of the engine from blocks away. I wouldn’t even have to sit on the stoop to see him turn the corner as his other woman brought him to our front door. Hear his footsteps on the stairs, listen to him greet the neighbors, hear that laugh that was only his. Daddy’s home! I’d sit at his elbow as Momma put the warm plate from our earlier dinner in front of him. Listen to them go over their day, witness to an exchange that to me, was what life was all about. As it happens, life biffs you upside the back of your head when you least expect it. But that was what I held on to all these years. Even when at 14, he caught me putting eyeliner on in a parked car’s mirror and made me come back in a wash it off. Leaving me with the threat of using Lava soap next time (he knew there’d be a next time). We collided so many times in my teenage years, sometimes not speaking for days. My mother would say it’s because we were so alike. I would deny that with a stomp of my foot and a quick exit. I never really got it ..but in the last few years I did. Thank God. I thank my lucky stars, for every lesson you taught, now, even the hard learned ones. Who knew that hanging wallpaper with you would become so much more. Not me. Not then. That life can be made easy with a block of wood and some old string. That having a t-shirt with a pocket made for a better place to keep your cookies when watching the news. That when ever I left the house, if I did it right, my own would know the sound of my engine as I turned the corner.
Thanks Daddy.