Without an Invitation Victor Peterson held a bag of medicine in his hand when his neighbour from ac…

Without an Invitation

Richard Evans was holding a paper bag from the chemists as Mrs Norris, his neighbour across the landing, stopped him by the postboxes.

“Richard Evans, congratulations,” she began, hesitating mid-sentence, as if unsure she should go on. “Your daughter shes married now, isnt she? Yesterday, I saw it online. My niece had photos on her timeline.”

He didnt immediately see what didnt match up. “Congratulations” felt distant, misapplied a word meant for someone else. He nodded, as if they were talking about a vague acquaintance.

“A wedding?” he asked, his voice level, almost businesslike.

Mrs Norris was already regretting bringing it up. “Well registry office wedding, apparently. Photographs white dress. I thought youd have known.”

Richard Evans climbed the stairs to his flat, set the bag on the kitchen table and stared at it for a long minute without taking off his coat. In his head, like a financial spreadsheet, a space was glaringly empty: “invitation.” He hadnt been expecting a banquet for two hundred, just a phone call. A text, at least.

He pulled out his mobile, found his daughters page. The photos were precise, restrained as if theyd documented an event, not a celebration. She was in pale, standing next to a young man in a dark suit; the caption was brief: “Us.” Comments read: “All the best,” “Congrats.” His name was absent.

Richard sat down, shrugged out of his coat, and draped it over the chairback. The feeling that rose in his chest wasnt sorrow, but a raw, embarrassing anger: hed been erased. Not consulted. Clearly thought dispensable.

He dialed her number. It rang and rang before she finally answered, a quiet “Hello?”

“Whats all this?” he asked. “You got married?”

Pause. He could hear her breathing, steeling herself for a blow.

“Yes, Dad. Yesterday.”

“And you didnt tell me.”

“I knew youd react like this.”

“React like this?” He stood, pacing the kitchen. “Its not a question of reaction. Its Dont you see how this looks?”

“I dont want to talk about it over the phone.”

“So how do you want to do it?” The urge to shout clawed at him, but he fought it down. “Where are you, then?”

She gave an address. He didnt recognize it. The second humiliation, in under a minute.

“Ill come round,” he said.

“Dad, please dont”

“I will.”

He ended the call without a goodbye, then stood with his phone in hand, like it was evidence. Inside, everything demanded the world be set to rights. In his view, order was simple: family means not hiding important things. It means “how it ought to be.” Hed held to that all his life, like a rail on a bus.

He packed quickly, almost mechanically. He put apples in his bag hed bought them earlier at the market, before the chemist and took out an envelope of money, stashed “for emergencies” in a box in the wardrobe. He didnt even know why he brought cash. Perhaps to avoid turning up empty-handed. To reclaim, in some small way, his place.

On the train, Richard sat by the window. Outside, garages, warehouses, the odd tree flickered by. He looked, but he saw something else.

He remembered her in sixth form, coming home with a boy, grinning too widely, as though braced for attack. He hadnt raised his voice then just said, “Education first, romance can wait.” The boy had left, shed locked herself in her room. An hour later, Richard had knocked to talk, but shed said, “Leave it.” He had genuinely thought he was doing what was right for a father.

Then there was graduation. Hed turned up to collect her, seen her with friends and a lad he didnt recognise. Walked up, not greeting anyone, just demanding, “Whos this?” Shed flushed scarlet. Hed spoken louder than intended: “I said, who is he? Are you listening to me?” The boy had retreated. The friends had busied themselves with their phones. She barely said a word to him that night. Hed believed he was simply marking boundaries.

And there were memories of her mother. How, one family party, in front of relatives, hed said, “Youve got it muddled again, as usual. Cant you ever get things right?” He hadnt meant to be cruel. Hed just been tired of doing everything; hed wanted things “how theyre meant to be.” Her mother had forced a smile, wept in the kitchen later that night. He saw, but didnt go to her. Hed thought it was her own fault.

Now these moments surfaced like old receipts, never thrown away. He tried piecing it all together, but clung to the thought: he hadnt hit anyone, didnt drink, always worked, always paid, always provided. He only wanted the best.

Outside the new block, he stood staring at the intercom before keying in the flat number. The door clicked; the lift felt excruciatingly slow. Richard realised his palms were sweating.

His daughter opened the door hair hastily tied back, shadows under her eyes. She wore an old jumper, not festive at all. Hed expected radiance, but found tiredness and strain.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” he replied, holding out the bag. “Apples. And” he raised the envelope. “This is for you both.”

She took it without a glance, as if it were something you couldnt just drop on the floor.

In the hallway, two pairs of shoes stood side by side mens boots, her trainers. A strange jacket hung on the peg. Richard instinctively noted it all; old habit of someone always taking mental stock of other peoples space.

“Is he here?” he asked.

“In the kitchen,” she replied. “Dad, lets keep it calm.”

