Sea Instead of Answers

# My dad’s city has sea instead of answers

Back in G. tonight. The train arrived late and the station smelled like cold metal, cigarettes, rainwater, and coffee strong enough to restart dead people. Dad picked me up wearing his leather jacket and that permanently tired expression police officers seem to develop after years of listening to humanity disappoint itself professionally. He smoked the entire drive home while traffic lights reflected on wet streets and old Italian songs played softly through static on the radio.

G. at night feels less polished than M.
Less ambitious.
More honest somehow.

Dad’s apartment in C. looked exactly the same when we arrived: huge windows facing the dark sea, newspapers everywhere, smoke trapped faintly in the curtains despite the cold air always entering from somewhere. I love this apartment irrationally. Maybe because nobody performs elegance here. Things are just themselves. He made espresso at midnight while telling me fragments of stories from work without details. Never names. Never enough information. Just enough to remind me adults spend most of their lives carrying things silently.

At one point he stood near the windows looking at the harbor lights and said: “People think cities change. They don’t. People just notice different things depending on age.” Then immediately asked if I was hungry because emotional depth must always be interrupted in this family before becoming dangerous. Later I called M. briefly before sleeping. He had been near the stadium earlier and sounded happy in that tired masculine way boys sound after football, cold air, yelling, and probably terrible sandwiches.

Sometimes I think he belongs to this city more naturally than I ever could.
Like the sea taught him something earlier in life.
Meanwhile I’m still trying to understand why G. makes me emotional so quickly.
Maybe certain places know too much about us before we’re ready.

ABOUT G.
Remember me,
Eclipse