The Distance Between Us Was Closer Than I Ever Realized

 

The Distance Between Us Was Closer Than I Ever Realized

There are distances that can be measured in miles, in minutes on a map app, in the number of exits between one town and the next. And then there are the other distances—the ones that stretch across kitchen tables, hover in doorways, and settle into the silence between two people who once knew how to talk about everything.

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For years, I thought the distance between my father and me was the second kind.

We lived in the same house in a quiet neighborhood on the edge of town, the kind where every lawn was trimmed on Saturdays and porch lights blinked on at the same time every evening. From my bedroom window, I could see the old maple tree he had planted the year I was born. He used to tell me that we were growing together, that every ring in its trunk marked a year of our shared history.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped counting rings.

1. The Space at the Dinner Table

When I was little, my father used to come home from work smelling of sawdust and motor oil. He worked long hours at a small auto repair shop, and his hands were always rough, cracked at the knuckles, stained with grease that never quite washed out. But when he lifted me into the air, those hands were steady and strong, and I never felt safer.

We would sit at the dinner table, and he’d ask about my day with a seriousness that made my small stories feel monumental.

“What did you learn today?” he’d say, leaning forward as if the answer might change the course of the world.

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I’d tell him about spelling tests and playground politics, about who had traded snacks with whom. He listened like it mattered.

But as I grew older, the questions changed—or maybe I did.

“What are you planning to do after high school?” he asked when I was fourteen, his tone casual but edged with something sharper.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, pushing peas around my plate.

“You should know,” he replied. “You can’t just drift.”

The word drift lodged in my chest. I didn’t want to drift. I just didn’t know how to steer.

That was the first time I noticed the space at the dinner table. It was only a few inches of wood between us, but it felt like an ocean.

2. The Language We Didn’t Share

My father spoke in practicalities. Fix the leak. Tighten the bolt. Save your money. Don’t waste time.

I spoke in possibilities. Maybe I’d study literature. Maybe I’d travel. Maybe I’d write.

“Write?” he repeated one evening when I finally said it out loud. “And do what with that?”

“Tell stories,” I said, as if it were obvious.

He nodded slowly, the way someone nods when they don’t understand but don’t want to argue. “Stories don’t pay the bills,” he said.

I took it as a dismissal.

After that, I stopped telling him about the stories I wrote late at night, about the characters who felt more real than the classmates who passed me in the hallway. I stopped asking for his opinion. I told myself he wouldn’t get it anyway.

But sometimes, when I thought he was asleep, I’d hear his footsteps pause outside my door. I’d see his shadow under the crack, lingering for a moment before moving on.

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At the time, I interpreted it as surveillance, as a lack of trust. Now, I wonder if it was something else.

3. Leaving

The day I left for college, the air was thick with August heat. My mother cried openly, pressing tissues into her eyes and hugging me every few minutes as if I might evaporate.

My father carried my suitcase to the car.

“Got everything?” he asked.

“I think so.”

He nodded and closed the trunk with a firm thud. We stood there for a moment, neither of us quite sure what to do with our hands.

“Call if you need anything,” he said finally.

“I won’t,” I replied, attempting a joke.

He didn’t laugh.

The drive to campus was three hours. He insisted on taking me himself. The radio played softly in the background, classic rock songs he’d been listening to since before I was born. We didn’t talk much.

When we arrived, he helped me carry boxes up three flights of stairs. He assembled my desk with the same focused precision he used in his workshop at home. When he finished, he ran a hand along the edge, testing its stability.

“There,” he said. “It’ll hold.”

I thought he meant the desk.

When he left, he shook my hand instead of hugging me. I watched his truck disappear down the road and felt a strange mix of relief and loss. I told myself that the distance between us had finally become measurable—one hundred and eighty miles, give or take.

It felt easier that way.

4. The Phone Calls

At first, we spoke once a week. Sundays, usually.

“How are classes?” he’d ask.

“Good.”

“Staying on top of things?”

“Yeah.”

There were long pauses where words should have been.

One evening, after I’d published a short story in the campus literary magazine, I almost told him. I almost said, “Dad, they printed my work. People read it. They liked it.”

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Instead, I said, “I have a lot of studying to do. I should go.”

“Okay,” he replied. “Don’t work too hard.”

The line clicked dead.

I told myself he wouldn’t care. That it didn’t matter. That I didn’t need his approval.

But the truth was, I wanted it more than I realized.

5. The Call I Didn’t Expect

It was during my second year that my mother called at an odd hour.

“Your father’s in the hospital,” she said, her voice trembling.

The word hospital snapped something inside me. “What happened?”

“Minor heart attack,” she said quickly. “The doctors say he’s stable. They caught it early.”