“Calm” came out part plea, part command.

A young man thirtyish, face drawn but composed sat at the kitchen table. He stood as Richard entered.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “Im”

“I know who you are,” Richard interrupted, suddenly realising he didnt. He didnt even know the man’s name.

His daughter shot him a warning glare.

“My names Harry,” the young man offered, quietly self-assured. “Pleased to meet you.”

Richard nodded, not shaking offered hands until, belatedly, he did. The handshake was brief, perfunctory.

“Well, congratulations then,” Richard said, but “congratulations” felt wrong in his mouth, oddly distant.

“Thank you,” his daughter said.

On the table sat two mugs, one with half-drunk coffee, nearby a pile of paperworklikely from the registry officeand a cardboard box with leftover, drying cake. The day after the wedding felt like tidying up after, not the celebration itself.

“Sit down,” she said.

He sat, hands on his knees. He wanted to get straight to it, but words that wouldnt sound pitiful eluded him.

“Why?” he finally managed. “Why did I have to hear from Mrs Norris?”

She looked at Harry, then back at her father.

“Because I didnt want you there.”

“I get that,” Richard replied. “What I want to know is, why?”

Harry edged his mug out of the way, making space as if for the conversation itself.

“I can leave if you like,” he said gently.

“No, you live here,” his daughter said. “This is your home.”

The words pricked. “Your home.” Not his. Richard suddenly saw that he was not a guest, but a trespasser.

“Im not here for a scene,” he said. “I just Im your father. Isnt that”

“Dad,” she cut in, “you always say, ‘Im your father,’ and then list everything I owe you.”

“Owe? You think inviting your father to your wedding is some debt Im collecting on?”

“I think youd have turned it into a test. An exam. And I didnt want that.”

“A test of what?” He leaned forward. “Id just have come to be there for you.”

She gave a little laugh humourless.

“Youd have come, and watched how everyone was dressed, what people said, how his family looked at you. Youd have found fault. And afterwards, youd have brought it up for years.”

“Thats not true,” he denied, automatically.

Harry coughed softly, but kept quiet.

“Dad.” Her voice was lower now. “Do you remember my graduation?”

“Of course,” Richard replied. “I picked you up.”

“Do you remember what you said, in front of everyone?”

Tension tightened his neck. He remembered and didnt want to.

“I asked who the boy was. So?”

“You asked as if Id stolen something,” she said. “I stood there, in the dress Mum helped choose, so happy and you made me want to disappear.”

“I needed to know who you were seeing,” he said. “Thats normal.”

“Its normal to ask later. At home. Not in public.”

He wanted to protest but paused, suddenly seeing something new in her face not adolescent indignation, but the fear of an adult who knows how easy it is to lose your footing.

“So it was graduation that did it?” he asked, desperately looking for logic.

“It wasnt graduation,” she said. “It was always like that.”

She rose, went to the sink, turned on the tap, hands busying themselves under the rushing water. The silence thickened with its noise.

“Do you remember what you said to Mum at Aunt Sallys birthday?” she asked, not turning around.

He remembered. He remembered the table, the salads, the relatives, and the words spoken without mercy. Hed believed he was justified.

“I said she got things confused,” he replied, carefully.

“You told her nothing she did was right,” her daughter corrected him. “You said it so everyone heard it. I was twenty-two, standing right there. I realised, if I ever brought someone home, or did something important with you there, you might do it again. You wouldnt even notice.”

A tightness burned Richards throat. He wanted to say, “I apologised later.” But he hadnt. Hed said, “Dont make a drama.” Hed said, “I was only telling the truth.”

“I never meant to humiliate anyone,” he said now.

She turned, water still running.

“But you did,” she said. “Not just once.”

Harry got up, quietly turned off the tap, then sat again. The gesture was simple but somewhere in it, Richard sensed: here, they know how to quiet the unnecessary.

“You think Im a monster,” Richard said.

“I think you never knew when to stop,” his daughter replied. “You can work, organise, control things. But when someone bleeding stands in front of you, you dont see the pain, just that somethings ‘wrong.'”

He wanted to say, theyd never have survived without his order. When pay was late, when bills had to be paid, when her mum was ill. He wanted to list it all out. But he saw that now such a list would look like an invoice love attached to a price.

“I came because it hurt,” he said after a pause. “Im not made of stone. I had to hear it from someone else. Dont you see what thats”

“I do,” she said quietly. “It hurt me too. I knew youd be upset. I havent slept properly in a week. But it was the lesser evil.”

“Lesser evil,” he repeated. “So Im the evil, am I?”

She took a breath before answering.

“Dad, I dont want to fight you. I want to live without waiting for you to ruin my important days. Im not saying you mean to do it but thats how you do things.”

He looked at Harry.

“And you, nothing to say?”

Harry exhaled. “I dont want to get in between. But I saw how scared she was that youd come and question everything in front of everyone. My job. My family. The flat. That itd be talked about for years after.”

