Turn Us Again Read Online Free PDF Page A

nature when it’s obvious my father wants to avoid the subject. At least it’s not face cancer.
    My father places a cup of tea and a plate of bacon and eggs before me. Everything is how I like it. There are two pieces of toast, dripping with butter. One bears two pieces of crispy bacon and an egg with the yolk just a bit soft. The second bit of toast is spread liberally with jam. I am suddenly happy. “It’s wonderful to see you! There’s so much between us…” I’m thinking about the perfection of my tea and my bacon and eggs. Jenny never gets it right. There’s never quite enough sugar in my tea or butter on my toast. As soon as I say it, I feel that it is inadequate, that my father will think I’m an idiot. I remember living a large part of my childhood worried that he would think this. Instead he says, “We are father and son.”
    And I am consumed with guilt that I abandoned him.
    He asks me about my life, and I tell him about my job and Jenny, careful not to swear. I want him to think my job is interesting, so I make it sound like a big deal.
    â€œI design online courses for the web. I’m called an instructional designer. You can do marvelous things these days — animations, video, photography. I have to find a way to convey the teaching point in the simplest way with text and a visual element.”
    â€œWhat are the subjects of the courses?”
    Yes, well, I kind of hoped he wouldn’t ask that, just assume that I’d followed his footsteps and gone into education. “Technical things, Dad. I work for a telephone company.” I searched my brain for the most impressive course I had done. “It’s varied, anything from ergonomics to broadband, how high speed internet works. I learn a lot of different things.”
    My father, a professor of English literature who taught books that he loved, doesn’t look too impressed.
    â€œI want to write a book,” I say. “I would like to make a living from writing, but it takes some time to get started.”
    â€œYou remember it took me twenty years to write my book?” My father laughs, “Starting is the easy part.”
    â€œLong after you’d published your book, you would say to me, ‘Will I ever publish my booky?’ and I would yell back, ‘You’ve already published it.’”
    â€œHats off gentlemen,” we shout simultaneously, and laugh. We always used to say that when we toasted the publication of my father’s book. I feel full of affection for this man, my father. Of course I need to know about his illness, even if it feels uncomfortable. I take a deep breath.
    â€œDad, your fax said that you were dying.”
    He picks up a sugar cube carefully in the tiny tongs, without answering.
    After an unbearable minute of silence, I try again, speaking very gently. “Dad?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œWhat is the … nature of your sickness?”
    He waves the tongs dismissively. “Apparently there’s an uncouth rabble of cells breeding like rabbits somewhere in my innards. Cancer, you know. I wish my book had done better. It deserved to.”
    â€œBut Dad, how bad it is? Do you feel ill?”
    The tongs fall against the sugar bowl with a little clatter. “The subject of my illness bores me. I didn’t want you here so we could natter on about cancer ad nauseam, and I will certainly regret contacting you if you go on and on and on about it.”
    Tension churns in my stomach again. We’d been getting along so well. How stupid I’d been to annoy him. I wrack my brains for a safe subject.
    â€œYou’re right about your book. It was brilliant.”
    He merely grunts.
    A note of desperation creeps into my voice. “Do you remember that time at the beach for Mum’s birthday? You started to sing ‘Three Little Fishies’ and Mum and I laughed and laughed.”
    That does it. My father throws back