Daddy and the Swallow

Yesterday, I accompanied my sister to a date with her boy. Well, they are as shy as ever, they don’t wanna sit side by side on the bus,(much less talk), and they don’t even wanna take a picture together, until I forced them to. Then my sis realized that Mr Boo here didn’t look similar to her, and she went really sad cuz she heard this rumor that couples that look similar lasts forever (that means get married). Ah, after two designer ties, three Mc Chicken, one upside-down ice-cream and a really huge teddybear, she should have given that date an A+.

Anyway, that aside, I’ve been very suspicious of dad. Everyday, it’s the same thing: He woke up at 7.00, and went to the bathroom; then at 7.10 his cellphone rang. 7.15 he come out of his bathroom, closed the door, and won’t open until 7.30. I thought this was just odd, until I remembered that my aforementioned sis confessed once that she sneak up to read dad’s cell at this time of the morning.

Well, that means I have to wake up early now.

Like the usual, I went to dad’s office on the evenings before we go home. He packed up his laptop, files and a jar of what I thought was a dead worm, and he clocked out. Halfway down the stairs, I thought I saw a swallow (the bird, you know) on the glass window. But instead of flying, it stood there at the aluminum railing.

I said to dad: “The bird’s stuck,” while pointing at the bird that can’t seem to know that banging on the glass window won’t make it get thru.

Dad looked at that bird for a while, and then moved forward to the bird without looking back. Then he just handed his file to me (which I could barely catch). He took less than a second to scoop up that bird, and that bird didn’t even move or make a sound (yes, it is still alive, just so you know). He walked down the stairs, greeted some of his staffs playing table tennis (“Varsity Staff Tournament, eh?”) and went out the door. He swung his hand up high, and the bird just rockets away. (reminds me of Gandhi).

I went very quiet as we moved to the car,cuz I was thinking of how people could do that kind of random acts of kindness. I’ve never felt this awe for dad ever since we had that fight during his stay in China. The same kind of awe I used to feel when I was a little girl.

“Beep! Beep!” Goes his phone, dad asked me to open it. It was his friend, saying about his files or something. “Just reply ‘OK’,” he asked me as he drove. He usually asked me to take his call and answer his messages while on the road. So I have quite a timeline to look into his Inbox.

Did I find anything?

Nothing.

And that’s weird.

No messages for 7.10 am, or close to that. As a matter of fact, no messages at 7.10 at all for ANY day! And there were messages from everyone else since last week that he never even deleted: from mom, from auntie, from me, form my bro, from my sis, from his male friends…

By the way, he just announced that he will be going for three days starting 12^th May, on a convention in this certain place out of state. When mom asked if she could tag along, he declines by saying “I’d like to ride the company van so I could cut on fuel.”

Says the man who earns $10000 a month.

I think dad wouldn’t lie about any convention at all, besides, I could check his laptop and mail if I want to. I just hope that convention will not be a rendezvous point for….

Is the case open again?

I’m sure to wake up early this Thurs. and Fri. Just