The two of us stayed close while he was gone. It was so frequent that it became almost normal, growing up you don’t know what’s normal and what’s not. This was my world, even if it was lonely for us. We would dance in the living room on Friday nights and have Froot Loops for dinner when I won my soccer games. She went to every one. She even volunteered as a face painter at a fundraiser, but made me be her practice easel. At events she always met the other parents with a dimpled smile no matter the topic of discussion. Even then I was smart enough to know how much she missed him.

I got older. It got a little boring being alone at home so much. I had no siblings to bother me or entertain me with their mischief. Mom would always try to keep me mentally stimulated, but even still there was a lot of time sitting and pondering the old maps and antiques that littered our little house. I would sit in the living room and stare at the yellowing map on the wall covered with pins of places he had been, and try to imagine what it was like in each one. The smell of the damp tropical air in Vietnam and how the people sounded in the streets of Vienna. Dad told me once that it was outdated when he bought it and that many of the borders were wrong. It even had countries that no longer exist like Yugoslavia. Apparently he got it at a thrift store in Japan.

I got older still, and restless. Unsurprisingly, the wanderlust that he experienced passed down to me. I craved my own adventures and stories like he would tell me as I went to bed as a kid. I asked over and over again, but he never took me on any of his travels. I even tried to hide in one of his suitcases. He said that he needed to focus on his writing. But how hard can travel journalism be? It should only take an hour a night. I even tested it. For a week I would write in excruciating detail about everything I did that day, and I could never find enough to write for more than forty minutes! I wasn’t buying what he was selling me.

Over this last visit from Colombia (and they really are just visits now, not a homecoming) he has been acting very strange. Glasses now silently perch on his nose and crow’s feet mark his face. Those could be explained away by the passage of time, but actions are done in a slow and confused manner as though he is not really there behind his eyes. I’m not crazy. There is something different with that man. He doesn’t look at me when he talks anymore. I don’t ask him about it though. Really I think I’m scared to.

This last time he left I made a decision. After a short stay that only encompassed my fifteenth birthday, he left once again for Colombia. Bogota seems to be his new favorite destination. With his arrival an especially curt range of interactions with Mom came. I only heard them muffled through the floorboards. With his departure she was left with a wash of emotion that knocked her to the ground. I came down into the living room after he left and saw her laying on the sofa in a robe, hair disheveled and oily as she stared out the window. She didn’t even look at me when I came into the room. I only decided to investigate after seeing how affected she was.

Seeing her like that left an ache in my chest that I had never felt before. I took this unrecognizable wall of emotion and walked myself right up to his office door. Thankfully it didn’t have a lock. He must not have thought he needed it. Mom and I never go in there. It’s been years since I had at least. My head was so hot that if it was locked I’m afraid I would have tried to knock it down.

I burst into the quiet room, face red. I flipped on the light and took note of how disorderly the room had become. Papers lay strewn around the carpet, and stacked high on the desk. Even the painting of the SS San Marine hung crooked. The same little statues I used to play with sat, undusted on a bookshelf. It probably felt as alien to him as it did to me.

The desk chair was pushed away at an odd angle. I sat down and started rifling through papers. Most of them were nothing special, just notes about touristy destinations and paragraphs waxing poetic about the mountains and sunsets on far off islands. “The night markets’ lively nature fill you with a sense of local energy…”

I pushed these aside and pulled at the drawers of the antique desk. All but one opened. The largest one at that. I reached into the potted plant, which now lay dead to the side. My fingers rifled around the dry dirt, catching rocks and roots in the process, until finally I lifted my now soiled hand with a key in my fingertips.

I opened the drawer and was met with wads of cash all from different countries. In any other circumstance this would be very suspicious. But when I brushed a few of the notes around, I revealed the corner of a maroon passport. Now that was suspicious. I picked it up, feeling the color drain from my face. It was a Chinese passport. Hopeful, I opened it. No, it really was a picture of my dad looking up at me with Mandarin lettering dotting the page. I dropped it, and reached back into the drawer. There was another passport under the cash, and another. A South African and a Belarusian. Both with my father right where he should be. I scratched at the pictures to see if they had been glued on. No luck. They must be very good fakes. They must be.

I glanced back down into the drawer. Tucked up against the side of the box was a worn-down blue passport. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. This one was American, and had the old design. The dark blue siding had frayed around the bottom and one of the corners was creased. Inside, I was met with the face of my father once again, but this time, when he was only twenty-three. His hair was long and brushed back. A mustache perched on his upper lip, but you could still see the dimple on his right cheek from the little smile he was sneaking. That was the look of the man I love. That was the father that I remember, quick and witty, full of life. Where is he now?

