I pour coffee into three mugs. Then open the bag of sugar cubes and put two cubes in one mug and one cube in the other two and stir them.
When I go back to the living room, dad is still where I left him.
Hearing me coming, he looks up. I give him his mug. "I'll be right back," I tell him.
I climb up the stairs and knock on the door of my parents' bedroom. "Mom?"
I hear shuffling noise inside. "Go away."
"I made you some coffee," I say. "With one sugar cube, just the way you like."
There's a pause. "I'm not feeling well honey," she says.
I sigh. "I'm leaving it on the doorstep." She doesn't respond. I leave the cup at the doorway and walk back to the living room.
"I didn't realize how much you've grown up," dad says when he sees me walking down the stairs. "Leaving for college next year, making coffee that doesn't taste like drinking hot coffee-mate."
'You would've known if you were around,' I wanted to say. Instead, I give in a small smile and sit down on the couch beside him.
Dad doesn't say anything as he drinks his coffee.
Then after what it feels like an eternity, I spoke, "What happened Dad?" I thought they were doing well, mom sounded pretty happy when I last talked with her. Heck, I even thought everything would be back the way it once was.
"It all happened so suddenly," he sighs. "I'm not sure where to start."
"How about from the beginning?" I suggest.
Dad takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. "It all started on Monday afternoon after we came back from the cruise. We were talking about where to go for lunch when I had a phone call," he says. "I went to receive it and when I came back Agnes started shouting at me. At some point, I lost my temper too and I shouted back at her. Things got pretty bad and...and your mom left the hotel telling me she's going back home."
I wonder what might've happened during a phone call.
"I was a bit late to watch up with her," he says. "I had to pack our things and then discharge us from the hotel, barely catching up with your mom. We came home in the same Uber but she didn't even glance in my way, once. She almost sprinted out of the car and locked herself in the room since then," he pauses. "She's not even telling me why she's so mad at me."
"She didn't tell you anything?"
Dad's eyes squint. "When I came back to our hotel room after taking the phone call, she mentioned something about a lady and cheating on her," then he shrugs. "It was probably an angry outburst."
Unfortunately, I don't share his positive thoughts. "Dad," I say. "Is there any chance the person who called you was a lady?"
"Why do you ask?" He looks at me. "But yes, it was a lady."
Is he freaking kidding me right now?
"You picked a woman's call on their holiday merely to chat with her?!"
Dad blinks. "What's the problem with that?" I shake my head. Age doesn't grow a man. I ask him in disbelief.
"You aren't supposed to pick up any calls outside the family when you're on holiday."
Dad lifts a brow. "First that's a very backdated thought," he tells me. "And secondly, I didn't know there are any holiday rules. And even if there was, I had to break that one. The call was important."
"Important than losing your wife?"
That hits him in the core. The expression on his face changes and he shakes his head.
"I thought so," I say.
"But it was totally my work-related," he reasons. He doesn't explain more to me, not that he's obliged to. "Agnes was acting overdramatic and suspicious. She kept blabbering shits like unfaithfulness and not loving her anymore," he pauses. "I don't know what's wrong with her anymore. I mean what does she think I'm doing all the time when I tell her I'm at the hospital? Cheating on her?"
When I don't meet his eyes, dad freezes. "Kiara-"
"Dad I can explain-"
"Explain? What's there to explain?" He asks. "My wife thinks I'm cheating on her."
"Dad calm down-"
He ignores me. "My wife, with whom I've been married for almost twenty years and girlfriend for five years before that, thinks I'm cheating on her?"
He looks so fierce that I don't even try to step closer.
So I try to reason with him from where I stand. "Dad, don't forget you also thought mom and seeing someone she only went to see off an ex-colleague," I say. "Ashton and I heard you guys."
"Ex-colleague?" Dad spats. "He was her ex-boyfriend from high school before he was her colleague. How glad I was when he moved to Alaska."
Well, now that's something I haven't heard before.
I try to think of how to respond to that one when dad says, "Next thing I will be hearing is that even my daughters think I'm having an affair."
My mouth zips shut.
In all those books, where the writers say silence speaks louder, I think I'm finally starting to believe it.
My silence almost gave dad a seizure.
"Kiara?"
"You didn't give us anything better to think about," I mumble. "I know mom never complained about it, but we saw it in her eyes. I think it outgrew when you had that phone call."
"But I never missed any of your birthdays or our anniversary week," He tries to defend himself. "I never missed any other anniversary of ours, not the day we first met, not even the day I proposed your mom."
"Yes but you're also never home for Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Easter, and not for the New year day! Honestly dad, what else do you expect us to think?!" Tears start to well up in my eyes as soon as those words leave my mouth.
Dad doesn't miss it. "Kiara-sweetie-"
"Do you have any idea how much we miss you?!" I ask him. "How painful was it for us to spend the holidays without you around? Do you even remember you used to cook for us on the weekends? Do you know how much Kat misses your weekend sports day?"
