Something feels off inside me. I’m sitting at my computer, and words fly to my fingertips, but my thoughts aren’t keeping up. My fingers are wandering over the keyboard, not connecting. There’s something on my mind that I want to say, but for some reason, I can’t get it out. The past keeps whispering to me, but not today. I can’t hear anything anyone says because the words have just vanished. The clock is ticking, and I’m just waiting for a memory of someone or something. Dad stands off, keeping his distance, listening instead of opening.

My relationship with my dad has always felt a bit formal, like we were two diplomats from neighboring countries with some past conflicts, just trying to keep things calm. He’d always get me to share my thoughts before he said anything about himself. Dad took his time “weighing his words” carefully. There are a lot of sayings about “words” in Turkish that fit him, but this one sums up our relationship perfectly.

It’s frustrating because I remember Dad mentioning to someone—maybe it was me or my brother—that he divorced Mom because they never argued with words. He was just never able to get things off his chest.

Dad called me, saying he needed to talk after the divorce. I was around 12 and didn’t want to, but he kept insisting, so I got back on the phone. I ended up using some pretty “heavy” words to give him a lecture about girlhood and womanhood. I can’t remember much of what he said, just the same old “I love you” over and over until it lost all its weight. My head started spinning, and everything around me got darker. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the ER feeling kind of floaty.

This was our one big fight after their divorce, and that was pretty much it. So, does this mean he “divorced” me after splitting up with Mom, too?

There’s a Turkish saying: “Ayinesi iştir kişinin, lafa bakılmaz.” This translates to “a person’s actions are their true reflection, not their words,” and it’s similar to the saying “actions speak louder than words.” It’s my favorite saying, and I often bring it up in my acting classes to emphasize how important actions are on stage.

However, it’s also somewhat sad. It reminds me of my relationship with my dad. It felt like we were shouting into a mirror without receiving any echoes in return. We tried to make our relationship appear civilized, but this effort only ended up stifling it.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to grow up in a loud house where people hurt each other with their words and tried to outshout one another. Being loud might mean you had more power, and swearing could be seen as a privilege. Most people would probably call homes like that abusive. I’ve never really talked to my stepsister about what it was like growing up as her.

After the divorce, spending time with Dad always felt like an adventure, especially after we hadn’t talked for two years due to that phone call. Each visit to his house resembled a circus. Dad was like a clumsy ringmaster, trying to juggle too many things at once. He was supposed to pick me up from the bus station, run errands, and keep track of when the next act was happening at home. His wife had to be flexible and funny, managing the verbal slapstick from Dad while figuring everything else out on the fly.

My stepsister was like a rookie, always ducking out of sight whenever she felt something was about to go wrong. We had a bunch of people watching, mainly Dad’s in-laws, and they were extremely loud, whether the stunts were going off without a hitch or totally falling apart. There I was, not exactly sure if I should jump in and join the fun or just kick back and watch.

I can’t imagine Mom lasting even a day in this carnival, and there’s no way she’d send me to Dad if she knew I was fine with a lifestyle that was totally not her thing. When I got back from visiting Dad, she expected me to moan about how “inhumane” things were with my stepmom, who I had to call Abla (Big Sister). I totally played into that, calling everything I saw the end of civilization. Mom loved stepping into her role as an ex-wife and mother, adding any juicy details I didn’t mention with the latest gossip from town.

“Your dad was never happy in that house,” Mom said to me years after Dad died. This hurt a little, even though I knew it wasn’t completely true. I knew that Dad often felt unhappy and could make others feel scared or upset. For example, he would yell at my stepmom if she didn’t dress how he wanted or if she took too long to get ready. He especially lost his temper when things related to me didn’t go his way. I never talked to Mom about these moments, and I didn’t know how to react when I saw his anger toward others at home. The woman in me wanted to stand up to Dad, but the girl in me felt a strange relief—none of which I ever showed.

My dad was with my stepmom until he passed away. In his last months, he often chain-smoked at coffee shops, even after being diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. I was at a festival when his health worsened, and I couldn’t get to the hospital in time before he lost consciousness. I was desperate to hear what was making him so unhappy, hoping he would shout it at me like I had done to him during our phone call years ago. Instead, he lay there peacefully sleeping. Looking neither happy nor unhappy, but quiet.

 

Burcu Seyben is an asylee academic, playwright, director, and writer of creative non-fiction from Türkiye. Since 2017 Seyben has been rebuilding her life and writing in the US. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in The RavensPerch and Door is a Jar Literary Magazine.