Who Orders Tea at Starbucks?

“Did I ever tell you why I’m so scared of seesaws?” She didn’t expect an answer, but she paused anyway, just in case he was listening. “When I was about six, I was on one with my friend Brittany. Do you remember her? Probably not. It was a long time ago.” She smiled faintly. “She jumped off after launching me into the sky and introduced me to gravity. That was the first time I got winded.”

It was a feeling she would become familiar with over the years; that sensation of having your breath completely stolen from you and yet somehow still being alive. It wasn’t as if she’d never felt it before, but that was the day she learned there was a word for it.

The teacher who ran over had patted her on the back and said, You’re just winded, sweetheart. It’ll pass. And it did. It always did. The speeches ended. The plane made it through the turbulence. Her father finally passed out for the night. She always found her breath again. She looked over at him. “I can’t find it now, though, Dad.”

She laughed. God… when was the last time she had called him Dad? Or anything, for that matter? The sound earned a few tentative smiles from passing nurses. But when was the last time? She remembered the first Christmas she hadn’t sent a card. Not because she forgot, but because she couldn’t bring herself to address it the way she was expected to, and she sure as hell couldn’t sign it the way she was expected to. So she sent nothing. Said nothing. That was one of those winded moments too.

She’d sat there trying to think of old birthdays and Christmases, searching for one memory that made her nostalgic enough to write the words and mean them. But she couldn’t find one.

She thought about the early birthdays and realised most of the happiness had belonged to the gifts. As she got older, discomfort had started creeping into them instead. She remembered telling her sister one year that the only thing she really wanted was a sober father. Not all this, she said, gesturing to the pile of gifts on her bed: gift cards, clothes, books, art supplies. Meaningless, when the person giving them to you was shouting in their sleep in the room next door.

She looked back at him. “You were always good at gifts,” she said softly. “I’ll give you that.”

It had taken her a long time to realise that maybe that was how he loved people. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she only decided that because the alternative hurt too much.

For years she thought he was trying to buy her and her sister’s affection, until eventually she realised he probably never had to. That was the saddest part. Parents don’t really have to earn your love when you’re little. It just exists. And even when they stop showing up properly, some part of you keeps carrying it anyway. Heavy enough for the crash to hurt even without the seesaw.

“Do you remember my thirteenth birthday?” she asked. “Probably not. It was a long time ago.” She smiled to herself. “You bought me The Hunger Games.” She hadn’t been much of a reader back then, but she read that one. Obsessively. She even had a Mockingjay pin and taught herself how to braid her hair like Katniss.

She ran her fingers through her loose hair now and briefly considered doing it again, just to keep her hands busy. Funny. Sitting here, she felt a lot like that thirteen year old girl.

“There was this quote about hope,” she said. “That it was the only thing stronger than fear.” She looked at him. “I really loved that.”

It made her feel invincible back then, because she was nothing if not hopeful. Where her sister used anger to survive their father, she used hope. Hope that he’d stop drinking. Hope that the version of him she caught in those increasingly rare sober hours would eventually become her full-time father. Hope that one day they’d become one of those normal families people could talk about. She used to think her sister had it wrong. That anger was just fear masquerading. Hope felt braver.

“I was so wrong.” She looked down at the floor as her voice came out quieter than she intended. “Hope keeps going whether you want it to or not.” She swallowed. “It’s not the person who carries it that’s strong. Hope is.”

She stepped out of the room as a nurse walked in. She told herself she wanted coffee, but really she just couldn’t bear to hear whatever pity might be waiting on the other side of the conversation. She didn’t need someone to tell her how bad it was. She knew. She wouldn’t be here otherwise. Although she still wasn’t entirely sure why she was. She’d said goodbye to her father years ago. The man sleeping in that bed felt more like memory than person.

How weird was that? She stood in front of the vending machine and stared at the rows of KitKats as though one of them might explain it. Her hands trembled as she pressed the button. Three. Not two. She watched in horror as a Milky Bar dropped instead. She clenched her jaw. She was not going to cry over a chocolate. Or anything, for that matter. But seriously. Could she not catch a break?

Catch a break. Catch a KitKat.

The laugh burst out of her before she could stop it. Too loud. Too sudden. Loud enough that the nurse who had just left her father’s room turned around.

