Routines I

Every single Wednesday I have dinner with Dad. Mostly burgers, sometimes pizza. We watch one to two episodes of a dad-approved show: options include Netflix’s F1 show, Star Trek Discovery, NCIS-or-it’s-ilk, or re-runs of Ancient Aliens. The last is his least favourite; I get too agitated.

He shares photos of things he built over the weekend. We each bitch about work, in turn. He leaves between 7.08 and 7.30 and I insist on two hugs, one in the living room and one at the end of the hall, as he leaves.

He has his chair in my house, a wingchair he and mum gave me years ago for my 16th birthday. It was a smaller sister chair to dad’s tall green-covered wingchair, which I always monopolised; now he comes to my home and sits in mine.

The air between us is steady. There’s space between words: we sit together in the gaps. He waits for the hugs now, expectant; I don’t have to catch him. He rolls down the window and waves to me every time he leaves the carpark, knowing exactly where I’m standing to watch him go.