“Sorry, Dad. I heard sounds.”
He pulled the glasses off. “Go to bed.”
“What are you making?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
I looked at the fabric again. “That doesn’t look like nothing.”
He pulled the glasses off.
He held up a finger. “Nope. Out.”
“You’re being weird, Dad.”
“Go, baby,” he said, offering me a small smile.
***
For almost a month, that became our rhythm.
I came home from school and found thread on the couch. He burned dinner twice because he was trying to sew a hem and stir stew at the same time.
One night, I found a bandage on his thumb.
“You’re being weird, Dad.”
“What happened there?”
He glanced down. “The zipper fought back.”
“You’ve been sewing so much you injured yourself over formalwear, Dad.”
He shrugged. “War asks different things of different men.”
I laughed, but then I had to turn away because something in my chest had gone tight.
***
Mrs. Tilmot, my English teacher, made that whole month feel longer than it was.
She never yelled, but that would have been easier. She just knew how to say cruel things in a voice calm enough to make you sound dramatic for noticing.
“War asks different things of different men.”
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