Will Robinson

♫ Seabird - Alessi Brothers ♫

I’m just going to state what we’re all thinking: My relationship with Eliza was extremely similar to the plot of Pluto Çavarsky’s 19th-century ballet Długa Droga do Wolności (Long Path to Freedom). As the story goes, a Masovian princess is being manipulated by her father to stay in her castle. She pines for freedom but doesn’t have the wherewithal to seize it. She’s confronted by a prince from a neighboring kingdom, where she finds out the prince was being manipulated by his own sire. They run away together to the forest. In one movement, “Waltz of the River Sprites,” woodland creatures hop jovially around the stage, trying to get the main characters to embrace. But our royals constantly withdraw from one another. Their dances are erratic–not because they’re scared of one another, but because they’re ashamed of themselves. The song ends with the two putting their fear aside for a moment and performing a short arabesque together. Eliza was my prince, and I was her princess. Sounds romantic, until you realize I’d probably be married off to some foreign lord, all to expand my father’s kingdom. Has this analogy run its course yet? I feel like it has.

I say all this because, when I arrived back in my childhood home, my parents were watching Long Path to Freedom as they did every year. And because, as I really need to stress, it was a fucking incredible analogy. My parents’ house was a split-level two-bedroom in one of the less wealthy parts of Wyoming, Michigan. If you ever want to visit, look for the house with the purple door, flying the flag of the Philippines. I quietly cracked open the door with a spare key I took with me when I moved out. I followed the sound of the ballet into the living room, where my parents were snuggled up on the couch, lights dimmed, fire blazing. They hadn’t noticed me yet. “Oi!” I shouted.

My dad jumped into what could only be described as a fighting position, while my mother sat up in shock and put her hand on her heart. “Ay, lintik!” she yelped. “You scared the daylights out of me!” Then, it began to click that I was the one intruding in her living room. “Will? What are you doing here? It’s so good to see you!” Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention: I never told my parents I was coming home for the holidays. Oops.

I expected my mom to be a little more angry with me; after all, I hadn’t talked to her in a very long time. But she was smiling, eyes misty, and my father was giving me the rare, gentle smile he showed when he was proud. “Hello, Will,” my dad said. “What are you doing here?” he echoed his wife’s question. He looked older than the last time I saw him, which shocked me a bit. Both of my parents were very young when they had me–mom was twenty, dad twenty-one–so growing up, they always had energy to spare, at least around me. But now my dad had put on a little weight, his hair gone grey around the temples, and I realized how stupid it was that I hadn’t called them back all these months.

The house was different, too. It was still the childhood home I remembered, just in a state of wanton disarray. There were boxes everywhere, overflowing with various doohickies and errata.  The walls, which used to be covered in family pictures, were now bare. The only marks of my existence were the etchings on the architrave which tracked my height over the years. It was like this little Michigan town, which stayed silent to see me off to college, decided to suddenly lurch back into motion. I dropped my backpack on the floor and jumped onto the couch to give my parents a hug. We watched the rest of the ballet together.

But over the next few days, the sheen slowly wore off my arrival. Maybe it was because hugs alone do not fix years of resentment. Maybe it was because it was in my parents’ blood to kvetch about minuscule grievances. “Why didn’t you call us?” turned into “You should move back home!” turned into “Stop fidgeting, you look like a schizophrenic.” I started to remember why I moved halfway across the country to escape.

There were deeply-rooted issues with my family, and at the core was a tenet branded on our genes: the Robinsons did not talk about their problems. From our blurry origins somewhere in Metro Detroit, we were experts at sniping one another with passive-aggressive remarks. Even during moments of weakness, we never told the whole truth, just enough to emotionally wound our opponent. On Christmas Eve, I asked about the boxes in the living room. My father managed to redirect us into an argument about whether Joe Manchin was really a Democrat, with a couple of insults about my hair peppered in.

As a kid, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was adopted. They told me I was the spitting image of my dad. I countered that I was the only Robinson who refused to speak in fucking Wingdings. I should have remembered that the moment I stepped through the door, but the part of me that moved my body back to Michigan was the same part that just wanted to enjoy a pleasant Christmas with my family. And it was the same part that blinded me from the tensions about to boil over.

