How could he possibly know about my dream? I did not tell a soul. Did she come to him too? Impossible. What are the chances that my father and I would have the same dream. You cannot "share" a dream. I was too scared to ask him, too afraid of the truth.
Ever since I was a little girl, I was the apple of my father's eye. When he came home after work with treats, he only gave them to me. If my brother and sister were around, he would give me the lion's share of whatever he had on him. When he worked on a project around the house, he would always ask me to sit with him. When he went out to run errands, he would only ask me. This would infuriate my siblings but it was the fact of life in our family. My faults, my flaws, my bad-ass attitude and my wit, my charm and ability to make him smile made me his undeniable favorite. I was his eldest. I was his sidekick. I laughed at his cheesy jokes. I worked through his problems. I made him laugh. Yet I also made him cry.
Our fights were intense. Our arguments were challenging. I never took NO for an answer and acquired the ability to change it into a YES. Many times when our verbal arguments went nowhere, I would go to my room, slam the door and take out my pen and notepad. And then I would write for hours. The next morning, he would find an envelope outside his bedroom door - the day's reading for the office. In these letters, I would lay out my argument, finely tuned with more articulate points in my defense than I could ever express in a shouting match. That was not my forte--confrontation. Hence, I relied on my writing to express my thoughts, my point of view, my angle. In the end, he backed down and relented.
However this time, the air was different. An argument, a letter or any type of communication would not change his thinking. It was something I sensed right from the beginning even before I made my attempts to sway his thinking. But I was determined to have it my way, like in my childhood.
I did not communicate about my father's attitude to my fiancee. He was oblivious to my frustration. On the phone to him, I hid my emotions and continued our planning. It was October and we wanted to engagement to take place in December when his entire family would be here. My father would then interject and propose the following year. I did not know why he kept pushing it out. I would be taking my exams in January, the most busiest time of the school year yet my father would not go for a December engagement. I sat him down one day to argue this point. But it didn't take long for him to back down. I moved another player on the board. After a long pause and staring at me intently, he spoke.
"When you marry, where are you going to complete your education?" he inquired. Without so much of an expression, I could see the vein bulging on his forehead.
I smiled and shook my head. I had not given much thought to the idea. Dang it!
"Dad, I have everything under control. I am not even sure where I am going to live at the moment."
He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. "I thought you were going to live with their family. That is what his father told me. Do you think on his income he can afford another place?" He moved his player.
We had not talked about living arrangements but he never mentioned staying with this family. I exhaled deeply. "Well that is the charm of it all. We improvise as we go," I shrugged and practically ran out of the room. When I turned the corner, I saw my father smiling to himself. Why would his father already make the decision where we were going to live? We never discussed our living arrangements. Apparently the parents were. Who was running this show? This was not my idea of an arranged marriage where they 'arrange' every detail, including my post-marital life!
When my father left the house, I picked up the phone. Just as I was dialing, I realized the mistake I was about to make. I put the phone back down. Oh, he was good. My father. Master manipulator. I couldn't call my fiancee or I would lash out over a detail I wasn't even sure of myself. Where were we going to live? Where was I going to school? Would we even be able to afford school?
I walked over to my brother who was heavily involved in a computer game. He looked at the expression on my face and asked what was wrong. "Do you have anything to say about what is going on? I am going to be married soon. Your opinion would be nice," I blurted out. My brother was the youngest in our family but to his credit, my twin in common sense. He looked me square in the eye without blinking. "How do you feel about all this? Are you comfortable about this decision?" He turned back to his computer game while I stood there dumbfounded.
I think I was in defense mode too long that I didn't take time to even appraise my own feelings. As I watched his Super Mario Brothers game, I likened myself to Mario. Falling over cliffs, avoiding pitfalls and dodging falling objects from the sky.
Cliffs, pitfalls and objects from the sky.
Falling, avoiding and dodging.
I stared at the screen and realized... this was actually my life. But who was controlling the game?
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