The Stranger
By Gene Aronowitz
As we entered the diner to celebrate my daughter’s twelfth birthday, the waitress said, “Sit anywhere – anywhere you’d like.”
My career had made me a stranger in my own home, always in the audience, separated by a seemingly insurmountable silence surrounding me. Family conversations sailed past me like geese in V formation. I wished to be anywhere -anywhere but in the uneasy quiet. On each child’s birthday, that child and I would have an annual-go-out-with-dad-dinner, just father with child, a chance to be together alone, a chance to talk about anything – anything but nothing,
I nodded at the waitress and guided my daughter to a booth with orange seats and a beige tabletop that matched the closed curtains that would protect us from the blazing sunset. A miniature jukebox was attached to the wall at the end of our table. When slid to the side, the little knob at the bottom flipped the panels, like turning the pages of a book, each time revealing new choices. I put a quarter in the slot for three songs and picked “Smile” by Nat King Cole, a sad though optimistic song.
“Oh yuk,” she said, scrunching her face.
“Your turn,” I said, and while she searched, I stared at a married couple sitting across from our booth. When I realized they didn’t speak or even look at each other, I felt myself grin but quickly looked away.
My daughter selected songs by singers whose names were strange to me, Sting and Black Sabbath, and as they sang, she smiled and lipped the words. I leaned forward and said to her, “How has this year been for you? That was a familiar annual review opener I used at work. She looked at me, then at the jukebox, then at me again, and answered with a shrug.