The cracks started to show on Christmas morning when my parents and I gathered in the kitchen to exchange gifts. It didn’t feel much like the stereotypical Christmas. There was no tree in the living room and the weather was dreary, drizzle pitter-pattering the roof. Since my surprise arrival, my parents had tidied the house as much as they could, which meant shoving cardboard boxes into cabinets and making me take out all the trash.

Their kitchen was absolutely microscopic. Aside from a marble island crammed into the center, it only had enough space for standard appliances. That’s why I was surprised to see a metal safe on the petite counter space adjacent to the oven. It was stout, like the safes you find in hotels, and it was hidden as though it could somehow blend in with the floral wallpaper. “What’s in the box?” I asked, pointing to the safe.

“What’s in yours?” My dad retorted, pointing at the presents I’d brought. The bag of gifts was a conciliatory gesture and contained two high-value objects that would hopefully improve my relationship with my parents. They weren’t uniquely materialistic, but even Marie Kondo’s affection has a price tag. For my dad, I got a baseball autographed by Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera. The Tigers were the only thing he loved more than Led Zeppelin and fiscal conservatism. It cost a cool hundred bucks, virtually all the spare cash I’d saved in November. Mother’s was a bit cheaper: a hardcover copy of Carabaos and Eagles, a Tagalog novel about identity from one of her favorite authors. I bought it from an underground socialist bookshop, and it was ludicrously expensive for an item in the bargain bin. Weren’t socialists supposed to be cheap?

My dad held a couple of boxes of his own, which had been hastily wrapped in newspaper. “We didn’t exactly expect you to come home this year, so we had to improvise,” my dad warned, attempting to temper my expectations. They’d never been great with gifts in the past, so my expectations needed little tempering.

We handed off gifts, and my dad opened his first. His eyes widened when he saw the signature. I even saw a surprised smile flicker over his face before his expression fell. He just gave me a withering look and spoke in a tone I couldn't pin down. "Will. I’m grateful, but... how much did this cost?"

To say I was a little taken aback would be an understatement. "Dad, come on. It's a gift."

He looked a little sad as he shook his head. "Son, I don't need this. You work so hard in New York." Yeah, thanks to you, I thought. "Keep some cash for yourself."

I gave him a distressed grimace. "Just take it." He nodded, and that was that... at least until my mom opened her gift.

“It’s a book.” My mother stated the obvious as she turned over the novel in her hands.

“Yes. It’s by Teresa Acevedo. You like her, right?”

“Mm,” she grunted, then went silent.

For whatever reason, that little noise sparked fury within me. “God damn,” I spat. “Do you not know how to say ‘thank you?’”

“Language,” my father warned.

Was I really going to have this conversation now? “You always do this. You change the conversation because you can’t stand–”

“Boys! Calm down,” my mother condescended, playing the part of the mediator. To her, the act of arguing was a much greater offense than whatever the argument was about. “Thank you for your gifts, Will.” My mom gave meaningful eye contact to her husband, and he mumbled out some meaningless gratitude. “Now, open yours!”

I duly obliged, not daring to make any more waves than I already had. Apparently the conversation would need to wait. I ripped the newspaper away from the first box and saw what amounted to a tiny rubber nub. "Uh, what is this?" I asked, thoroughly underwhelmed.

"It's a PopSocket!" my mom declared. "You fasten it to your phone, and then you can... hold it better, yes?" She looked at my father. "Right, Kenneth?"

"I don't know. It was your idea," my dad responded, still a little disgruntled from our almost-fight a minute earlier.

"Oh... cool. Thanks, guys." The other presents weren't much better (socks and some travel toothpaste), but I at least tried to act excited. I felt like a piece of shit for wanting something a little more... more. Was it because my parents only had a day and a half to buy stuff? Or were they still pissed about the whole "not talking to them for a couple of months" thing?

It came time to open the final box. It was the biggest, and thus I’d saved it for last. I unwrapped it and found… a CD set of Beethoven's Complete Works? I noticed the $5.99 sticker still on the packaging. “Um. Thanks,” I mumbled. They nodded to each other as though their gift-giving had been a success, but I just stared at the box. It wasn't just that they'd cheaped out, although I couldn’t help but acknowledge that as part of the reason. The gifts they’d given exposed that my parents didn't understand me as an individual in the slightest. Not only did I not own a CD player, but I hadn't listened to Beethoven since I was fourteen! I got them deeply personal gifts, and the best they could do was a fucking PopSocket? Did they really not know me at all? I would almost have preferred nothing to this. I didn't storm off. I just calmly gathered my gifts and calmly marched to my room, where I calmly took out my emotions on my pillow.