I went right back upstairs to my room and paced back and forth for the next twenty minutes. An excitement grew in me that had never been felt before. The wave of emotion roared inside of me, anger from the past years of neglect, anger from the sight of my downtrodden mother, anger from the confusion of this whole situation and how my father who I loved could turn into this man of stone-faced negligence. I punched a hole in my wall. Reeling and fighting back tears, I wiped the drywall from my hand and smeared the blood from the new cut.

Who even is this man? I thought. Well, he was still my father, and no it wasn’t ‘loved’ it was ‘love’. I did still love him. That’s why I had such strong emotions about this. If I didn’t care about him, then I wouldn’t care about him being gone and doing all of this.

But what is this!? I thought, and paced some more, back and forth past my bed and dresser. Was he a spy? That would explain all the passports. Spies don’t tell their families what they are doing for their safety. But why is he always in Colombia? Is that a place where lots of spies go? No, they would be in China or Russia or somewhere else more important. What if he is a spy for a different country? Like a double agent. A traitor. Maybe he is going to different countries to sell secrets. This is awful, I thought. But it would make sense as to why he has a Chinese passport.

He could be in the cartel. That would be awful too. But he wasn’t the type to be a killer… or at least I couldn’t see that. But then again, people usually have no idea that their family members, friends or coworkers are serial killers until it comes out.

But, not all cartel members are killers. He could just be doing the books, or working out deals or something like that. He was lying about something, and I didn’t know what was real anymore.

Great. This is just great, I thought. And, doesn’t get me any closer to the truth. Or him. I didn’t even know when he was supposed to be back, and I didn’t want to ask mom and send her into a tailspin. Not more of one at least. I needed to find out for myself.

I stormed into my closet like a hurricane. My head was hot and spinning with ideas. I threw some clothes and my stash of cash into my backpack. I squashed it all down and stuffed even more items I grabbed without thinking in before I zipped it taut. Then I leapt out the door. In my frenzy, I stopped, doubled back and grabbed my own passport from my cabinet.

“Mom I’m leaving, I’m going to Bogotá.” I said as I rushed down the stairs with my backpack slung over my shoulder. At this she rolled her head to look at me with a furrowed brow.

“What?”

“I need to go.”

“What! Why on Earth do you need to go to Bogotá?”

“I need to get Dad.” My voice cracked and my ambition wavered. She stood up from the couch and walked towards me with outstretched arms and tilted head. I snapped out of it and put the other strap of my backpack on.

“Honey- hey!”

“He hurt you!” I shouted as I rushed for the door. By this point tears had started to well up in my eyes. I rubbed them with my sleeve and went outside, closely followed by my distraught mother. Crisp air met me and stung the inside of my nose. Charging down the porch steps I fumbled in my pocket for my bike lock key.

“He didn’t hit me baby!” she said, barefoot on the porch. A fall breeze gave us both goosebumps.

“No, but it’s something else.” There was a hurt in my voice that snuck out of me with each word. I tried to keep my composure but emotion was leaking out of me with everything I did. Even as I unlocked my bike and led it down the driveway. “He hurt us both,” I said, this time to myself.

“Wait!” her voice cracked.

At the edge of the road I got on my bike and I was ready to go. I didn’t know the way to the airport, I didn’t have the money for the plane, but by hell or high water I was getting to Bogotá. Even if that meant I would have to cling to the wheel well of that plane the whole way there. This was my adventure, the one I had been aching to go on my whole life. Since I had the ability to want such a thing. This was the moment to prove myself.

But I heard a sniff.

I looked back towards the house, autumn leaves scraped across the driveway and into the yellowing grass. My mother stood barefoot on the porch in her robe with arms folded around herself, legs tightly clenched. Her head had dropped and her face was full of tears. She was shaking. She looked cold.

With that sight my foolishness all fell away. I looked over at the porch until I became man enough to go to her. The bike dropped on its side and my backpack fell into the yard as I walked over realizing what I had nearly done. To the woman that has been there for me all this time. Through all this strife. We collapsed into each other’s arms. Tears welled up in my eyes but I held them back the best I could. My mother did not have such ability, as she cried heartily at our embrace. I just wanted to make sure she stayed warm.