We always knew dad was home when the roar of the engine came running around the corner. Just because he’s home doesn’t mean we get to see him. It would be hours until he was inside. He would just stay in that garage, cleaning, waxing, polishing, nurturing. He spent more time with that car in a day than he spent with me all summer. I yearned to be cared about like that car. So, everyday, I tried to do something he would like. I started watching car shows, researching talking points, preparing a conversation with him, just so that he might enjoy the two words we spoke together. I’d ask for a ride, and 9 times out of 10, he said no and nothing else. But, on that tenth time, he would say yes.
He’d take me out to the car, make me take off my shoes, make me wash my hands, make me put a towel over the seat. He’d open the door of the car to let me in, but not for me. It was for the car, so I wouldn’t hurt it. He’d carefully reverse out of the driveway and drive around the block. That drive would be the best 15 minutes of my life and I would actually start to believe that he cared about more than just that car. We’d drive around, not uttering a single word as he watched the road, and I watched him, trying to figure out what this car did to be more important to my father than me. Once we got home, I’d try to open the door, but he’d yell and make me wait until he went around to the other side to open it for me. I’d try to have a conversation, but I would just be shooed away so that he could clean up the car after the “mess” I made. One time the zipper on my coat scuffed the car slightly, and it was over. He yelled so loud, and I should have cried, but it was the most he’d ever talked to me in my entire life, and I was happy. Happy to finally be at the center of my father’s attention, just for a moment. Afterward he ended up spending the entire night in the garage, “fixing” the car. I spent the night sitting outside that door, listening to my father and his love. It was months before he even let me near that car again.
The day I got my license, some small silly part of me thought that he might start paying attention to me. I begged my father to teach me how to drive his car, just for a little while. I wanted to learn why all of my father’s love gathered into that car. And then, he laughed. It was the first time I’d ever heard my father laugh and it was at me. I held back tears, choking out an “ok” and running upstairs. The next morning, instead of a silent house, he brought it up again with another laugh, as if the thought of his love being driven by his own son was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. I didn’t know how to respond, and I let out a fake laugh.
That night after he went to sleep I grabbed his keys and stole his love. I backed out fast, sped out of the neighborhood, and drove the coast. I felt free, I was free, until I wasn’t. Until those headlights were in front of me, and suddenly I remembered that I wasn’t the only person in the world. I sat there upside down, my ears ringing, sirens and yelling surrounding me, hoping he might finally care.
