Nostos Algos

Tuesday Evenings

We meet at the beginning of the bridge. It’s that time of the day when the sun is still tangled in the eucalyptus branches in that tilted, diagonal way. It’s splashed across the river and sinking like stones in the cool evening air.

You greet me all buttoned up in your shirt, cuff links on your wrist, jacket over your shoulder. Smart. And I, in my over sized t-shirt, frayed shorts, balancing books on my hips. My feet flip flopping on the warm concrete.

As we walk we paint pictures with our words. Mine, bubbling up and bursting. Zig zagging, over-excited, over-exhausted explosions. “You’re not listening to me, Dad!” Yours are calm, deliberate, and structured. “Let me carry for those you, you’re going to damage your spine. You carry too many books.”

By the end of the bridge we are silent, comfortable. The years fall and settle around us. We think quiet thoughts: on dinner, on tomorrow, on the petrol price, one next weeks assignment. Silent lists plotted and planned in our heads.

Lights are ticking on in the parking lot when we reach the car. My books fall out of your arms and into the boot and you smile at me. That big, warm, almost-better-than-a-hug smile.

The smile I have grown up in.