Lisa Geichman Prosek

One time when I was a little girl, I asked Dad how fires spread from one tree to another. He described the process during a twenty-minute orientation about physical and chemical properties. Dad’s a chemist, and he knows about these things.

I’d posed the question on our weekly trip to the doctor’s office to get my allergy injection. Every Saturday morning, Dad and I were up and out of the house by 8:30.

I never minded not being able to stay home and lazily watch TV cartoons and munch on sugary cereal as my younger brother and sister and all the other kids I knew did every week. I enjoyed being alone with Dad. He and I were similar: introverted thinkers.

We usually rode in silence on the thirty-minute drive to the doctor’s office, neither of us being exuberant morning people. Then we sat side by side in the waiting room for my turn at the needle, still not engaging in conversation.

After the doctor’s office, we stopped off at the hardware store. By this time in the morning, my questions had started. A steady stream of inquiries about paint and nails and caulk guns. Dad weathered them without irritation.

Next, we often grabbed a snack. We ate toast and sipped milk and coffee while reading the paper and chatting about the stories or about things at home.

We topped off the excursion with a trip through the grocery store, making our first purchase at the deli to get my favorite–chicken gizzards. I chewed between asking Dad questions, which he patiently answered as he tried to shop.

Even then I knew that Dad wasn’t a fan of making big physical overtures. He just wasn’t a huggy-feely kind of Dad. He showed how important we were to him by doing little things. He never said no to the chicken gizzards. He always let my brother, sister, and me have the kind of cookies we liked. He made sure to buy our favorite corned beef and then refereed when we fought over it. He often splurged and brought home shrimp cocktail.

Dad and I continued our Saturday-morning dates even through the summer right before I left home to attend college. Late in August, as we drove home from our weekly jaunt, Dad placed his palm on top of my left hand, which was resting on the seat beside me. He caressed the top of my hand, then turned it over and placed his palm in mine. “Your hand’s soft,” he said.

He held it all the way home.