21. August 25th
Angie
“Hey, bunny,” my dad grins, bringing me into a familiar hug and wrapping me in his scent. His scratchy, short salt and pepper beard tickles my face as he plants a kiss on my cheek. “So good to see you.”
“Good to see you too, Dad.” Once again surprising me, he’s quite put together wearing nice jeans and a dark blue T-shirt that actually fits and doesn’t have holes in it. Who is this man? If my dad isn’t at his office job working in a sad polo, he’s home or working a side job wearing clothes that most people would deem rags. Even his short hair is trimmed up and styled. “You look great.”
“Not as great as you, honey. And Raf, how are you, son?” he asks affectionately, the way he always has to my friend.
“I’m good,” he says as we step inside my childhood home. It’s a small two-story house that would suit an average size family of four just fine. But somehow the giant Johanssen family squeezed in here all these years. My dad and brothers are all over six feet tall and so is Ivy. I’m the shrimp of the family and I’m still above average height for a woman. Dad’s tall Swedish genes did not miss our family, that’s for certain.
“Bunny, can I get you an iced tea? Raf, a beer?”
My eyebrows raise at that. “You have iced tea?” This man never has anything other than water and the occasional warm Mountain Dew hidden away in his workshop.
“Yeah,” he nods, making his way back to the kitchen from where we’re standing in the living room.
“Okay, I’ll take a tea,” I say.
“I’m not drinking,” Raf says. “I’ll have an iced tea too.”
When Dad disappears into the kitchen, I turn to Rafael. “You’re not drinking?”
“No. I haven’t had anything to drink since you found out you’re pregnant.”
“You haven’t? But there’s been so many socials since then.”
He simply shrugs. “I’m doing it for solidarity.”
Well, that’s freaking sweet of him. “I had no idea. Thank you, that’s—really nice actually.”
“Actually? Am I a douchebag normally?” he chuckles.
“You know what I mean. Thank you.”
“How’s the season, Raf?” Dad asks, walking into the living room with our drinks, the hardwood floor creaking with every step.
“Good,” he smiles and we all take a seat on the oversized leather sectional. “We just had our first official fall match yesterday morning against Pittsburgh. Smoked ‘em.”
“Good for you. And how about you, Ang? How’s work going?”
“It’s great. I just wish I could stay awake all day. I feel bad for zoning out on the kids sometimes,” I admit with a grimace.
“Can I?” Dad asks softly, hovering his hand over my baby bump and looking a little sheepish.
“Knock yourself out. They’re not kicking right now, but you never know.”
He quickly sets his beer bottle down on the coffee table and places both hands on me. “Can I…talk to them?”
Shut the fuck up, this man is going to make me cry.
“Yeah,” I swallow thickly.
“Hey, little ones,” he coos, bringing his mouth only a couple inches from my stomach. “It’s your grandpa. Are you giving Mama a hard time?”
That makes me giggle. “Yes, they are. The heartburn is starting to kick in, and last week I thought it would be a good idea to make enough homemade pasta to last through the next presidential term.”
“And then she fell asleep halfway through making her last batch,” Rafael adds with a smirk. “Found her on the couch covered in flour with Goodbye Earl blasting through the speaker.”
“This morning I got winded putting on my sandals.”
Dad pulls back his head to look at me, his crooked smile small but present. “Yeah, I remember your mom going through that like it was yesterday.”
Proceed with caution, I tell myself because never, and I mean never, has my father spoken about my mother outside of the occasional fact.
I swallow my nerves and try to nudge him. “Yeah?”
“She was just as beautiful as you, bun. She glowed when she was pregnant. Went through the ringer with symptoms, especially with the boys,” he says fondly and my pulse picks up its pace. Maybe if I pay closer attention, I’ll be able to brand this moment as a core memory. I can sense Rafael’s stillness on my other side, like he, too, is afraid to make a move so as to not scare off these rare glimpses into my mom’s life.
“Did she have any cravings?” I ask gingerly, desperate for any scrap of her.
“You know, now that you say it, I do remember her eating a lot of grapefruit. And nothing was spicy enough for her.”
“Really?” I interject. “Me too! Well, not about the grapefruit, but the spicy food, yeah.”
“I guess that makes sense; you two share so much as it is.” His expression turns unreadable for a moment as his focus shifts elsewhere and then he clears his throat. “I’m not sure you know this, but twins actually run in your mom’s family.”
“What? Really? I thought I was an outlier.”
“No. Um,” he says, then grabs his beer bottle and sits on the edge of the couch with his legs spread and elbows on his knees. “Your mom’s mom, Grandma Dabrowski, was a twin.”
“I didn’t know that,” I whisper. I knew my grandma had a sister in Poland, but I didn’t know she was her twin.
“And,” he pauses. “Your mom was actually pregnant with twins when…she was…killed in the car accident.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I would ask him how am I just hearing about this, but he’s never uttered a word about my mom or her family since she’s been gone.
The label on his full beer bottle is slowly and methodically being pulled away when he speaks again, not looking at me. “She was only twelve weeks along. We had just found out we were having two, and we weren’t expecting any—they were a surprise, but a welcome one.” I’m fascinated and in shock. His eyes slam shut and he shakes his head. “How Ivy survived that accident is a miracle.”
I’ve always thought that too, and it’s no wonder everyone else in the family babies her. I’ve also put myself in my dad’s shoes more times than I can count, thinking what he must have gone through losing his wife in a horrible car accident and almost losing his youngest child—and I sympathize with him because it’s impossible not to. But knowing he’s been holding on to this extra loss the whole time brings renewed grief, understanding, and sorrow along with it.
“Why didn’t you tell me until now?” I choke out, tears springing.
“I was never planning on telling you, truth be told. But I’ve been seeing a therapist for the last six months, and I realized there’s a lot of things I need to come clean about and make right with you kids.”
“Dad,” I say, my voice pitchy and small.
“I know,” he nods then finally looks at me, a single tear threatening to escape. “I should have gone a long time ago. I’m sorry I didn’t. I wasn’t the father you kids needed me to be, but I hope there’s still time to be.”
“There is,” I cry, then throw myself into him as we wrap our arms around one another. “I’m so proud of you, Dad. I hoped someday you would get here, but I never thought it would come.”
“Thank you, bunny. Thank you for waiting.” When we pull away, each of us wiping at the remnants of tears, he says, “There will probably be a lot more apologizing in the future, so get ready.”
“Will I also get more stories about Mom?” I ask hesitantly.
“I’d love to share them. Would you like her journals?”
“She had journals?” I exclaim.