October 8, 2000. I left home today - it was our fall break weekend, and despite being home for only a couple days, I decided to come anyway. There's always something to look forward to coming home, but there's always that one thing that I dread - the endless childish war that rages on between my divorced parents. You see, I've become somewhat of intermediary between the two, since they refuse to talk to each other, even over important issues like attending my brother's graduation. It's fuckin' ridiculous that they both couldn't be there -- the crowd at Yale is huge, what were the chances that they could run into each other? Even with those odds, they stayed out of sight. I can do nothing but sit back and sigh sadly.

As with every trip home, I visited my father at his beautiful home hidden deep within the woods of the DC suburbs. The long narrow unlit road in the middle of nowhere portends that dark and depressing sentiment welled up deep inside me. I often times try to bury it with school and friends, but I know I can't escape it. I even went so far as to use Christianity as a way to explain it, but even thousands of years of religion could not resolve this bitter feeling. So as I drive farther down this road, further into my life, school, friends, and religion abandon me, but I abandon them as well. I've realized this is something I should face on my own - it's my responsibility to come to good terms with my father.

But why am I left with this responsibility? It wasn't my fault that I was born into this unjust world, it wasn't my fault that my parents couldn't get along - that they decided early on that the loved each other so much as to produce three beautiful children, only to turn into the worst of enemies. My second ex used to tell me there is a fine line when walking on the path of love - it's so easy to turn affection into anger, love into hate. I think my parents are far removed from this line by now, and I wonder if any closure can come between them.

He asked me if I wanted tea, so we have tea as we always do. We talk of superficial things - how school is going, if I have a new girlfriend, how my car is doing. This is make-believe time, time to believe that we are a normal family, that we can carry on a normal conversation, hiding our true feelings of discomfort behind these masks. We move from the kitchen table into the large living room, as we always do. My step-mother's maltese follows my father, and rests atop my father's lap, peculiarly obedient. Then silence overwhelms us, as it always does. Why are things so routine between us?

I look around the spacious room, and wonder how things got to be there where they are, and where they are going. I stare at the photographs of my late grandparents, people I've never met. They look sad, separated eternally on different sheets of film. But they loved each other, and stayed together, despite the stern looks on their faces.

I watch my father pet the white maltese - Mickey is his name. I vaguely remember the time when I used to be there, so long ago. No wait - I do remember the last time I sat on his lap - but it wasn't to be petted with affirmation, but to prevent him from beating the shit out of my mother with a freakin' baseball bat. God - I don't think I could ever forget that - I was only four, but I remember it so clearly - seeing my mother cornered against the rotating shelves seated to the right of our kitchen sink, unbloodied, but bruised. She looked so strong - she was strong, those beatings would never take her down. I saw the tears streaming down her eyes, not from the pain, but from looking at me, and thinking no child should witness this. One, two, three, four more thuds of metal hitting flesh. Then yells something in Korean, and goes back down to sit on the couch in our living room as if I he just went into the kitchen to get another drink. How many more rounds of this can my mother take? Why is this happening?! Why do they hate each other so much?!?! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!?

I seem to ask myself that a lot.

Blood boiled through my four year old body, and I charge toward my father with unrestricted anger, yelling and cursing. I jump on top of him but despite wanting to beat the shit out of him, I hug him. I hold him as tight as I can, hoping that somehow the pain running through my body would permeate into his. "No more, " I whisper, "no more."

I love my father, the way that any child should. He's the sweetest, most caring doctor in the world - everyone loves him. But it's this very dark past that he hides from us, something I want to know about, something I have the right to know about. It's something that will remove this unsettled feeling that sits in my gut - so I think.

Tick. tock. tick. tock... I pick up my cup of tea, and slurp away - he always made good tea. I smile shyly at him, and he smiles back with the same deameanor.

"So how's that Indian doctor doing? He had that cool farm in the middle of Vienna, I wonder how--"

"I don't talk to him anymore," my father interrupts.

"Oh. I see," I reply. Geez, what's going on? First he disowns our cousins, then his very own sister, and now his friend.

"Why?"

"He betrayed me." The typical answer.

"You do that a lot these days," my thoughts spew to my mouth.

"Hmm?"

"What happened to our cousins? You guys used to be so close, and now you ignore them."

"It's a long story," he chuckles. He always chuckles when he doesn't want to tell me something, implying I'll tell you when you're older, but I am already twenty.

"I have time - tell me," I command, staring at him with intent an intent gaze, expecting a 'no' but hoping for a 'yes'. He never tells me anything.

"Ok, I'll tell you..." and he does, as if he were going to explain how to fix an ACL tear in the knee, very didactic.

"When I got remarried to Lisa, I didn't want it to be a big wedding. I'm a 50 years old man, what the hell do I have to have a big wedding for?" My dad talks like that - but he doesn't mean to be mean. "So I invited my closest family - you guys (he means me and my brothers) , my sister, my friend who was a priest - you remember, the guy who married us, and Cousins." He always referred to my cousins (who aren't really our cousins), as if they were a collective unit - Cousins. "I bought my sister a plane ticket, but she couldn't make it on time to the wedding. Fine. So I asked Cousins to pick her up and they can bring her back to my house in the morning for celebration... Well, the pastor was supposed to leave early next morning, but he wanted to continue to party - so we stayed up late, and we ended up late arriving to my house - we were very late. Cousins and sister showed up, but didn't find us, so those son of a bitches didn't stay, on my own wedding, and you know where they took her?! To the cav-- the Lurr- god - what's that place called?" my father stutterred, clearly upset.

"Lurray caverns."

"Right - yes. I mean, I don't care for me, but I wanted them to bless Lisa, so I when they came back, I told Cousins 'you are no longer part of my family' and I told sister 'you've made me very sad.'"

"Oh," I said. And that was that.

Silence returned.