Portrait of my Father

The summer I turned twenty-five, I met my parents for a vacation in northern Spain. On our first night together, we went for a stroll by the sea. Along the stretch of a deserted coastline, we happened to glimpse a cafe by the water, suspended in a perfect evening, cool and blue, its wicker tables flickering with candles. ‘Let’s go have a glass of wine,’ my father said. But we were tired – my parents had just flown from Russia, I from America. It was only our first evening here, my mother and I said. Let’s not rush things; we’ll come back. ‘We’ll never come back,’ my father replied. ‘Things that aren’t done right away are never done.’ We laughed, but he was right: we stayed there for two weeks, and every evening something happened to prevent us from returning.