Over the following few days, my parents got the cold shoulder. Though I still came down for dinner, and still spoke when spoken to, and… okay, so maybe I didn’t give them the cold shoulder. Aside from the cardboard boxes which grew more numerous by the day, it felt like I was back in high school: angry enough to be angry, but not angry enough to show it. For someone who had lost friends over his laconic honesty, I was awfully quiet around my parents. 

You’re probably thinking, ‘Will. Your parents aren’t great, but why were you this enraged?’ And your implication would be an accurate one because I was behaving irrationally. But I was just so fed up with everything: their snide comments, the boxes in which they tried to place me, that I could feel myself slowly building to a breaking point. I had hoped cutting off contact would prompt quiet growth on their part, but all it did was let the wounds fester. It came to a boil on the twenty-eighth.

I was in my room after a particularly frigid supper. My mother tried to make conversation, but both my father and I were in sour moods. My childhood bedroom had changed quite a bit since I’d left it. As with the rest of the house, it was packed up in boxes. The books, which were the rooms most notable feature, were gone. What had nearly spilled out of the wall-to-wall bookshelves were scattered amongst cardboard and packing peanuts. It felt cold yet stifling, though part of that could be blamed on the thermostat which always sat at sixty degrees.

My phone started to ring. The caller ID said it was Stefano Narvaez: my boss at the bodega. I was confused. He usually just texted me minion memes. He never called me. Did he want me to take an extra shift or something? No, he wouldn’t do that, not when I was on break. Stefano was a nice enough guy (for a boss, at least), so whatever he wanted was probably innocent. I answered the phone. “Hey, Mr. Narvaez. How’s it going?”

“Hi, William. I’m doing… well. How are you?” His deep voice sounded tired and a little conflicted, a far cry from his normally jovial tone. I’d never heard him this way, and I became a little nervous.

“G-good, sir.”

“Good? Good. Will, I’d like to talk to you about your workplace conduct.”

“My conduct? I’ve always thought my conduct was exemplary, sir.” I had no idea where he was going with this.

“During work, yes,” he elaborated. “But I checked the CCTV footage and saw something which depressed me. While off-shift, you flipped off a cashier and took an item from the store without paying.”

Oh my god. “Ashton reported me?” That asshole.

“You’re missing the point. Look, Will. You’re a good employee, but this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated. It’s not just the stealing, either. You’ve been late–”

“I had class and the subway broke down!” The one time my boss was actually in the store, and I came in half an hour late.

“That’s not an excuse,” Mr. Narvaez chided. “You should have planned for that.”

“How?”

“Get a taxi?”

“A taxi?!” I screeched. “You pay us minimum wage. You think I can afford a fucking taxi?”

Mr. Narvaez tsk-ed me through the phone. “You’re being unprofessional, Will. I didn’t want to let you go, but you’re forcing my hand. When you return from Michigan, please don’t come back to work.” He hung up without saying goodbye. Fucking small businesses, man. They’d rather fire their best employee than lose five bucks.

I immediately realized that I could not afford to be unemployed. I was living paycheck to paycheck, and now I lacked the paycheck. There was a little nest egg saved up, but only enough to get me through next month’s rent. As I came to terms with that, I made a knee-jerk decision. Trust me, I wasn’t proud of what I did next.

My parents left me in the cold, monetarily. Their behavior was reprehensible, right? I deserved something from them, right? So, I decided to raid the safe. It wasn’t difficult. My mom was upstairs, while dad was in the living room watching TV. I waltzed into the kitchen and tried a few combinations. 0924 was the winner: my birthday. But the safe contained no money, just paper. Mortgages, tax returns, and receipts. Receipts for a realtor. I was so enraptured by the information I had found that I didn’t notice my dad walk in. “What the hell are you doing?” he bellowed.

I was shocked by his sudden appearance, but angrier about what I had just revealed. “Receipts for a realtor? You’re selling the house?” It would betray my characterization as a smart person to acknowledge that I’d never seen that as a possibility. I just didn’t want to believe it. I tried to convince myself the boxes had some other purpose. ‘Maybe they’re trying to declutter,’ I had thought. ‘If they’re moving, surely they’d tell me.’ I should have known better. In my father’s eyes, I saw rare remorse, which surprised me nearly as much as the news itself. Had he really wanted to tell me? He never wanted to tell me anything.

