Gimmesanity

Trying this on again.
I’ve missed this little place of mine…
much like one misses their comfy jeans.

For now, a little something that’s been rattling around in my head:

The day I saw my father, the air smelled of fresh leaves and sunshine. I was in my white sandals, the strappy ones that I was in the process of outgrowing, my big toes hanging awkwardly and dirty over the front. I looked down and saw my knobby knees, grimy from the playground. My little belly protruded from under my shirt, my fingernails stubby and bitten.
We were all hanging out on the sidewalk, adults leaning against the parked cars sipping on sweaty bottles of piss-colored beer while the children ran screeching and playing tag. It was summer, again.
I remember looking up and recognizing his shirt. It was his favorite tomato-red silk button-down. It always came out impossibly wrinkled from the washer. He would hold out this wadded shirt, a prune the size of a loaf of bread in his hands, and ask one of us to iron it for him. Mami would scoff. I would roll my eyes. But, secretly, I enjoyed passing the iron and watching a shirt emerge from the countless folds and creases.
“Let’s walk,” he said, and he held out his hand. His palm felt large and substantial in my small hand, his fingers wrapped around the back of mine and I could feel the heavy gold and onyx ring he always wore pressing up against the bones of my knuckles.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“To come see you. To see how you’re doing.” He smiled.
“Really?” I didn’t believe him. He laughed, and it was a sound that I have missed for so long. So distinct, so not a sound that you would expect to come from him. I looked up at Papi and realized how big he was. Much, much bigger than the last time I saw him. That last time, he seemed so short, so light, and I wondered if maybe they had made a mistake.
By this time, we had reached the playground in the center of the block.
“This is where we stop,” he said.
I looked at him, started into his eyes, tried to see and not see. His white linen pants flapped in the breeze that carried his cologne to me.
“You’re not really here, are you?”
“I am right now.”
I paused, because I wanted to believe and not believe and I didn’t know how far I could take this.
He held out his arms and I climbed into them like I used to when I was 7 and he would come home from work. “Papi’s home! Papi’s home!” I would shout, and throw my skinny arms around his neck. I closed my eyes and rested my face against his cheek.
And he walked back.
By the time we got back to the corner, I was on my feet, silent tears rolled down my cheeks and into the corners of my mouth.
I was still smelling his cologne, feeling his heart beating against my chest…
And he was gone.