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The Story:
My telescope was a hassle to setup, but he loved it when I could tell him that I was looking at him. The smaller scope on the bottom was for aligning the base to the North Star so that the motor could rotate the main telescope with the Earth, keeping moving objects in view. Once I had it set, I sat back and waited for the call.
My communications device started pulsing. I answered, and there on the other end of the device was my dad’s voice.
“Son!”
“Hey, Dad.”
“It’s good to hear your voice.”
My father undoubtedly expected me to reciprocate, but that wasn’t how I felt. The shipping route to Jupiter’s moons was long and dangerous, and I had asked him not to go. What happened in his absence wasn’t his fault, but I was angry with him, regardless.
Using the coordinates displayed on the comm, I twisted knobs and pointed the telescope until I found his ship. I sighed and tugged the conversation along.
“I see you, Dad.”
“Ha! You, uh… You broke out the telescope for me, huh?”
“Well… I know you like it.”
Another uncomfortable moment of silence passed between us. We had plenty to talk about from two years apart, but the one thing neither of us wanted to discuss stood as a thick wall blocking any happier conversations.
“Son… I wanted to be there.”
“Don’t, Dad.”
“No, I have to say this. I feel…”
“You weren’t! You left. She died. I took care of everything for you, okay?”
The fury had me shaking from head to toe, pacing off the energy that had nowhere to explode. I heard what sounded like a quiet sniffle from my dad, and I stopped pacing to listen. He was crying.
Maybe I had been too harsh, or maybe I just had a soft spot for people when they cry. But she wasn’t just my mother—she was his wife. I never stopped to imagine what it must have been like for him to be unable to see her one last time, to honor her in burial and say goodbye to the form of her that was his.
I had never seen my dad cry, but maybe that was necessary so that I would grasp a pain outside of my own in that moment. I stepped back up to the telescope.
“I can still see you, Dad.”
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