A Bright Ray of Darkness by Ethan Hawke

Author:Ethan Hawke [Hawke, Ethan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473590076
Google: ETIAEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2021-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

BREAKING BREAD

He arrived in Ohio two days later. My father was like that, dramatic. I had called back to tell him we were planning a small wedding at Saint Patrick’s cathedral in Cincinnati. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he’d said, firmly and immediately. Chance and my father were the only people I invited. Jimmy invited his mom, his stepfather—and some army friends from Albany, none of whom could come because they were on some field training exercise. He wasn’t too disappointed. He said he didn’t want a best man anyway. He wanted to stand alone.

We met my father and his new wife, BJ, at the restaurant inside the Ramada Inn where they were staying. Jimmy was on his best behavior; he can really be winning when he sets his mind to it. He spoke intelligently when addressed but for the most part he was quiet, standing beside me, watching my back.

My father and Jimmy had met once before back in Albany when I turned twenty-five. I’d only just started dating Jimmy a week earlier, but he stopped by this little party I was having and left early. I remember walking him down my driveway and kissing him good-bye on the hood of his car. “You know what I like about you?” I said, kissing him on the mouth. “You treat me like the piece of ass I am.”

I went back to the party and continued dancing with my dad. Jimmy told me later he’d found the party “depressing” because he didn’t feel anybody there knew me at all, including my father.

I could never explain to Jimmy the strange thing that happens to me whenever I see my father. Spontaneously, I seem to experience some kind of internal personality revolution. There are usually such time gaps between our meetings that I somehow revert to an idealized version of the person I was when we were last close. Essentially I become an adult manifestation of an eight-year-old. Each time we meet I try not to do it, but I always do. As a visit with my father approaches, I begin to dislike the person I’ve become and start wanting desperately to be that eight-year-old girl. The way I’ve done my hair will irritate me, and I’ll wind up with a ponytail. No earrings seem exactly right, so I go with none at all. My father has no idea who I am, and under the burden of his stare I don’t want him to know. I want his love and approval so badly it makes me hate him. And I don’t want to hate him, I want to love him. I need to tell him he’s gorgeous and I’m proud of him, and that need creates a thunder so loud I can’t hear anything else.

From the moment my father walked into the restaurant in Ohio I was reminded of what I dislike about him most: the way he dresses. He arrived wearing a suit that looked like he bought it at J.

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