Autumn light shines through the blinds, fractured and almost shimmering where the breeze shakes the leaves. I stare at the carpet where the movement has imprinted itself, trying to discern the shapes and patterns. Though I could look out the window, see where the boughs of the trees bend in the wind and how the colours of the leaves gleam in yellows and greens, on their way to red, there is something mesmerising about the way the light plays with shadow, the outline of what could be out there, already in here. I hear my father’s voice telling me that Allah is in everything and where else could Allah be, if not in the light?
I can’t help but think of my father then, his smell of smoke and late-night takeaway that lingers under the cotton fresh smell of laundry just done. His white hoodies and his white shirts and his Skechers. His salt and pepper beard that is turning more salt with the years but sometimes he dyes it on a whim, and then it is the faded orange of henna. Anytime I look in the mirror, I see his eyebrows – the unruliness of them and where we try to trim it down – and our crooked mouths. Some things are different though, my nose more sloping than his and my hair more frazzled, but still the curls are there.
Despite the afternoon sun, it is cold and though it is nothing like the chill of my childhood home, a constant arctic because of its high ceilings and inability to trap heat, my gut instinct is to burrow under the blankets. I call my dad, my face framed by the green of my pillow, to see him, hear his voice, assure myself of his solidity regardless of the distance. Even though I haven’t lived at home for nearly two years, I still find it difficult to call my parents, worried that they will see the enormity of my missing them. That time has not made it easier, but instead has made me frantic. All that time, gone. For my father, that franticness is compounded with worry about his declining health, his ageing, his continually delayed retirement. Where my mother seems immovable and permanent, my father is burnt out and slowing down. Every moment with him halved and halved again until eventually the moments run out.
When he picks up, it is relief and nostalgia and affection that fills my chest. Even though our conversations are always the same, the routine of it is soothing. He is reliable, consistent this way. I know I should make more effort in these calls, but it is hard, all the sentiments get stuck somewhere in my chest. I don’t want him to think it is unhappiness that makes me sad. That I’m dissatisfied with the choices I have made or the life I have carved out for myself. I mostly just want childhood again and the belief in my parents’ invincibility.
I miss the parts where my siblings and I would pile into my parents’ bed on the weekend, my father still half asleep and my mother long awaken. The nights my father came back from work, arms laden with a greasy kebab for us to share and a margherita pizza solely because my sister liked it. I miss watching cartoons, my youngest brother and I tucked up against either side of my father, his warmth ours. My mother’s voice drifting from room to room as she speaks on the phone. My siblings always there, just within reach. Though I still have those things when I go back to my parents’ house, it is also fractured, slipping between shadow and light. It didn’t occur to me that just as I got older, so did everyone else. Our priorities shifting, memories already becoming just as short as they had felt. Again, I say none of this to him. Instead, it is pleasantries, we save the most important things to discuss in person, hoarding and storing them away.
I eventually hang up, letting the silence settle around me. At some point, the clouds shift, hide the sun, and the leaves are just leaves again. Soon the trees will be stripped bare, and another year will have passed. I’m unable to stop the weepiness that overcomes me and even though my eyes remain dry, I feel it where it matters. I carry it around with me for the rest of the week.
Photo by Thomas Kinto on Unsplash