I booked the first bus home.

The ride felt endless. Every mile that separated us suddenly seemed cruel, unnecessary. I replayed our last conversation in my head, trying to remember if he’d sounded tired, if there had been a clue I’d missed.

When I walked into his hospital room, he looked smaller somehow. The man who had once lifted me effortlessly now lay propped against white pillows, wires trailing from his chest.

“Hey,” he said when he saw me, attempting a smile. “You didn’t have to come.”

“Of course I did,” I replied, the words sharper than I intended.

He shrugged slightly. “It’s nothing. Just a tune-up.”

I almost laughed. Trust him to compare his own heart to an engine.

We sat there in silence for a while. The machines beeped rhythmically, a mechanical heartbeat.

“I read something you wrote,” he said suddenly.

I blinked. “What?”

“Your mother showed me. That story in the magazine.”

Heat rushed to my face. “Oh.”

“It was good,” he continued, staring at the blanket instead of at me. “Real good. I didn’t understand all of it. But I could tell it mattered.”

I swallowed. “You… you read it?”

“Twice.”

Something shifted in the room. The distance I’d been carrying for years seemed to fold in on itself.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

He looked at me then, his eyes tired but steady. “I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me about it.”

The irony was almost unbearable.

6. The Rings in the Tree

After he was discharged, I stayed home for a week to help out. He moved more slowly than before, though he insisted he felt fine.

One afternoon, I found him in the backyard, standing in front of the maple tree.

“Remember when we planted this?” he asked without turning around.

“Kind of.”

He nodded. “You were so small you kept trying to eat the dirt.”

I laughed despite myself.

He placed his palm against the trunk. “Every year, it adds another ring. You can’t see them from the outside. But they’re there.”

I knew he wasn’t just talking about the tree.

“I thought you were disappointed in me,” I said quietly.

He frowned. “Why would you think that?”

“Because I’m not… practical. I’m not you.”

He sighed, long and heavy. “I never wanted you to be me. I wanted you to have options I didn’t.”

The confession hung in the air.

“When I said stories don’t pay the bills,” he continued, “I wasn’t saying don’t write. I was saying make sure you can take care of yourself. I don’t know that world. I can’t guide you through it. That scared me.”

It had never occurred to me that his caution might be fear.

“I thought you didn’t believe in me,” I admitted.

He gave a small, almost amused shake of his head. “I’ve believed in you since before you could walk.”

The wind rustled through the leaves above us, a soft applause.

7. The Closer Distance

When I returned to campus, the miles felt different. We still lived in separate worlds—his of engines and invoices, mine of essays and deadlines—but the gap between them no longer seemed insurmountable.

Our phone calls changed.

“What are you writing now?” he asked one Sunday.

“A story about a mechanic, actually,” I said.

He chuckled. “Make him handsome.”

“No promises.”

He began telling me more about his day, about the customers who came in with impossible expectations, about the satisfaction of fixing something others had given up on. I started to see the poetry in his work—the rhythm of tools against metal, the narrative arc of a broken machine restored.

I visited more often. Sometimes we’d sit in the garage together, not talking much, just sharing space. I’d type on my laptop while he worked. The sound of his wrench turning became a kind of punctuation.

One evening, he handed me a small wooden box he’d made.

“For your drafts,” he said. “So you don’t lose them.”

I ran my fingers along the smooth edges. “Thank you.”

He shrugged, but his eyes were bright. “Figured stories deserve a good place to rest.”

8. What I Didn’t See

Looking back, I realize the distance between us had never been as vast as I imagined. It was made of misunderstandings, of assumptions left unchallenged.

I had mistaken his silence for disapproval, his caution for doubt. He had mistaken my independence for indifference, my quiet for rejection.

We were two people standing on opposite sides of the same bridge, each waiting for the other to cross first.

The heart attack had been a warning, a reminder that time is less generous than we assume. It forced us to speak the words we had both been hoarding.

I used to think closeness required constant conversation, shared interests, effortless understanding. Now I know it can also exist in the steady presence of someone who shows up—at dinner tables, at dorm rooms, at hospital beds.

9. The Real Measure

Years later, when my first book was published, I sent my father the earliest copy.

He called me the day it arrived.

“It’s heavy,” he said.

“It’s a book,” I replied, laughing.

“No, I mean… it’s heavy,” he repeated. “Feels important.”

He cleared his throat. “I’m proud of you.”

The words were simple, but they carried the weight of every unspoken thing between us.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, and meant more than just thank you for the compliment.

That weekend, I drove home. The maple tree in the backyard towered above the house now, its branches stretching wide. We stood beneath it, side by side.

“You know,” he said, looking up, “for a while I thought we were growing apart.”

“Me too,” I admitted.