The Roots of Us

by Candace Knoebel

  Malick’s eyes widened when he first laid eyes on his dad, but he took one look at James and his camera, and the look was gone, replaced with a tight smile.

  “Malick,” Basil said as he opened his arms to his son.

  Malick stepped into the hug, but hesitantly. “Hey, Dad,” he said, the title exiting in a murmur from his mouth.

  “It’s been so long. How are you?” Basil asked as they took a seat opposite of each other.

  We tried to stay as far back as we could, but every few seconds, Malick’s curious gaze wandered in the direction of one of the cameras.

  Basil reached for Malick’s hand. “Try to pretend they aren’t there.”

  Malick’s gaze dropped to Basil’s fingernails, and then shot quickly back up to his eyes, confusion etched between his eyebrows.

  Basil’s hand retreated, an awkwardness spreading like muck between them.

  Malick squared his shoulders and flicked his chin up. “I’ve been better.”

  And from that moment on, the conversation did a barrel roll down the hill of vagueness. The kind people had at a work event, giving only the surface details of their lives. I could see the shine dimming in Basil’s eyes. Watched as he folded into himself, regret pressing heavy hands on his shoulders, slouching his back.

  “How is Monica?”

  “She’s good.”

  “How’s your job.”

  “I still have it.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She’s happy.”

  “Are you?”

  It was a question that finally got Malick to look up at him.

  “Why are you dressed like this?” The words exploded out of Malick’s mouth, like water erupting from a geyser.

  “Malick, I—”

  “I think I’d rather you be a nudist.” He shook his head. “Naturalist… whatever the hell you call yourself, than to see you like this. I feel like I don’t even know you.” He paused, face contorted in anger. “No… I know I don’t know you. First, you leave us without an explanation. Then you come back into my life, asking for forgiveness. You waited a year after I forgave you to tell me you lived in a nudist colony. Another two years after that to tell me you’re gay. And now this? On camera? Who are you? What else are you hiding?”

  Basil’s head was bent so low I could see the bones on the back of his neck. I wanted to shield Basil from the anger, but there was something dormant waking within me. Emotions I’d buried sticking their hands out of their graves, clawing their way to the surface.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Malick… this is who I am,” Basil said, imploring Malick to believe him. “No more secrets. No more shame. No more lies.”

  Malick turned his gaze back to the forest. Silence hung around like a third wheel.

  Panic snapped its fingers at me. Do something. Fix this. This is what Basil feared.

  Basil used the heel of his hand brush tears away “I’m sorry, son.”

  Malick turned to study him. His emotions wrestled, fighting for the chance to be the last one on the mat.

  And then the unexpected happened.

  Forgiveness won.

  “You swear this is it? No more lies. No more secrets?” he asked, an invitation sliding through the doorway to Basil’s heart.

  Basil jerked his head up, eyes puffed with tears. “On my soul. This is me. I’m Basil, and I’m one hell of a friend if you’ll have me.”

  I leaned over and whispered to James, “I want to interview Malick. Alone.”

  James pulled his eyes away from the camera.

  “We need to get his emotions on film while they’re fresh.” I bit the corner of my lip, tucking away the guilt that poked its head out from the closet in my mind. Everything he was feeling… everything he was saying, I felt like they were words being ripped from the pages of my journal kept in my mind. How many times had I imagined a conversation like this with my father? The chance to scream at him for leaving me. To corner him with his wrongdoings and make him actually claim them instead of kicking them back under the rug.

  James lowered his camera and headed over to them, instructing them we’d be doing separate interviews. I wouldn’t lie; I let out a relieved sigh when Malick agreed.

  “Where do you want me?” Malick asked as a mic was put under his shirt.

  “Here is fine.” I pointed to a stump just inside the forest. Appetency drummed against my chest as James fiddled with the camera. The selfish, needy monster in me needed to be fed. I needed answers. To find myself in someone else’s story.

  “Why did you decide on my dad as the subject for your film?” Malick asked as Melissa finished up with his mic.

  I flinched back in surprise. “Why wouldn’t I? Your father is pretty freaking fabulous.”

  His smile was sad. “I wish I could know him the way you do.”

  The quiet vulnerability in his words snuck in like a criminal. Wrapped a fist around my heart, squeezing. Choking. How many times had I thought the same thing when I thought about my little brother and my father’s new wife? How many countless wishes had I misused on a man who didn’t believe in fairy tales?

  I cleared my throat, offering a wobbly smile. “Well, it seems like you’re getting that chance now.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.” Malick had soft eyes. Tender. The kind that whispered be careful with me. I was familiar with that look. I’d seen it in the mirror more than a few times.

  We rolled through the standard questions to get him through his childhood. We needed backstory in order for the audience to get the feeling behind how complicated everything was. Malick lived a happy childhood. A wonderful mother. A fun-loving, hard-working father. Family dinners under the setting sun. Late-night board games on the weekends. Everything was normal until his father decided to leave. After that, he struggled in school. Argued with his mother. Got into too many fights to count on two hands. He didn’t straighten himself out until his stepfather came into his life. He was their preacher who had been widowed. Malick already had a deep respect for the man.

