In a corner booth of a restaurant that’s teeming with people comes bouts of high pitched laughter. A man tickles his five year old daughter into oblivion while crooning the opening lines of an old song. Love me tender, love me sweet.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” She laughs, throwing little punches at him as she tries to fight him off.

He gazes lovingly into her eyes. Never let me go.

“Aha!” She exclaims as she succeeds on grabbing one of his hands and then holds it against her chest. “I love you, daddy.”

He smiles at her, and continues to sing. You have made my life complete, and I love you so.

-

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Mom asks, searching my eyes and placing her hand on my shoulder, reassuringly. “You don’t have to.”

I look up at the sign above the door with letters painted in blue that says “REHABILITATION CENTER: VISITATION ROOM” and inhale sharply. I force a smile. “I do. Better to get it over with.”

“Okay,” she swings her bag over her shoulder and gives me one last glance. “I’ll meet you in the car in five minutes.” Her high-heeled steps echo behind me as she walks away.

I push the door open, and instantly, my pulse starts to race. The place is full of shaved men decked out in white with numbers printed across their shirts, and people, mostly women and children, huddled in benches around the room.

Still rooted on the spot, I sweep my eyes over the crowd, searching but desperately not wanting to find, until I hear a familiar voice calling. “Sweetheart, over here, sweetheart!” I feel a heavy weight fall at the pit of my stomach. My father sits alone on an empty bench with two policemen standing on guard behind him. Our eyes lock and he smiles widely, nodding his head as he motions for me to come. My entire body is overcome with dread, and for the hundredth time I wonder why I even agreed to come in the first place.

I avert my gaze to the floor and watch my feet as they start moving across the room towards him, seemingly at their own accord, and I find that so does the rest of my body because the next thing I know is I’m sliding into the bench, taking a seat across from him. I catch a glimpse of his handcuffed hands beneath the table.

My eyes move upward to study him. In desperate need of a shave, he also had cuts and gashes all over his face. It was three years since I’d last seen him and he looked like every bit of hell.

“You’ve grown,” he gushes. “I missed you so much, sweetheart. How’ve you been?” When I don’t answer he looks down and says, “I talked to your mom on the phone… she said your flight is scheduled today.”

Resisting the urge to stand up, I manage to spit out the word settling at the tip of my tongue.

“Dad… ” My voice barely rose above the sound of a whisper. “I just came to say good-bye. I-I-“

Right then, there were a thousand things in my mind, things I wanted to tell him after all the years that had been lost now that I was given the chance to, but I’m not brave enough, and none of them came out. Instead, I clear my throat and wear the blank expression I’ve learned to wear so well.

I wore it on funerals, during the separation, when people ask me about him, and for every time I’ve had to say goodbye.

I smile weakly. “I wish you the best.”

-

I dab my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt before I walk to the car, and the first thing that greets me when I enter it is the smell of cigarette smoke together with my mother’s worried expression. “What did he say? H-how did he look? How is he?” Her hand shakes as she holds the cigarette in the air.

I purse my lips. “Fine. Let’s just go, please.”

She stares at me for a moment and says nothing, before she throws the cigarette out and starts the engine.

I fix my eyes out the window and cast one last glance at the towering, white building where I left my dad before it slowly diminishes as we drive away.

Then I open my mouth to sing.

Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfill. A memory resurfaces in my mind, of my dad and I in a restaurant somewhere when I was five. For my darling I love you, I smile.

. ..And I always will.