Hive Ave Fall2024 - Flipbook - Page 42
Hive Avenue Literary Journal
Non-Fiction
carefully place each sailor scout on the shelf above my blue ribbons in my room. My father liked to meander elsewhere while
I was here, either perusing the sunglasses stall or talk with the
rug vendor, who was also the mean substitute teacher at the
middle school.
I’d never seen Chibiusa at my booth before, let alone as
my favorite version of her—
Black Lady. Red-eyed and mean, her pink pigtails streamed
behind her.
I pointed at her and turned toward the vendor, “How
much is she?”
*
*
*
Sometimes my dad would take me to a restaurant called
Conch Republic. We’d order mussels diablo and soak our bread
in the broth that the mussels steamed in. I’d get full of virgin
daquiris before the entrées arrived and we’d eat in almost complete silence after the standard questions of how was school,
how are your grades, and sometimes he’d ask about my horseback riding. After dinner he’d take me across the street to the
beach. The moon always almost out and the sun just below the
horizon, and we’d walk to an apartment building he’d once lived
at in his early twenties and tell me ghost stories. He’d talk about
the 昀椀sh tank that would start to boil, and the bones they’d dug
up in the backyard, and of the phantom hand that grabbed him
while he slept.
I lapped up the light on the wall from him opening the
door to his heart, just a little bit.
Then one day everything stopped. The dinners, the stories, the 昀氀ea market. I became an unruly teenager who couldn’t
follow rules and my dad became a tyrannical colder entity. I no
longer begged for his attention and in doing so realized that the
e昀昀ort had been viewed as my responsibility the entire time.
*
*
*
The Dark Queen: Birth of Black Lady was my favorite episode of Sailor Moon. Chibiusa was 昀椀ve when she 昀椀rst appeared
in the Black Moon arc—not much older than myself at the time
I started watching. In the episode, she turns into an evil, adult
version of herself, and steals away Sailor Moon’s love interest,
Tuxedo Mask, who also happened to be Chibiusa’s future father.
A bit confusing, I know, try watching it as a child.
My father would make fun of the show whenever I
watched. There’s a sort of bodily catch phrase Sailor Moon does
when she transitions into her magical form where she’ll pose
with her index and middle 昀椀nger on her forehead. My father
would mimic this constantly but 昀氀ip his 昀椀ngers, inversely. He’d
do this with other interests like he’d call my beloved stu昀昀ed
horse a squirrel. Pokémon was Pokemans, my friend’s names
were just girl with ponytail or maybe he’d remember one of
their names and they’d all be Tonya. What he would remember were the lessons he paid for, the hobbies that held value to
him. As I got older, the teasing stopped, because he didn’t know
enough of my interests to mimic them.
My father is a 昀椀rm believer that parents are not supposed
to be friends with their children, even when those children
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become adults. He doesn’t talk about his feelings, he doesn’t
often share his childhood, or let us in on his day-to-day problems, which is why, I suppose, we maintain the same energy we
forged twenty or so years ago.
It isn’t unfair to say that my father fell prey to the cyclical
nature of emotional withholding—given to him by his father
and his father’s father, and his father’s, father’s, father. He
didn’t have a great childhood from the tidbits that I’d gathered. Raised by a single mother in a fend-for-yourself household, where he was only given the base line of necessities and
the occasional visit from his father who’d introduce his six kids
as his nieces and nephews sometimes. I don’t think it’s fair to
not condemn him for not taking the time to break gendered,
misogynistic practices. He had the resources to go to therapy,
to look inward—he just didn’t want to. He gave my sisters and
I the love and attention he was capable of. Inconsistent in its
warmth and constantly subjected to his ever-changing moods
we all built up walls. Became too in tune with other people’s
feelings.
My sister, Madison, who’s gone no contact with my father,
once read his star chart to me. A true Aries in 昀椀re and fervor,
his planets and stars aligned in a way that told us how much he
wanted to be loved. Needed it. A man so strong and con昀椀dent
was made of glass.
As a kid, I didn’t want to steal away my father like Black
Lady. In fact, Chibiusa didn’t want too either. Her adult form was
a manifestation of her loneliness. The envy she felt stemmed
from the lack of attention she received from her father. Her
stealing Tuxedo Mask away was a 昀椀ve-year-old action in an
adult woman’s body puppeteered by an evil alien super team.
She wanted to be seen.
*
*
*
I ask my son every couple of months these questions:
what’s your favorite color, television show, movie, dinner, friend,
magical creature. I want him to know I want to know him. When
I became a mother my relationship with my father shifted. He
was more present, more active in the goings on in my life. He
had a new checklist of questions all pertaining in some way to
my son. I’m glad my father loves my son, wants to be a part of
his life but sometimes I wonder how long that interest will last.
When I became a teenager, became less accommodating and
more independent, me and my father became strangers. Will
that e昀昀ort be one sided again?
My father FaceTime’s me while my son is having a
sleepover at his house. My dad holds his phone up, points it to
Harry, who’s doing something between a dive and a belly 昀氀op
into the pool. I 昀氀inch at the lack of athleticism, getting ready
for the punchline or quip my dad would inevitably make but
it never comes. He’s completely and unequivocally enamored,
“What a cool kid.”
I feel grateful that I never had a brother. I feel grateful that
my father showers my son with love and attention. I’ve never
seen my dad happier or more attentive then when my son is
around.