  After they married, Malick went on to college. Met his wife. Married. Graduated. Found a good job at a law firm. That was when Basil contacted him. Malick didn’t want to meet up with him. He wouldn’t have if not for his wife. She arranged for Basil to be at the restaurant Malick liked to lunch at.

  “What did you feel when you saw him waiting at your usual table?” I asked, completely invested in Malick. The forest had disappeared around us. It was only me, him, and the bitterness we both felt toward our fathers like quicksand beneath us.

  “Rage. Bitterness. Longing. Hope,” he said, his eyebrows curled in confusion. “I wanted to leave, but my feet wouldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I was cemented in place.”

  I ate up his words. Imagined myself seeing my father on the other side of that table. Would I feel those things too? Heart sputtering, backfiring? Bones feeling shaky and newborn?

  “What did you do?” I asked, pretending it was me in that restaurant. Waiting for Malick to move me into the next frame. My father became a smoky form in a distant time. One just out of reach. The walls of the restaurant built from heartache. The table he sat behind fastened out of every mistake.

  Malick’s back stretched straight. Resolve swirling within the amber in his eyes. “I did the opposite of what he’d done. I didn’t walk out on him.”

  Do the opposite.

  I watched myself sit across from my father’s smoky form. Felt the rage and the longing dancing a dangerous tango as I waited for him to speak. His mouth wouldn’t open. It didn’t need to, because in his eyes, I saw the emptiness. The disconnect.

  “He didn’t do what I thought he would,” Malick continued, jarring me from my thoughts. “He didn’t start with an apology. He didn’t beg for me to understand. He spoke to me… man to man. Offered me the truths he could give, not sugarcoating the details.”

  I tried to hear my father’s voice, a voice I’d long forgotten, but the words didn’t fit
. This wasn’t my story. “And?” I asked, emotions clogging my windpipe.

  “I heard him out. When he was finished, I decided I’d give him a chance.”

  “Why?” I asked, more for myself than for him. “You didn’t owe him anything. You had every right to reject him.” Those were my feelings. My thoughts. I was compromising the shot by being greedy, searching for an answer within Malick, but I couldn’t stop myself. The darkness in me clawed at my insides. Begged to be fed.

  The clarity in Malick’s gaze stopped me. “Because everyone deserves forgiveness,” he said, so resolutely. So sure.

  I shook my head, trying to make sense. “How? How do you forgive?”

  James fastened his gaze on me, but I ignored him. I needed to know. Felt like I was right there, hand on the door, ready to pass through.

  His answer would forever stick to my bones.

  “You let the idea you’ve built of them go and accept them for who they are, flaws and all.”

  “Do you want to come back with us?” I asked Malick as we packed everything into the van. “I think it would be good for you to see where Bas—I mean Jeremiah lives.”

  After we finished his interview, I took a moment to pull myself together. I didn’t mean to fall so far down the rabbit hole when it came to finding an answer. I was too connected to the story, and I needed to take a step back.

  Malick chuckled. “Basil. His name is Basil now. I need to get used to it.”

  “How are you so chill about all of this?” I wished he could manufacture some of it for me. I felt like a crazy person compared to him.

  He shrugged and leaned back against the van. “When I first started at my law firm, a man came in needing assistance in a custody battle. He and his wife had divorced because of his infidelity, and he was only trying to flatten out a custody schedule, five years later. In law, we must be unbiased, but I was fresh out of school and had a bone to pick with the world. I was assigned to his case. I could barely look him in the eye. How could he wait so long to fight for his kid? And why did he choose then to fight? Was he sick of paying child support? Did he actually care?

  “We were briefing him, going over the standard questions to get a feel for how we could represent him, when he stopped me midsentence and asked, “You think I’m a piece of shit, don’t you?”

  Malick’s chin dropped. “I’ll never forget that moment. I’d let my own assumptions get in the way. I’d judged him before he had a chance to defend himself.”

  I crossed my arms and leaned next to him. “What did you say to him?”

  “I asked him why it took him so long to try.”

  “And?”

  “He said he did try. He bought a house one street over from them, but even still, his wife did what she could to keep him from seeing their son. It had to be on her terms, when she felt it was the best time, which usually was around once a month. She’d leave town with their son without telling our client. She’d ask for more money each month. She was vindictive, and using their child to make him pay for it. He wanted to keep the court out of their personal life. He wanted to co-parent without issues, but he was fed up with trying to make it work and wanted more time. That’s why he came to us.”

  Melissa passed by us, smiling, heading to the back of the van. I smiled in return, and then focused back on Malick. “Did he win?”

  Malick shoved his hands into his pockets, inhaling. “He was granted fifty-fifty. He opened my eyes. Sure, he was wrong for cheating on his wife, but he loved his child and was trying to do everything he could for him. It made me realize how little I knew about my own father. Who was the man outside of being a parent? What drove him to leave? Those were the questions I wanted answered when he came back into my life and, every time I thought about walking away, I’d think about that man in my office and I’d realize that my father was doing the best he could as the man he was. And that had to be enough.”

