Between the distance

re-run

Between the Distance: Growing Up in the Silence of My Father’s Shadow

By Tamara

I remember the night I heard her cry.

It wasn’t the kind of cry that begged for attention — no. It was the sound of someone trying not to make a sound. Muffled. Strangled. Hidden behind a thin wall, but it pierced through like thunder. My mother. My anchor. The one who never left. I lay in the dark, eyes wide open, frozen with guilt. She had seen me cry about you. And then I heard her crying about you too.

I hated that night. I hated that sound.

I was only a child, but I made a decision:

I had to be strong. For her. Because she stayed.

That’s how the distance began.

Chapter 1: Inheritance

People talk about what we inherit — cheekbones, tempers, laughter.

From my mother, I inherited distance. Not the cold kind, but the protective kind — the kind you use to survive. She built a fortress out of silence and handed me the blueprints.

I followed them precisely.

She made sure I never had to borrow fries again. That sounds small, but it wasn’t. It meant we weren’t lacking anymore. We didn’t have to need anyone — especially not you. She tried to save me from the hunger of waiting.

But it was already too late. The hunger had settled in.

And it would stay for years.

Chapter 2: A Language for You

I fell in love with English. It started with small things — cartoons, storybooks, scribbled notes in class. But somewhere in the blur of childhood, it became a mission.

I thought that if I spoke it well enough, you would understand me better.

I imagined you living far away in an English-speaking world, where fathers made plans and stuck to them.

I read everything I could. Wrote essays like they were letters addressed to your absence. I became fluent in the language of longing. I thought if I could say things better, more beautifully, maybe I could fill the space you left behind.

You never asked me about school. But I wanted to tell you.

About how I placed first in writing competitions.

About how my teachers said I had a gift.

My gift was grief in disguise.

The words were just a bridge to you that I crossed alone.

Chapter 3: Hope and Its Devourings

Every year, you came back. Not always. Not predictably. But enough.

Enough to make me hope.

You planted tiny seeds — promises that you’d come for us. That we would finally live together. That I wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. That you’d show up for the big things: birthdays, exams, victories, heartbreaks.

But those seeds never sprouted. They rotted quietly in the soil of my heart.

Hope is supposed to be a good thing, isn’t it?

For me, it was a hungry dog. It followed me everywhere, then bit when I least expected it. I started to hate hope. I learned that without it, you can’t be disappointed. Without presence, no absence. Without dreams, no heartbreak.

But I dreamed of you anyway.

Chapter 4: The Things You Said

One year, you told me:

"I drink because my reality is shit."

It hit like a punch to the chest.

Because I was your reality.

Was I the part you couldn’t bear?

That sentence etched itself into me.

Like a secret tattoo. Like a curse.

Every year after that, I carried it.

I didn’t know how to not believe it.

You didn’t need to say you didn’t love me.

That line said enough.

Chapter 5: Love and Intrusion

You always said, “You think of me like I’m a stranger.”

But I didn’t. That would’ve been easier.

You weren’t a stranger. You were an intruder.

Strangers don’t know where the wounds are.

Intruders do.

You showed up, gave us flashes of light — warm, loud, messy — and then vanished, leaving only silence. Like lightning. Just long enough for me to see what could be, then nothing.

I couldn’t adjust to the flashes.

They gave me seizures.

I cried in my room and sang “I’ve learned to love goodbyes” like it was a spell.

But I hadn’t learned anything.

I still hated them.

I still hated you for making me need you.

Chapter 6: My Mother, My Mirror

She never said bad things about you. Not once.

That was her way of protecting me.

But her silence was sharp. Her quiet was loaded.

And I learned from her — not how to speak, but how not to.

She didn’t cry often. That’s why I remember the night she did.

I wonder if she still cries, quietly, when I’m not looking.

Maybe her silence was her own love letter to pain.

I wish I could thank her better.

I wish I didn’t mirror her so much.

Chapter 7: What I Didn’t Ask

I didn’t ask why you left.

I didn’t ask why you didn’t want us.

I didn’t ask what we could’ve done differently.

I was afraid.

I was afraid you’d lie.

Afraid you’d tell the truth.

Afraid you’d give me hope again.

Hope is the most dangerous thing a child can hold.

It grows teeth.

Chapter 8: Absence and Its Shape

Your absence had a texture.

It was grainy, like sand in the mouth.

It got everywhere — in my friendships, my confidence, my reflection.

When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t know what part of me belonged to you.

The nose? The laugh? The stubbornness?

I resented every resemblance.

But still, I waited. Like a fool. Like a daughter.

Chapter 9: Becoming My Own Name

At some point, I stopped talking about you.

People stopped asking.

I started answering the silence with poetry, with essays, with fiction.

I stopped hoping you'd come back.

Started hoping I’d move on.

Then I realized something:

I wasn’t writing for you anymore.

I was writing for the girl who waited.

The girl who borrowed fries and hid her poems.

The girl who cried quietly so her mother wouldn’t hear.

I was writing for her.

Chapter 10: The Letter I Never Sent

Dear Dad,

I don’t know if this will reach you.

Not literally. I don’t even know your address.

But I hope it finds you where it hurts.

Not to punish you — I’ve outgrown that.

But so you’ll know.

I loved you.

I still do.

But I can’t carry you like this anymore.

I’ve spent too long being angry.

Too long holding on to the hope you dropped like litter.

Too long making homes out of temporary visits.

I need to clean my heart.

So I’m letting you go.

You’ll always be a part of me.

But I’ll no longer be a child waiting by the door.

Love,

Tamara

Chapter 11: Distance Upon Distance

I built distance between us.

Then distance between the distance.

Until I didn’t know where I ended and you began.

Sometimes I wonder if you tried, just in your own broken way.

But trying and doing aren’t the same.

A book once said: “Better to have had something and lost it than to never have had it at all.”

I’m not sure that’s true.

Losing what you never really had is its own kind of pain.

It’s the ache of empty arms that never held anything.

Chapter 12: Peace Between the Pages

I’m older now. I don’t cry about you as much.

I still write.

But I no longer write for your attention.

I write because words are how I breathe.

This story — this memoir — is mine.

Not for sympathy. Not for pity. Not even for answers.

But because the silence had too much weight.

And I wanted to lay it down.

Some people get fathers who hold their hands.

I got a pen.

And maybe that’s enough.

Author’s Note

This is not a story of blame. It’s a story of survival.

Of growing up in the echo of someone who couldn’t stay.

It’s a story of turning absence into art.

And it’s mine.