The Table

It was getting colder in the evenings. The autumn would soon be here. It was just around the corner. However it was still warm enough to sit outside. The waiter had shown him to a table outside. It was a small garden. He looked around. The restaurant was almost full, packed both inside and outside. He kept checking his tie. Every few minutes he would adjust something about his grey suit. Soon his grey suit would match his hair color. His beard was already dark grey. His hair was not as full or wavy as it had been. The time that had passed showed in his face. The years had shown him very little mercy, but then he had never been one to hold back. Until a few months ago he had trouble recalling what day of the week it was, because of his heavy drinking. That was in the past now. Every day was a new struggle, but so far he was okay. He had been here almost fifteen minutes, and he had been able to resist the urge to have a drink, the urge to his usual double bourbon on the rocks. He scratched the back of his neck. It was a nervous tick. He knew that bourbon would take care of the nerves, but he could not go down that road now – not again.

This had to be good. He had to be good, at the top of his game or at the very least he had to be sober and polite. It had to be perfect. It needed to be perfect. He could not stop moving around. He would lean forward towards the table and then back into the chair again pretending to be relaxed and comfortable. He wanted to appear relaxed and comfortable. He had to. His eyes wandered around to the other tables. They were all here with someone. Nobody arrived alone. Nobody was alone. He was. His dark eyes found their way back to the table. He had spotted something he could change, something he could alter. The cutlery. The knife and fork were not placed directly beside each other. They were not symmetrical. He leaned forward and corrected the mistake. He put his hand to his forehead. He was sweating. “What the hell was I thinking?” he mumbled under his breath. This was no good. What had he been thinking? What could he possibly say to defend his actions?

He clapped his hands together. He had killed. The dead mosquito lay in his hands. He dusted the squashed mosquito of his palm. He sighed and shook his head. This table was no good. He stood up and walked back inside. It was not long before a waiter confronted him. Was the table not good enough? He smiled politely to the young waiter, whom looked as though he was barely out of high school. “It was fine. I just… I’d rather sit inside. I think inside is better.” The waiter nodded with a smile. It was all about pleasing the customer. He was seated at another table, a table by the big window. At least they would have something to talk about then, something other than the obvious, something other than the truth, the horrible truth. “Can I get you anything, sir?” the teenage waiter asked. “Huh? Oh yes water for me, and a glass of wine for…” the waiter interrupted him: “Sure. What wine would you like? Red? White?” he stopped. He leaned back in the chair. How in the world was he supposed to answer that question. He had no idea what to say. It had been so long. He did not know what to say. He cleared his throat. “Ah… I guess we might start with fish… depending on how the dinner goes,” he laughed nervously which caused the waiter to stare at him. Clearly the young waiter thought he was mentally unstable. “White. A chardonnay will do just fine,” he nodded trying to imitate some self-confidence. “Right,” the waiter said and walked away.

He would change his mind every other second about agreeing to this, about coming here. Was this a mistake? Somehow this had always been in the back of his mind. He had never forgotten. He had spent most of his life desperately trying to erase this from his memory. Bourbon had been a big help, but not sufficient enough. Perhaps if he waited another twenty-thirty years, he would be senile. Then all of this would not matter anymore. Maybe this was a mistake? He shook his head. No more running away. He had to go through with it. It had been too long, and long enough.