“Im not supposed to ask questions?” Richard bristled. “What parent doesnt want to know?”

“Of course you can ask,” said Harry. “But not so he feels interrogated.”

His daughter sat again, hands palm-flat on the table.

“You know what else you did?” she said.

Richard tensed.

“When I told you two years ago, about Harry and me, you asked him to come and ‘have a word.’ He came round. You sat him at this very table, asked how much he earns, why he doesnt drive, why he rents, not owns. Calm questions, but you made him prove he deserved to be with me.”

“I just wanted to know who he was,” Richard replied.

“You wanted to put him below you,” she said. “And me, too. If he wasnt ‘good enough,’ Id have been wrong, and youd be right.”

He remembered that night. He had interrogated the young man, masked as concern believing he had to.

“I didnt want” he began.

“Dad,” she interrupted, “you always say you didnt want to but you still do it. And Im left living with it.”

Richard noticed now his knee was shaking. He clenched his fists to hide it.

“What now, then?” he asked. “Youve decided you dont need a father?”

“I want you, but at a distance,” she said. “I want you in my life, just not running it.”

“I dont run your life,” he said, though without conviction.

“You do,” she insisted. “Even now. You didnt come to ask how I am. You came to put me in my place.”

He tried to contradict her, but stopped. There was truth. Hed come with retorts and speeches as if attending a meeting in his old job, a defence ready. He hadnt come to celebrate. He had come to reclaim his role.

“I dont know how to be any other way,” he admitted, surprised by his own words.

He barely recognised his own voice, suddenly quiet, not the confident tone of a man used to managing others.

His daughter studied him a moment.

“There,” she said. “Thats more honest.”

Another pause: now not angry, just tired.

“Im not asking you to disappear,” she went on. “Just dont turn up uninvited. Dont create scenes. Dont say things in front of others that can never be erased.”

“And if I want to see you?” he asked.

“Then call. Arrange it. And if I say ‘no,’ it means ‘no,'” she said. “Not because I dont love you. Because I feel safer that way.”

The word “safer” hurt more than “offended.” He grasped, suddenly, that her life was being built not around his wishes, but her protection from him.

Harry rose. “Ill make some tea,” he said, heading to the hob.

Richard watched him, caught himself assessing: how he held the mug, how he opened the cupboard. Old reflex always checking.

“Dad,” his daughter said, “I dont want you to go feeling thrown out. But I wont pretend none of it happened, either.”

“So what do you want?” he asked.

She was thoughtful for a moment.

“I want you to say you understand,” she said. “Not ‘I meant well.’ Just that you understand.”

He looked at her, feeling resistance warring with something new inside him something unpleasant, but inevitable. To admit this would mean surrendering his status. But he realised he had already lost more than that.

“I understand that” He faltered. “That Ive made you feel ashamed. And thats what youre afraid of.”

She didnt smile, but her shoulders dropped just a little, the tension easing.

“Yes,” she said.

Harry returned, set a brand new kettle on the table, poured cups. Richard noticed there was no limescale yet. He realised, uncomfortably, that in this house everything would be arranged differently, and hed have to learn to be a guest.

“I dont know how to do it now,” he confessed.

“Lets do this,” his daughter suggested. “Next week, we meet in town. At a café. For an hour. Just a chat. Without Harry, if thats easier. And no interrogations.”

“And coming here?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she replied. “I need time.”

He wanted to protest, but held back. Bitterness and, strangely, relief welled up inside: finally, the rules were being spelled out.

“Alright,” he agreed. “A café it is.”

Harry set a cup in front of him.

“Sugar?” Harry offered.

“No,” Richard said.

He took a sip. The tea was scalding, burning his tongue. He looked at his daughter and knew yesterday could not be taken back, let alone demanded as owed.

“I still dont think its right not inviting your father,” he murmured.

“And I dont think its right to humiliate,” she replied, just as softly. “We both think so.”

He nodded. It wasnt reconciliation. It was an acceptance: each had their own truth, and his truth was no longer paramount.

At the door, his daughter saw him out. He put on his jacket, adjusted the collar. He wanted to hug her, but didnt dare.

“Ill call,” he said.

“Do,” she replied. “And Dad if you turn up unannounced, I wont let you in.”

He met her gaze. There was no threat in her voice, just weary resolve.

“Understood,” he said.

He stood alone in the lift, listening to its mechanical drone. Outside, on the street, he walked to the stop with his hands in his pockets. The envelope of money was left on their table. The apples too. Traces of his visit now belonged to their kitchen.

The journey home was long first the bus, then the train. The same garages and fences flicked past in the dusk, as in the morning. He studied his own reflection in the window, wrestling with the knowledge that the fortress of a family hed built turned out to be a series of rooms: each with its own door, own lock. He didnt know if theyd ever let him past the hallway again. But he knew, from now on hed have to knock differently.