  I chewed on his words as Basil came up, and then walked Malick to his car. I didn’t know if anything my father had to say would ever be enough. Unlike Basil, and the man at the law firm, he’d yet to reach out to me. I was a ghost in his mind.

  Another lifetime that didn’t exist.

  “Heavy stuff,” James said as he came up behind me.

  I turned.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “About what?” I asked, tucking a curl behind my ear.

  His lip did this thing whenever I played coy. Sort of like a signal, calling me out on my bullshit.

  “Okay,” he said, putting his hands up. It was one of the things I liked about him. He didn’t push when he sensed I wasn’t ready. “Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m here. Cool?”

  “Cool,” I said, and then I got in the van.

  MARCH 22, 2016

  JAMES WAS AN ARIES.

  He fit the mold as if the sign was created specifically for him. He was an exceptional leader… when he wasn’t being impatient. He was magnetic… when he wasn’t being moody. I figured that out during my second week working with him. I could figure out a lot about a person when I was plastered to their side nearly every hour of every day.

  Like how he wasn’t kidding with his no-filter policy. He could make someone cry as quick as he could make them smile. He was sour and sweet. An impulsive speaker, saying the first thing that popped into his head. I thought before I spoke, so I found it hard to adjust to at first, but slowly came to admire it. I liked that it left no room for over-thinking. If he was annoyed, he let people know why so they could fix it. If he was happy, it was obvious they’d done something right.

  I realized James was the sun, and we were circling his orbit, placed directly where he wanted us.

  And when he wasn’t working, I could find him somewhere in the woods. He never sat still. Never stayed in one room for too long. It was as if he was anticipating something that never seemed to happen for him. Searching for an answer he couldn’t seem to find.

  As we sailed past the first month, things began moving at a rapid pace. Every time I shut my eyes, I was bombarded with the many different hues of flesh. Caramels, creamy whites, deep, dark chocolates. Cinnamons, honeys, and almonds. I was living in a candy factory of skin, turning out batches of new colors every day.

  The crew got along as if we’d been working together forever. We collected bucket loads of footage, each take soaking up as much detail as we could. There were the daily activities. The spiritual retreats every Sunday, where Basil put his degree to good use. There were hot tub parties, and bingo nights that made me wonder how I’d lived my entire life without playing. And when they weren’t kicking back in leisure, they were on their hands and knees, tending to gardens. Cleaning up the forests. Aside from the communal area, the biggest and best part of this hidden society of people was the love they took in caring for the lands around them. There were hiking trails that led to gorgeous waterfalls and gorges.

  It almost felt like a Utopia.

  It almost made filming this project seem wrong.

  “We’re invited to the bar tonight as guests,” James said as he packed up his camera. We had just finished shooting some scenery shots during the magic hour, when the sun had already set, but the sky was still illuminated with airy pinks and deep rich oranges.

  “They’re letting us in?” The bar was one place we had not been given permission to film. Alcohol and nudity often led to a more intimate setting, and they wanted to keep some privacy for the guests. Even though we’d been there for a while, we still weren’t given access to all areas of the park after filming hours. We were imprisoned to our cabins, and became somewhat of a lone tribe.

  But Basil had other plans.

  “Basil talked them into it. He said we wouldn’t be able to fully understand their story if we’re behind the camera. He thinks we should mingle. Relax with them. Try to soak in their way of thinking.”

  “He’s right,” I said, feeling like I’d won the lottery. And then realization sank like a weight in my chest. �
��Wait… we don’t have to…” I couldn’t get the question out of my mouth. It was one thing to get naked with a lover. It was entirely another to not only get naked with a hoard of people I didn’t know, but also with my coworkers.

  James read my mind. He was good at doing it. It was like there was this weird link between us, like a Wi-Fi signal sending waves of information between us. “No, we don’t have to get naked. Although it is encouraged,” he said with a sly wink.

  My ears went hot. “Are you?”

  He shrugged easily. Of course he would. He was a man. And not only that, he was an extremely good-looking man. “I might. Haven’t decided.” When he noticed my face, he chuckled and added, “It’s only skin, Hartley.”

  “Yeah… skin most don’t see.”

  He poked me in the shoulder. “You scared?”

  He was the annoying little brother I never had.

  I feigned confidence. Fraud. “Psh. Yeah, right. Me? Scared?”

  His smirk burned right through that fake confidence. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

  My throat felt stuffed with cotton balls. Skin hot under his scrutinizing gaze. “That’s if I can make it.”

  “You have other plans?” he asked, eyebrows touching his hairline.

  “I might.” It was a flat-out lie. The only plans I had were curling up with a book and stuffing my face with Oreos. Definitely not getting naked with the director.

  “Well, if you change your mind, they open at nine.”

  “Okay.” I grabbed his tripod and handed it to him. We had become close. Finishing each other’s sentences. Moving around each other like we had always known one another. It was nice to have a male friend who didn’t expect anything from me. He knew my situation, and he respected it.

  And truthfully, I didn’t think there was anything there… romantically.