2001-12-25 || 9:52 a.m.

|| waiting for the southbound train ||

other things.

sunday night i took the train from my parents' house to san diego. dad took me to the station. dad insisted on staying with me until my train came.

'dad, i am a public transportation maven. you can go home.'

'that's okay, i want to see you off on your train.'

and we sit in the waiting room, television blasting horrifying bad news. a maintenance man announces my train will not be coming. it is holed up in san luis obispo. the next train is in an hour.

'daddy, go home.'

'no, that's all right. let me just call mum.'

we sit side by side reading separate books and magazines. this is how my dad does things: he loves his girls. he feels a need to spend time with them. he is content with waiting in train stations, driving them places. we don't talk. we well up with crazy dad-daughter love and can't talk.

'daddy, go. home.'

'no no no.' he turns a page. 'you can take my car if you want to.'

we are sitting side by side. dad has given all his change to a girl my age who is also stuck. he can't call mum to tell her the update, that he'll be here another forty-five minutes with his daughter who is entirely capable of sitting in this train station herself. but he never sees her anymore. her face looks a bit older, he has noticed. she carries herself in a way that was designed without his doing and that bothers him. perhaps if he sits with her in a train station their separateness can seep into one another and blur a bit. they can talk and joke without the underlying sentimental urge to cry.

'dad! you can go home. if anything happens i can call you.'

'but you don't have any change.' (used up on phone call to san diego.)

'i will call you collect.'

'it doesn't work. you can't call collect to the same area code.'

i enlighten him on the onslaught of 1-800 collect calling numbers but he isn't convinced.

we watch television. we check the overhead clock. dad is angry at a magazine ad for a restaurant that has dennis rodman flung across it. 'that's a sea captain's name,' he says about the restaurant name. (my dad is nutty about pirates and sea captains and marine explorers.) 'i don't think he would like to see this,' pointing to the ad which includes a line-up for dj's and disco night and dennis rodmany things. i pull my dad's arm up and burrow beneath it. i rest my head on his chest realizing this is unacceptable behavior for a twenty-five year old in a train station. dad lets it slide for a minute or two and then adjusts so that i have to sit up straight again. (we are father and daughter. but to soon to be train passengers we are weird girl and creepy older man.)

the train is coming. we stand outside on the platform with folded arms. we look down the tracks and wait and wait. when the train finally arrives time is sped up and i am hugging my dad around the neck and telling him i love him and he is saying be careful, have a good time, be careful.

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