“How’s your job at the newspaper?” my father asks me. He is sitting on a couch, a plush throw blanket spread across his legs.
“The newspaper’s fine,” I lie.
I lie because it is simple. I lie because it is quick. I lie because it is easier than trying to explain to him yet again that though I have worked for twenty-five years, I have never worked at a newspaper.
My father and I stare at each other. I wait for him to launch into a story about his life. He has about six of these stories, or rather, he has thousands of stories, but only six he remembers at any one time. All of them are old, almost ancient. They happened decades ago and I’ve heard them hundreds of times already.
I sit in one of two swivel chairs across from the couch; a glass table piled with magazines and newspapers squats between us. We’re in the living room of the house I grew up in, the same house my parents have lived in for more than forty years.
My father looks bored. He fusses with the blanket tossed across his legs simply to have something to do. I know from experience that talking to him about current events is useless. Neighborhood news, international intrigues, it’s all lost on him because he doesn’t recognize any of the names or events.
He looks out the large bay window at the bird feeder my mother hung from a tree branch.
“Look at those things; they’re there all the time,” my father says and points out the window. He points because he cannot find the words to describe what he’s watching. It’s as if suddenly his mind is like a large dark