“Everything okay?” He had the same careful smile the others did. The laughter disappeared immediately. She looked at him properly for the first time. His eyes were soft. She had never really understood what people meant when they described someone’s eyes that way. She got it now.

She lifted the Milky Bar between them and gave a small shrug. “You don’t have to do that, you know.” His smile faltered slightly. She glanced back toward her father’s room. “This… was a long time coming.” She offered a polite smile and turned to leave.

“I see this a lot.” She stopped. His voice lowered, gentler now. “Not this exactly. But….” He trailed off as her hand tightened around the chocolate and she met his eyes again. He looked embarrassed for a second, like he wasn’t sure whether he’d overstepped. “I’m not saying I know your story,” he said quietly. “But I’m sorry for whatever life looked like before this.”

The Milky Bar snapped cleanly in half in her hand. She swallowed hard. Nobody said things like that. Her sister knew, of course. But outside of that… people accepted explanations. There is only so much you can hide in a hospital, though, and eventually there comes a point where no lie or cover-up can make something look normal. She managed a smile.

“Thank you,” she said softly, because what else could you say to someone who noticed? Then she gave the chocolate to him. “I wanted a KitKat.”

The nurse looked at the vending machine and grinned. “You wanted to have a break?” She laughed. Less manic this time.

“Exactly,” she whispered.

Her father was sitting up in bed when she walked back into the room, and she had to stop herself from turning around and walking straight back out.

“Hi,” he said. His voice was so weak she couldn’t quite match it to the man she had grown up with. She cleared her throat and sat back down in her chair, grateful that it was closer to the door than it was to him.

“Hi,” she replied. She was unsettled by how embarrassed she felt. She thought she’d get her goodbye out without ever having to meet his eyes. Did that make her a shitty person? Maybe. But those eyes weren’t the only thing they shared. They had both always preferred the easier way out. She cleared her throat. Then cleared it again. She regretted not actually getting that coffee. Her throat felt impossibly dry. Should she apologise for her sister not being here? Would that matter? She doubted he had expected either of them to come. So instead she asked:

“Do you remember the first time we went to Starbucks?” She almost added probably not out of habit. But he nodded. A small smile pulled at his face.

“I do,” he said. “You gave me such shit for ordering tea… and then you didn’t even finish the coffee you ordered.” He laughed. Or tried to. It came out sounding more like a frog croaking than a father laughing with his daughter.

She laughed too before she could stop herself. “I was eleven!” she said. “I promise it’s a lot less weird for an eleven-year-old to hate coffee than it is to order tea at Starbucks.” He smiled again. She shook her head. “What the hell was that?”

Her smile faded into the rhythmic beeping of the room.

“We should have done that more,” her father said quietly. “We should have-”

“No.” The word came out sharper than she intended. She swallowed. “You do not get the big speech about what we should or shouldn’t have done.” She felt like there was an iron sitting on her chest. Her father blinked. She kept going. “We told you thousands of times what you should and shouldn’t do.” Her hands tightened in her lap. “You…” She trailed off.

Her father was crying. She stared. She had never seen him cry. Not when he lost his jobs. Not when mum left. Not even when granddad died… but now.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His voice cracked. “I am so sorry.” She looked at him for a long time. Then she shook her head.

“You don’t get to do that either.” Her voice matched his now. The anger had already started draining out of her. What was the point? Her anger was as useful as his apology. They sat in silence for a long time. He was the first to look away.

She had imagined this moment so many times throughout her life that there had always been something inevitable about it. In some versions she yelled at him. In others they held hands and cried together. Mostly though, she never came at all. She used to read that addiction was a disease. For a long time she thought that meant it only happened to the person drinking. But she knew better now. His highs became everyone’s highs. His lows swallowed entire rooms. Maybe disease was still the right word, but it never felt isolated. It spread.

“Are you scared?” she asked. For so long she thought he hadn’t heard her. He nodded.

“Don’t be.” Her voice surprised her with how steady it sounded. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand any of this. Any of your choices.” She looked down at her hands. “But I think I’ve always known that nobody could have been happy living a life they needed to escape from the way you did.”

He looked at her. She smiled, and suddenly she was six years old again. Certain she could touch the sky, only this time she hoped her father could too. She stood. At the door she turned back, and said the only goodbye she had left.

“I hope you find that happiness now, Dad.”