The Month

Dedicated to Fathers...

Now it is impossible to remember where it all started, and it doesn’t matter.
And so it is clear: I am the oldest and wisest man in the world. Twenty years is a joke. Even served in the army.
Naturally, someday there broke up, did not listen to the advice of his pre-submersible old man, answered him something clever and bold, the father was offended, turned and left the room.
So we stopped talking. Absolutely.
They lived in the same apartment and walked by like passengers in the subway.
My mother whispered to me, “Ask forgiveness, reconcile with Dad. You have deceived him. You both suffer from it.”
I loved my dad and missed him very much, but I was stupid, and therefore categorized: “He needs it? Let him be alone. I will live without him, especially because I will soon leave, it will be easier for everyone..."
Three weeks of oppressive silence passed and finally my mother took me to the station.
Hello new life!

I went to Peter, to enter the institute.
Peter met me with beautiful weather and rarely friendly citizens.
When I just got off the train, got to the subway and exchanged white coins in the machine, an elderly woman suddenly approached me and said:

Young man, I see you are a visitor. Here take the map of Leningrad, there is a subway scheme. I don’t need it, but it will help you.
“Thank you, of course, but... let me pay for it.
No, it is a gift. All the good.

And the astonishing woman quickly “stumbled” onto her Leningrad affairs.
Her map was really useful to me. I easily found my way to my institute, and then to the community at the other end of the world.
A week of fun and turbulent student life: meetings, consultations, literature lists, new friends.
And then one day, after another session, I went out to the institute yard to breathe the air.
Suddenly I see: on the most distant, noisy bench, my dad sits modestly with the newspaper and slightly rattles from the club of cigarette smoke approaching him.
I approached and shockedly asked:
Dad, what are you doing here?

He turned away from reading with a slight annoyance from what he was disclosed:

What am I doing? I read the newspaper.
But why are you here?
I came to support you. The arrival is a serious thing.
Wait, and where do you live?
Yes, there were no hotels here, the first four nights at the station, and then I guessed, I went to the local profile office, colleagues helped, the departmental hotel was organized, so now everything is okay. Do you go to all consultations?
Why did you sleep at the station? What can you help me here?
Is it too little “what”? Do you need a city map?

And then I burst like a soap bubble, apologized to my father and said I missed him very much for the last month.
My father smiled slightly, pushed my toothpaste into my load pocket and fastened it with a button.
My wise old man was then forty-eight years old, and he lived a little less than three years.

Since then, almost an eternity has passed, a quarter of a century, but I still regret that I stole myself a whole month of communication with my father.

Sometimes when I’m in the car alone, I’m driving my dad in the passenger seat. I go and tell him the news about myself.
Dad is focusing on the road, but in the depths of my heart I feel he’s pleased.