Dad opens his mouth but I beat him. "Do you know how hard it was for mom to get through Uncle Alister's funeral without you to support her?"
Uncle Alister was mom's older brother. He was a year older than mom. They were practically best friends.
He died in a road accident five years ago when a drunk truck blew up his car.
It was very hard for mom to accept his death. That was the day where mom needed him the most. But dad never made it to the funeral, because he had a major operation of a critical patient that afternoon.
An operation that was more important to him than supporting his wife.
"All that we needed was you," I tell him. "But you weren't there for us. For the last ten years. Ten years since you've been physically and mentally a part of our family, except for your anniversaries and our birthdays. How can you still expect mom not to react the way she did?"
Dad clears his throat. "Well, if that's what you thought I've been doing all this time, then you all should've confronted me," he says.
"What difference would that have made?" I ask him.
"We could've talked it out. That's how your mom and I always used to do things," he sighs. "Did you never wonder how we never used to fight? Because whenever your mom and I thought things weren't working right, we used to talk about it. We told each other about our doubts, opinions, likes, and dislikes. That helped us to solve problems without getting into a fight."
Wow, I never knew. It does sound like a sensible way to avoid unnecessary conflicts. But- "What's there to understand about being at work all day and forget that you have a family?"
"You would've understood that I have been at work all day because I remember I have a family and not because I forget that I had a family," dad says.
I furrow my brows. "What'd you mean?"
He turns to me. "Kiara, all this time I've been working like a human-machine was all just because of you guys," he says and looks at me. Is that moisture in his eyes?
"You remember I took you all to Italy on our tenth anniversary?" Dad asks.
I nod.
"That trip cost me half a year's income. That was the time I realized how much your mom and I had to go through in the future. This home mortgage, our insurance, my student loan which I have not repaid till then. And there's your and Kat's college fund," he says. "If we continued things like we used to, your mom and I would've had to pay the debts as long as we live. I also wanted a good future for you and Kat. A future where you don't have to drag your student loan all your life like your mom and I did."
"So you paced up your works," I state.
He nods. "I started doing private practice besides working in the hospital," he says. "The pays are always good and I managed to repay my student loan within a few months."
"That's great dad," I tell him. "But why didn't you tell us? Or at least tell mom?"
Dad doesn't meet my eyes. "Dad?"
He moves his place. "I wanted to surprise her. I wanted to surprise all of you," he mumbles.
I almost stumble. "What?"
"Don't give me the look. It was supposed to be your mom's anniversary gift from me this year. To celebrate two decades of our married life." He continues, "Just imagine, one day she's thinking about all the money that'll be cut from her salary and then it's all gone. We have no more debt to pay," he says. "In the meantime, I was saving your college funds too. Both yours and Kat's."
My eyes widen. I'm not sure how much money that can be, but it sure does sound a good amount of sum. "How did you do all that all by yourself?"
"It wasn't easy. I had to triple my work in the last year just to pay it all on time. I thought I couldn't make it but then they contacted me for that operation in Seattle last September, which covered it all. That's why I was able to stay home often lately."
Yes, I remember the day when Ashton came to our house the first time. Dad was home before eight that evening. All of us looked so surprised that it almost saddened dad.
"But she took it another way. She started suspecting me and tried to pick up a fight with me at the first chance she used to get," he pauses. "At first I thought she was doing something suspicious, but it turns out all these times, she thought I was having an affair."
I don't know how to respond to that one. The fact I all thought he was cheating made me ashamed more. I don't even know how to apologize to him for that.
Dad sighs and sits back on the couch. "But what's the point of it anymore? My own family thinks I was cheating all these years. Agnes doesn't even want to listen to me."
I sniff. Dad didn't deserve our suspense. He deserved all our love all this time. I break into sobs and cross the room to hug him. Dad pulls me in his arms.
The memories of the old times start to return. The memory of the day when I cried in his arms for hours because I broke my legs while playing. Or that day when a boy in school made fun of my pigtails. I was never daddy's girl, but dad always had my back when I needed him.
"I'm sorry," I sniff. "It was wrong of us. Especially of me and Kat. We shouldn't have assumed something like that about you. Kat didn't want to believe it at first. But then-then-"
"It's okay sweetie. It's normal to think like that in that position. It's not like half of the marriages in our country don't fail for this reason," he says softly.
I shake my head. "But you and mom are not like half other American weds, you're the other half who makes it till the end."
Dad smiles. A tear runs down his cheek. I look at his face and notice the lines on his forehead. And his tired eyes. How come none of us noticed these before?
"Remember," dad says. "If something like this ever happens again, not with me, but with anyone, just talk it out. It saves millions of heartbreaks and misunderstandings."
A particular face pops in my head but I brush him away.
"For someone who believes in 'talk everything out', you did a pretty crappie job." We turn around and find mom standing in the doorway of the living room.
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Raise your hand if you cried or felt the tiniest bit emotional after reading Kiara's dad's confession ðð»ââï¸