fridays

Friday afternoons felt like the only time she ever saw her father, even though every evening when she made the table for dinner she asked if he wanted ice in his water and he always responded.

"No ice, thank you,"

But on Friday afternoons she would treck through the front door, shoulders aching and feet blistered and he would be sitting at the kitchen table, Wall Street Journal in front of him.

To his right, his glasses and a bottle of diet Pepsi.

To his left, a bag of Doritos and Salsa con Queso.

The only sound between the ruffling of his papers was the sound of the jar of queso being slid across table, and they both ignored the countdowns they each were preparing for.

Till his retirement in three years.

Till his eventual knee-surgery sometime this year.

Till his elder daughter finally straightened out her life.

Till his youngest daughter figured out hers.

Till his wife aligned out her spine.

Till the Exterminator comes next Tuesday.

Till the lawn needs to be mowed again.

And all they did was rap their knuckles on the table and slide a jar of Salsa con Queso between the two of them because there wasn't a use waiting.

They never talked during these moments. Then again, they never talked, ever. They were strangers connected by a bond of parent-and-child; now only a girl who made herself grow up when she was 4 and went to her first funeral, and a man who stopped trying to dye his hair after the first of numerous times his health was sapped from his bloody fingernails.

They pass each other in the hallway with nary a glance, but sometimes they ask how the other is doing, and they listen with half an ear; they speak with a quarter of enthusiasm.

When she comes home with tears in her eyes and a heart broken within her crushed and crackled knuckles he offers a band-aid, and a promise of wisdom to come. Stretching his wisdom across a chasm that neither are sure exist anymore, she heals her cuts and he watches, too weary to even attempt to pick up the band-aid that's fallen to the floor.

And when he comes back with curses on his lips and a suitcase full of papers of wrong ideas, she can only offer a reprieve in the promise that he'll be done soon. She lends him an understand look leveled with a promise of brownies over the weekend, and the unspoken deal of not mentioning either of theirs diets.

Sometimes she wants to remember when she was younger and they went on carnival rides together and he was able to pick up dollar bills when they fell to the ground an she wasn't afraid of touching him in fear that his skin will burst from the pressure.

But she dips her doritos into a jar of Salsa con Queso before sliding it back where it barely touches the edge of the Wall Street Journal and she's fine with waiting for deadlines.