His elbows were resting on the edge of the table. He barely noticed the waiter brining him his water and putting the glass of chardonnay across the table. He reminded himself to breath easy. “Just breathe, just breathe,” he thought to himself. He buried his head in his hands. He was embarrassed. He had had a guilty conscious for as long as he could remember. Back then he thought he would be able to just forget it all. He was younger then. He had not been more than a big kid, so naturally he figured he would be able to forget it. The years would pass, he would get older, and he would lead a different life. He would move to another city, meet new people, get another job and get other hobbies. He did move to another city. He did meet a bunch of new people, and he did get another job, but he never succeeded in deleting this one memory from his brain. He took a few deep breaths. He could really use that bourbon right about now. He knew it would make things a whole lot easier right now, this instant. In the end, however, the delicious bourbon would do more damage than good. “Oh God. For Christ’s sake what am I doing here?” he whispered to himself. His legs were shaking under the table like an unsteady rhythm. His palms were sweaty. He grabbed a napkin from the table to wipe of his forehead and hands. He chuckled to himself. This was ridiculous. He was sweating as if he was some sort of farm animal running through a burning stable. He looked at his wristwatch. It was pretty old, but he had never been able to exchange it for another, newer and better watch. It had been given to him a long time ago. He sighed, as he looked around. Nobody here knew. Somehow he had always felt that everyone knew. That it was obvious, that people could tell just by looking at him what he had done, whom he had betrayed. He checked the watch again. Almost thirty minutes now. He buried his head in his hands again. This was useless. He might as well give up. He had been kidding himself. This was not something that he could fix with a drink and a dinner. He should just get up and leave.

“Hello,” a voice said. He slowly looked up from his hands. There it was – the direct confrontation with his past. He could not believe it. It was her. She came. It really was her. She just stood there by the table glancing at him. He shrugged his shoulders as if it was another one of his nervous ticks. He should get up from the chair and do something, perhaps hug her? No. Hugging her would not be right after all these years. He should at least shake her hand. Unfortunately when he got up to shake her hand, he took the tablecloth, his glass of water, and her glass of wine with him. “Damn it!” he yelled loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear him. This was not his night. The empty glasses were on the floor in a thousands pieces. He sighed. He grabbed a napkin and desperately tried to wipe the wine and the water of himself. The waiter rushed over to the table to get the broken glasses out of the way. Another waiter ran over with another tablecloth.

As he was wiping himself of, he suddenly remembered that she was here, and he still had not said hello. He glanced at her. She was still here. He put his hand out for her to shake. She looked down at it, as if he was offering her something illegal. “Hi,” he said. It was heartfelt. She was so young. He could not believe that he had ever been that young. Her skin was fair – just like her mother. She kept gazing at his hand. He realized she was not going to shake his hand. He took it back. He snorted quietly. “I guess tonight just isn’t my night,” he said with a crooked smile trying to lift the mood. “I guess not,” she said with a pinch of spitefulness in her voice. He nodded. She was not going to make this easy for him. How could he blame her?

The table was ready again. He put his hand out as if to offer her to sit down. He did not sit down until she was sitting across from him at the table. He smiled. This was going to be hard. He sat down. The waiter was just about to leave. “Excuse me? Yes. Could she have another glass of wine, please?” he asked. “No thank you. Just water,” the waiter nodded. She looked back at him. “I don’t drink,” she said with a judgmental glare in her brown eyes. “I see,” he said. Her eyes were like his. He had never noticed that before. He had not seen her since she was a kid. She was just a little kid then. It had been for the best. It had been better for her that he had not been there – with the way he had been. That was what he had been telling himself for these past twenty years, but now he was not so sure anymore.

He could not stop looking at her. It was as though he was photographing her with his eyes. In all this time all he had had was a very small black and white photo of her. He had saved it in his wallet behind a credit card. She had dark hair like him, but her hair was not black like his. It was brown. Clearly his staring made her uncomfortable. She cleared her throat as if she wanted to say something, but she kept her mouth shut. She was looking at something. He followed her eyes to his left hand. He turned his wrist. He took a glimpse at his watch. He had always been his watch on ‘wrong.’ He tapped the watch three times with his index finger. “You know I never stopped wearing it. Your mother and you gave it to me for Christmas one year, do you remember that Christmas? I think you got your first bicycle that year. Yeah, yeah it was that pink one. All year that was all you could talk about,” he chuckled at the memory. It was nice to have an enjoyable memory about his family-life for once. “You know nothing about me. Nothing,” that was her response. She did not have it in her to be kind to him or even polite – not yet.

