What if, Antanina LAZAR [distant reading TXT] 📗

you?”
Shorty – thus boys from the neighborhood called me. And now it was obvious that their parents also called me in such a way.
“Hi! Good to see you, Stepan Alexandrovich. How are you? What are you doing in Minsk?” I came closer to him. My friend stayed aside waiting for me.
“I work here. It will be 3 years in a month. I’ve moved closer to children, you know. And you! You’ve grown up! I’ve hardly recognized you! You were looking at me so… intently, that I’ve concluded that we know each other”. He laughed out load.
I felt awkward. “Yeah… sorry. Indeed, I was staring at you as if you’re a ghost”.
A car parked on the curve near Stepan Alexandrovich. He nodded to a driver asking to wait for him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I.. Amm...” Then it dawned upon me. “I’m looking for a man. I’m quite sure you’ve heard about him”. I told him the name.
He screwed up his eyes for a second, bowed his head and smiled. I had a thought that Stepan Alexandrovich could easily know that that was a name of my father – for all that neighbors always know everything about each other.
“Yes. I remember this man. What? Do you need his contacts?”
“Yes! Yes! That would be great!” I could hardly believe my fortune.
Stepan Alexandrovich hesitated for a moment, threw away his cigarette and said “Okay. Wait for me here. I’ll be right back”. He ran back to the office. My friend came to me. He didn’t really capture all the conversation but he did understand the main thing – we’ve found my father. Yes! We did it! I could merely keep myself from hugging him to death. I was afraid even to smile not to frighten away the luck.
Stepan Alexandrovich ran outside the building, gave me a white business card with rumpled edges. “Here you go. Say Hi to you mother”. He set in a car and left.
I was shocked how strangely smooth all my problems had been solved. After such stories how not to believe in God and foresight?!
“Hey! What are you – pole? Why’ve you stopped dead? Come on! Call him!” My friend was trying to take a card from me. I was staring at seven numbers printed under the name of my father (By the way I keep this card in my wallet till this days).
“I… I can’t”
“What? Call him! Are you crazy? You got six hours left till your train back to studies. Do you want to see him?!”
“Yes. I do! I do… I’m just scared…”
My friend gazed at me with one of his long look when he already understands what is going on, but hasn’t yet come up with a solution of a problem. Finally we decided to go to the creamery first.
We were seating on the bench near the supermarket. I was slowly eating my Eskimo and my friend was looking at me with impatience. When at long last I finished the last piece and threw away the wrapper he jumped up. “Well? Will you call?”.
“Don’t push me”. Even an increased level of sugar in my blood didn’t add me guts to dial that damned numbers. All the “What if”s at the same time tore my head to pieces.
While I was thinking my friend carefully pulled out the card from under my palm and called the number. And now he was prodding me in the face with the cell phone which was beeping with long even tones.
I shrank back from him and shushed “What are you!”
“Hello”. I heard a man’s voice from the receiver. My friend made crazy eyes and poked my nose with a cell phone. I grabbed it “Ahmm… Can I talk with Yuri Chetov?”
“Yes. How can I help you?” My father answered… first time in 17 years. At that moment it seemed to me that I knew this voice for my whole life, that I would recognize that voice among thousands of voices rushing along the telephone wires.
As you remember, I didn’t come up with the words that I should say when I found him. Somehow at that moment the words just occurred.
“And this is your daughter”.
Several seconds there was no a single sigh from the receiver. And then…
“Tosia?”
He remembered me! He recalled me! At once my day blossomed with all the colors of the nature…

…
We met in 37 minutes and 46 seconds: I was counting while riding in the bus to his work place.
I stopped near the traffic lights. The red was on. My father was waiting for me right on the opposite side. There was just a traffic way between us. My sight was obscured with tears, but I could see the father’s figure a bit clumsy and bearded as in my childhood dreams.
Father embraced me. There was no awkwardness. All my anger and offence vanished into thin air.
He was crying and thanking me for finding him. As it appeared later he had been scared that neither Mom nor I would want to see him.
I wanted to tell him everything without concealing anything: about myself and my studies, about the dreams I had, about Mom and our cat, about my childhood and all the pranks I was punished for, about school and my first love – how many parts of my life he had missed! But it didn’t matter for me: I was ready to help him to catch up everything. I finally had Dad…
Dad.
Dad!
Such a new and unused word for me, and yet so cosy and warm…

….
We keep in touch with Dad till now. It turned out that I have a grandmother, an uncle and elder stepbrother and stepsister.
I have begun to treat my Mom with more tenderness and concern. I have realized how much she has sacrificed for me, how much she has done: she brought me up alone, she always was there for me, she dressed and fed me, she cried for us and laughed for us…
Today I can admit that my relationships with Dad are not as perfect as I have wished them to be. He is a workaholic and just once we met not on his working time. They do not keep in touch with Mom. Dad lives with other woman. Nevertheless I am happy to find him. Though he can not give me that feeling of warmth and man’s love which I was lacking in childhood a lot, I just know that now there is a man in this world that will always ready to look after me.
Thank you, Dad.


Imprint

Publication Date: 11-22-2009

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
To my parents and all the people who are, have ever been or are going to be parents.