The Flowers on the Kitchen Table

The same day I ended a year-long relationship. As executioner of this relationship, I stood stoic as he argued, begged, and pleaded for me to change my mind. Briefly, I entertained the thought, scared of being alone. But I knew this fear did not come from a place of love, but rather a misconstructed understanding of attachment. Our relationship had run its course. I was emotional. Regardless, my dad needed to go to North Carolina, and in light of this breakup, he designated me as his ride, seeing this as a prime parenting opportunity. A half-hearted attempt to salvage a picturesque father-daughter relationship that no longer existed between us. In the passenger seat of my Toyota Camry, he sat like an emperor on his throne. His back was parallel to the seat behind him as a sly smile danced across his face. He was probably invigorated by the fact that he had successfully forced a captive audience into his presence. Given our similarities, my father sometimes forgets where he ends and I begin. From shutting down, avoiding expressing our emotions, to our tan, olive skin, my father believes I am his “mini-me”, his natural successor. This is a distorted reality. Driving to the airport, he imparted his misplaced wisdom upon my naive heart. I witnessed him identify me as his scapegoat, projecting his wrongdoings onto my tabula rosa. 

“It is not our fault that people love us. You know, people throw themselves at me. Young, attractive women throw themselves at me, and I refuse. I chose family and to love your mom more than anything. I would never cheat or leave her. I ended it. And if you tell her anything I said, I will turn your mom against you. This is me trusting you. This is your chance to earn points with me. Not a word.” 

At the time, I took what felt like my signature, faltering step backwards. I can now recognize that this was a moment of honoring the responsibility that comes with unconditional love. That night, perched on the kitchen counter, resting my head against the cupboards, I told my mom about the conversation with my dad. She thought it was odd. My dad did not outwardly confess to infidelity. Rather, he just gave me a few pieces to a larger puzzle. At the time, nothing came of it, and we did not discuss it any further.  

The cupboards of my childhood home possess the most intimate secrets. Chatter about meetings, upcoming business deals, school crushes, and whose turn it was to do the dishes echoed across the small space. It was here, long before I drove my dad to the airport, that we anxiously anticipated my mom’s homemade lasagna at five o’clock each Wednesday. However, my dad has never been the type to stand still. So, to pass the time, he would do trust falls with us. This was no ordinary trust fall. No, my father would take a gigantic step backwards, several feet away from me, when I was not looking. He would expect me to close my eyes, blindly falling backwards, labeling my brother and I as failures if we succumbed to the safety of a faltering step, catching ourselves. It was a judgment day of sorts.  

Every time I did a trust fall with my dad, I faltered, taking a step back of my own. Afraid to fall. In my youth, he would tease me, gently tugging on my left pigtail, a wide smile dancing across his face, jokingly accusing me of not trusting him. I would plead and beg for him to just give me one more chance, promising that I would do it this time. I never did. I would watch my older brother perform the act with seamless ease, unwavering trust and a deep fortification of control. I was jealous. 

I once chalked up this inability to failure. Now, I understand my limits. I did not know, without a shadow of a doubt, someone would be there to catch me. So, I caught myself.  

Our family dynamic changed when my brother and I left college. We don’t do trust falls with our father anymore. Our kitchen has changed, too. There’s now a wooden sign over the arch of the door that reads “home” in big, bold letters. Underneath this signature sign of suburban status is a big bouquet of flowers carefully placed in the center of the kitchen table. The expensive kind from King Soopers; the kind I dreamed of receiving when I was a little girl, going to the grocery store on Friday mornings with my mom. Staring at the kitchen table, as a young woman, free from braces and pigtails, sobered by reality rather than fantasies of princesses and love, I try to imagine how these beautiful flowers were received. I wonder if there was a smile on my mother’s face when my dad handed them to her. If they shared a quick kiss, natural and fleeting. Shaking my head, I cannot imagine it. I refuse to imagine it.  

Rather, I imagine shattering the vase holding the unnecessary bouquet of flowers, the shards of glass screaming words I never could, exposing the contradictions of our home. Ripping the red petals off the red roses until it becomes blatantly obvious to everyone in the room that he loves her not. Sunflowers, roses, hydrangeas, daffodils, tulips: all different ways to say I’m sorry for nine months straight without ever meaning those two, simple words.  

It was last January in Colorado as I stood in front of the law school, feeling the cold flush against my cheeks, my fingertips gripping my phone as chills raced throughout my body. My mother was sobbing on the other end of the line. I was miles away, and she was sobbing. I had no idea what to say, what to do, immediately paralyzed by the parental status I had been subconsciously assuming for years now coming to fruition.  

My dad had been cheating on my mom for the past two years.  

“Will you judge me if I stay with him?” 

The words slapped me.  

Yes. 

“No.” 