He nodded with a sigh. This was going to be rough ride. “So…how are you?” he asked. Somebody had to break the ice. He tried again. There had to be something that they could talk about other than the obvious. She looked directly at him with her piercing eyes. “How am I? In general or right now?” she would rather be inside a volcano that was about explode than sit right here at this table with this man, who was supposed to be her father, except – he never had been much of a father to her. “Just in general. Let’s start with that,” he pleaded. “In general? In general I am fine. I have a steady job. I like it,” she held a pause. He smiled at her. This was beginning to go better than he had expected. He dared to hope that it was past. History, it was. “But right now? Right now I am wondering how I can make you feel as shitty as you made me feel. I hope to God there is a way, because you deserve it.”

He grabbed his head. He massaged his forehead. “Listen; I know I have no right to…” she interrupted him: “That’s it. That’s precisely it, you have no right.” He leaned back in his chair. He shrugged his shoulders. He opened his jacket and adjusted his dark red tie. He loosened the tie. He leaned towards her again. He put his hands on the table. He wanted to say it, but he was not sure if he should. He shook his head and cleared his throat. He took the deepest breath of his life. “I made a lot of mistake in my life. I drank. I drank in the hopes that I would forget the biggest mistake I have ever made – leaving you. That was wrong. There is no way a father can defend leaving his child like that. I can’t,” he tried to connect with her by gazing into her eyes. She leaned forward. She saw nobody else in this restaurant but him. “You have never been my father. You are just a man. You are just a man who lived in the same house as my mother and I did,” she was not like him. She was not nervous, and if she was, she hid it well. She disguised her nervousness, her fear behind her anger. Her anger was stronger than them.

He giggled. That was cold. He nodded to himself. “You do not waste any time, do you?” he asked. “I have waited a long time for this,” she responded without thinking. He shrugged his shoulders. “So have I,” he answered with a content smile. He could tell that she wanted to smile, but she refused to follow through. She was not going to let him think that he had gotten away with abandoning his daughter and his wife. She had spent years trying to forget. She could barely remember him, and what little she could remember about him was not worth much. She remembered his drinking. When her mother would not stand for his drinking anymore, he left. That was probably why her boyfriend had left her - because she could not forget what her own father had done, shortly after she had been born. He had left. He had been back to visit her at their house. One day he stopped coming. She had been sitting outside their house on the curb waiting for him, but he never came. Now she was alone, like her mother had been alone. “I am only here, because I made a promise to someone, and unlike you I intend to keep my promises,” even if she wanted to, she would not be able to end these attacks. She had to know that he knew, that he understood what he had done. This was not something that he could fix with a dinner and a movie.

“Who? Whom did you promise?” he asked. He thought maybe it was her boyfriend. She was unsure if she should continue this conversation or change the subject. She was braver than him. “A three-year-old boy who would like to meet his granddad some day, if I say it’s okay,” she said clearing her throat. Now she was the one taking mental pictures of him. She could not recall ever seeing him like this. His eyes were watering up. He kept fidgeting. He had family. He had a grandson. “What’s his name? Do… do you have a picture of him?” he asked. He had not noticed the tears in his eyes. He had not even felt it. She was searching through her purse like a mad rat desperate for food. She took up her cellphone and went through the photos on it. She found it. She smiled and gave him the phone. “Walter,” she said. He looked up from the phone. “Walter is his name,” she repeated. It was difficult for her not to smile when she was speaking about her son. He was one big smile. “Walter,” he said under his breath, “like me. Poor kid.” They both laughed about that. He took out his wallet and looked behind his credit card – there it was. He chose the small black and white photo he had of his daughter. He put the photo on the table next to her picture of his grandson on her cellphone. He smiled with a sense of relief. Suddenly the past was improved by the present. “History,” he mumbled. History, it was.