“We’re supposed to move out by the end of the year,” he divulged.

His expression provoked pity, but I was still incensed. Why couldn’t he just talk to me? “Oh, so the moment I moved out, you sold the home where I grew up? Without even telling me? Do you really hate me that much?”

My father looked and sounded broken, although he still spoke in his assertive, booming voice. “Will, we can’t afford the mortgage anymore.”

Emotional whiplash. “What?”

“I got laid off,” he announced weakly.

“When?” I implored.

“At the end of 2019.”

“Two years? You’ve been unemployed for two years?!”

“Not for lack of trying, trust me. There’s just not a lot of construction in Grand Rapids.”

“Where?” My speech had nearly regressed to the five W’s kids learn in kindergarten. “Where are you moving to?”

“We’re planning to stay with your grandparents in Detroit until we get back on our feet.”

“Oh my god.” Something suddenly struck me. “My entire life, I thought you guys were invincible. I followed everything you told me to do. Why the hell were you so strict when you can’t even manage your own finances?” My voice was loud and assertive. I was sure my mom knew we were fighting but chose to stay out of it.

My dad paused for a second, shocked by the sudden change in topic. “Will, you know early childhood is a very crucial period of development. We just wanted to set you up for success. That’s why your mom spoke exclusively Filipino around you, that’s why we made you take piano lessons, that’s why we made you do all your work on time. You’re incredibly smart, and we didn’t want you wasting those talents.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” I retorted.

Anger underlaid his tone. “And how would you prefer me to look at it, Will?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You had a baby in college. That baby made you drop out, made you hit pause on your life for a couple of decades. So why not live vicariously through him? Why not make him everything you couldn’t be?”

My father stood up from the couch and moved towards me, eyes blazing. “You know that’s not–” In a millisecond, he froze in place and cleared his throat. His face softened slightly. “You didn’t make me drop out, Will. I could have stayed in college and broken up with your mother, but I wanted my son to have a father. I wanted him to have everything he needed to thrive. You think our parenting methods refused you the chance to be yourself. And for that, we’re sorry, because that was never our intention.

“I think… I think we did want certain things out of you. Growing up, we wanted you to be a success. For me, that meant being a doctor. Seeing you want to be a history teacher? We feel a little let down.” I was going to interrupt with a callous remark, but then he said something that surprised me: “But that’s our problem. I used to tell myself that we were strict not for the sake of it, but because we wanted you to have all the tools necessary to succeed. I think we may have forgotten that. If this is what you really want to do with your life, then we will begrudgingly accept it. But don’t expect us not to complain.”

I nodded. What they said made sense, but… “This whole time, I thought the reason you weren’t supporting me monetarily was that you didn’t like that I left home.”

“No, that wasn’t–” my dad’s expression shifted as though he’d just admitted something to himself. “Fine. I’ll admit that was part of it. We were angry at you for ‘following your heart over your head,’ as your grandfather Luis would say. I still think it was a dumb decision to go to college in New York. But no, the main reason was that we did not have the money.”

“But you said–”

“We said that New York was expensive and that the benefits of attending college there didn’t outweigh the rent.”

I huffed. “Why didn’t you tell me that we couldn’t afford it?”

“I mean, we tried, but–” He shrank at my critical gaze. “We didn’t want you to limit yourself. We always told you ‘you could do anything you put your mind to,’ so not letting you go to New York would have been a betrayal.”

I shook my head. “With all due respect, that’s pretty stupid. I had to take out loans. I had to work twenty hours a week on top of all my classes, for a job that didn’t give a damn about me. I still have to ‘limit myself,’ I just get to do it in New York.”

My father nodded. “Maybe it was stupid,” he acknowledged. “I just didn’t want to admit our failure as parents.”

“What failure? That your job decided you didn’t matter anymore? It’s not your fault, but you really shouldn’t have hidden this stuff from me. I’m not a child. I’m an adult who needs transparency and honesty. Your refusal to give me that has always pissed me off.” I finally mentioned the elephant in the room.

“Okay. You’re right. You deserve honesty, and… I’m sorry.” He choked out the apology, but it somehow still felt genuine.

“And next time you move, tell me. Please,” I begged.

“We will, Will,” my father said. “We will.”