I wiped her tears with the cusp of my sleeve the next time I saw her. I stroked her hair, held her hand, and, looking her in the eye, told her that she was beautiful. We discussed the details at length because it helped her grieve and she was a middle-aged woman who became isolated from other female friendships. Is that a natural consequence of age? Responsibility was my nature. I had worked two jobs while in school, acted in leadership capacities, took diligent notes in the classroom, and earned every A. Not one area of my life ever slipped. But nothing prepared me for holding my mother’s heart in the palm of my hand. I was constantly scared I was going to drop it, doing or saying the wrong thing only to make her pain worse. I remember not being able to cry in front of anyone. Only when I was by myself. I remember screaming. No one heard me. 

The only reason my mother told me about the affair was because my ex-boyfriend cheated on me during the entirety of our relationship. We found out about our respective partners’ infidelity around the same time. She thought it bonded us. We were the twisted sisters who failed to be loved by the people we chose to trust. During this time, I thought a lot about my ex-boyfriend, especially as he started showing up in my favorite library study spots, outside of my dorm, leaving flowers on top of my car, approaching me in public only when I was by myself.  

He had always been just crazy enough to make my pulse slightly increase, launching my senses into a momentary panic. We would drive into the pitch-black night, with the headlights on his beat up Honda Pilot as our only guide. I remember not being able to listen to the songs coming from the radio. Another thing I tuned out alongside his meaningless promises of forever. 

On one of our annual drives around the suburbs of Denver, my hands were carefully cupped in my lap, body angled towards the window. We were fighting about my lack of emotional expression. Well, he was fighting. I was mute. There was a pit in my stomach and the little girl inside gave me strict instructions to be quiet. Stay silent. No sudden movements. Looking at my cupped hands, I was mentally praying to myself as if I was my own God, faking an agency I had forfeited by accepting his twisted version of love. He had slammed his head against the headrest, closing his eyes, exacerbated. I forgot how to flinch at his emotional outbursts. The light was red when he awoke from his trance, racing through the intersection within seconds, yelling at me for my silence. Yelling at me for putting our lives in danger, believing I made him drive recklessly with my nonresponse. Yelling like I took something away from him. I guess I did. His dignity. He made it available for taking. I guess I will add that to my resume of accomplishments, right next to asserting words of affirmation against the wrenched vocal cords of insecurity.  

Sometimes we held hands. His hands felt clammy and large. It is funny how your body always knows something is not right before your brain, granting no mercy, no time to articulate the sensation. Holding his hand, I knew I could no longer be fooled by our act of love. As I felt the sweat drip from our forced grip, I wanted to go home. The desire shouting from every fiber of my being.   

Where is home? The table and cupboards of my family kitchen were no longer home. So, what was? 

I realized I did not have one, no place where I felt safe, and there is nothing this beautiful fool could ever say to comfort me because we were not two people in love but two kids afraid of failure, of finally releasing ourselves from the chains of our cowardice. 

That too feels like a distant memory, yet another instance of failing the ultimate test of a trust fall. In many ways, I am the wind. I cannot be caught yet I am desperate to be felt, understood. 

Standing in the family kitchen, in this facade of a home, I am in a face-off against the flowers on the kitchen table. I am losing. I keep losing to the elephant in the room, demanding attention at the center of the kitchen table. I watch the rest of my family pretend, ignore, and embrace the silence that protects their pride. I take a deep breath, admitting defeat. I consider the possibility that I may be mad that the expensive bouquet is broadcasted on the kitchen table instead of being neatly placed in the corner of my white desk, in the sanctuary of my room. 

Sobered by reality, I think about the trust falls in the kitchen, before there were expensive bouquets of flowers or apologies to be uttered. My faltering step back and refusal to let my dad catch me is a rerunning episode in my mind. Little did he know that I gave him the opportunity to catch me, so many ways, so many times. I called him before regional competitions, desperate to hear his words of encouragement, invited him to local coffee shops to discuss the latest books we were reading, and confided my deepest insecurities.  

My daddy dropped me. He dropped me. As a single tear streams down my left eye, I lower my gaze, hearing my footsteps creak against the wooden floorboards, as I walk towards my room, tired of hating the flowers on the kitchen table. 

Nothing is as sobering and demanding as when our core beliefs are tested. To what extent do we value forgiveness after witnessing another’s infidelity? How committed are we to seeing the best in people after they erode our perception of health and security? At what point is the step backwards too far, forcing us to catch ourselves instead. 

I believed it must be my fault that I could not trust my father. One of my many imperfections. An imperfection I pushed, punched, and punished myself for in the frustration and brutality of my own self-destruction. I did not realize that I had a reason to believe he would not catch me. Sometimes, we rely too much on others to be our lighthouse in a storm, forgetting they are fighting a storm of their own.

Maybe it is time to start putting the stake and trust we put in others into ourselves. There is strength, not shame, in that. I hope to learn the line between letting go and clinging tight. To thoughts. To ideas. To people.

Staring at the ceiling fan as I struggle to fall asleep, I whisper to myself,  

“Will you teach me?” 

I promise to catch you.

Click here to check out last month’s story on Storyboard