‘I can’t believe that’s who they sent.’
I stared at my father. ‘You knew she was coming back here?’
‘No, no. I didn’t know. No, I didn’t. Not like this.’
My father paced. I could not fucking believe this. I banged my forehead on the front door.
‘Stop. Don’t do that. It’s not true. I didn’t know. Stop. Come on. You’re getting way too excited.’
I kept banging my head on the door. Ladies, can you hear? This is how I deal with my father’s passive-aggression. Drum skull, numbskull.
‘Stop it. Calm down!’
I decided not to stop. I wanted a horn on my forehead.
‘Stop banging your head or I’m calling the cops.’
That seemed like a lie. The horn of abuse.
But it was the first time in a long time that me and my father had really looked at each other. Long hairs off his eyebrows acted like a thicket over his two purplish bloodvessel lids. My own eyes felt glazed. Our vision, vibrating.
‘Why didn’t you tell me she was coming back here?’
‘Because I did not know that she was coming back here with a crazy person!’
‘I thought I was the crazy person.’
My father took a last suck of his wrinkled cigarette, glancing backwards at the kitchen.
‘It is our duty to forgive her,’ he whispered.
I felt like dragging that spark through his mushroomcloud tits.
‘She called me a few times from rehabilitation. Okay, she called me two times, maybe more, maybe a few years ago.’
Bang. My father told lies.
‘Jesus Christ! Stop! She called from South America somewhere. I didn’t think she would actually come back for real. We both know she’s cuckoo, okay?’
The horn in me rising. Cuckoo and schmuck.
‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you! Look at you,’ my dad yelled. ‘Calm yourself, please!’
I felt my head bump sprout into two distinct sections. One was reconciliation and one was rusted destruction.
I wanted to alter this story. Did my father not remember? I banged my forehead on the door one last time. My horn grew. My father put his hand on my shoulder. Then he started crying wetly and honking, just like clowns cry.
My father was full of denial, the falsest control. He’d brought Barbra here and now he’d brought her back.
‘Where’s my phone? You have my phone? Let me phone Bornstein.’
I started pacing in front of the dented-in door. My father, in fact, had orchestrated this.
‘We’re going to get you an appointment today.’
Snorting to breathe, protecting the door, I realized it was not my father’s job to continue to take care of me. I realized that my father was afraid of my encroaching ‘psychosis.’ My father was afraid of cunt. Quitting school. Rekindling.
‘I’m going to go with her to Israel,’ I said.