“Are you still wasting your time with that nonsense?” my father asks in irritation as he walks into the living room and sits down on the couch, staring at the bench like it’s a dead carcass that I dragged into the house and left rotting on his carpet. My mother pulls away from me and shoots an irritated look at my father.
“It’s not nonsense, Jefferson, and it’s not a waste of time, it’s art. Fisher is incredibly talented. Just look at the detail he put into this bench!” my mother defends, running her hands over the bench lovingly.
“It’s a hobby and it most certainly is a waste of time. He should be going to college and preparing himself for a real career, not some frivolous pastime that isn’t going to make him any money, or going off to fight some stupid war that has nothing to do with us,” my father says in annoyance.
I don’t bother telling him that my “pastime” is making me more money than he could possibly imagine. After I dropped off a rocking chair as a birthday gift to Sal to put out front of his diner, I started getting phone calls left and right from people who saw it and wanted one just like it. After a while, people started asking me for other things, different designs, new pieces of furniture. It was exciting and amazing and I loved every minute of it. I’d been worried for a while now about how I was going to be able to support Lucy once we were married. I would never be ok with allowing my wife to shoulder the financial burden in our marriage, and I knew we couldn’t live well off of my meager lance corporal salary, especially on the island, where everything is more expensive. This “hobby” made it possible for me to put a deposit down on a house for the two of us. It wasn’t anything big or elaborate like my parent’s home, but it was clean and right on the water and I knew Lucy would love it.
I also don’t bother engaging my father in an argument over his criticism of the war. He’s been pissed at me since he found out I joined the Marines, and was even more livid when I was called to active duty. He’s never been a patriotic person; the only thing he cares about is making money and there’s no point trying to make him see that the only reason he’s free to make the money he loves so much is because of the men and women fighting halfway across the world.
“Fisher, we need to go over the menu for the rehearsal dinner one last time. Can you and Lucy stop by for dinner one night this week?” my mother asks, trying to defuse the situation.
She probably should have known that, aside from talk of my unacceptable career choices, the only other thing that would set my father off was talk of Lucy and our upcoming wedding.
My father sighs from the couch. “I don’t understand why you feel the need to get married so young. You’re twenty-two and she’s only twenty. What in God’s name is the rush?”
I clench my hands into fists at my sides and take a few deep, calming breaths. I don’t know why I even let him get to me at this point. He’s been like this for as long as I can remember, never happy with my decisions and always thinking he knows what’s best for me. The truth is, even though we shared a home for nearly eighteen years, my father knows shit-all about me.
“We’re not rushing anything. We’ve been together for almost four years and we love each other. I have a dangerous job and we know better than to take a second for granted. What does it matter if we get married two weeks from now or two years from now?” I ask.
“What matters is that there are much better choices out there for you, son. Women with money and a social status befitting someone of the Fisher name. She and her parents are middle class, at best, as were her grandparents before them that opened that Godforsaken eyesore on the edge of the island. Why you would want to lower yourself to that level when you have so much more potential is beyond me,” he complains.
“You don’t know the first thing about Lucy or her family. She is an amazing, intelligent, wonderful woman who loves me. Her parents are caring and supportive and they accept me for who I am, not for what’s in my bank account. You would know that if you took one second to get to know them instead of judging them from afar,” I argue.
My father just shakes his head in annoyance and I turn my back on him, kissing my mother on the cheek and telling her I’ll get back to her about a night that Lucy and I will be free for dinner so we can finalize the wedding plans before the big day in a couple weeks.
As I head out the front door of the giant home by the sea that I grew up in, I wonder why I continue to come back here and torture myself with my father’s disapproval. I do it to see my mother, but even that isn’t worth the arguments most of the time because she never defends me. She never sticks up for me in front of my father, even though in private she always tells me how proud she is of me.
Standing on the front walkway, I stare up at the huge, three story European-style mansion that my father likes to call “The Estate.” It’s a monstrosity a few miles outside of town that sits up on a cliff with a few acres of manicured gardens on one side and nothing but the ocean on the other. It looks down on the town so my father can feel like the king he believes himself to be. I never felt comfortable living in this house and the best decision I ever made was going to live with my grandfather the day I told my parents I’d signed up for the Marines instead of applying for college.
I will never be like that man. I will never value money over my own family and their happiness. My father makes Lucy feel like she’s not worthy to walk in the door of their home and it fills me with so much rage. I hate that he makes her feel insecure about herself and her family. I hate that he refuses to see how happy she makes me and how good my life is with her in it. No matter what, I will never make Lucy feel like she is anything but perfect and worth the bullshit I have to deal with from my father. I don’t care that he could buy and sell her family ten times over. The only thing I care about is that they are decent, caring people. There aren’t enough people like that left in this world and I am lucky that I will get to call them my family in just two short weeks.