"No..."

I suspected as much, but I asked anyway.

Like routine dad returned home late, and I was sitting at the dinning room table and doing my homework. He came in quietly, and like always, diverted attention away from the fact he came home late (and from you-know-where) by starting with a flurry of questions. I had told him last night that I got accepted on this selective internship programme of my law department, and the first thing dad asked me just now was how it all went, what the process was, what I still need to do, etc, etc. I answered his questions politely. I looked at him, his eyes were bloodshot, his face tired and haggered, and in the pockets of his trousers his fingers played with coins that made that irritating clinking sounds of metal. Dad... what are you doing to yourself?

Seizing the opportunity to see and finally talk to my dad for the first time today, I told him that tomorrow the rest of us are having dinner together with some friends and colleagues of my brother. Well, brother never had the intention of asking dad to go, and I knew almost completely for sure that dad would never go, but I asked him anyway. Of course, as expected, dad's answer was a definite "no". But I asked, because I really don't want to give the impression that we're neglecting dad and leaving him out of everything. I guess perhaps I'm 'protecting' myself, guarding my own skin, in the sense that I'm deliberately pushing the ball into dad's court, when I know very well he wouldn't want to spend time with us. Probably I want to feel less guilty, and am trying to shift the 'blame' for dad's isolation to himself.

But I did ask, and he said no. And a no is a no.