We're not a father and son who talk. Not directly. Put us at a table with nothing to do and we'll run out of words in about four minutes and reach for our phones.
But hand us a leaking tap. A scooter that won't start. A door that's jammed shut. And something opens up. We'll spend an hour crouched next to each other, passing tools, grunting the occasional "hold that" or "try it now," barely stringing together a full sentence — and that's it. That's the closest I ever feel to my father. Shoulder to shoulder over something broken.
The talking isn't the point. The fixing is the language. All the stuff we can't say straight out somehow moves between us through a wrench and a shared problem.
Which leaves me with this strange, quiet fear. One day everything in the house is going to work. The taps won't leak, the scooter will start first try, every door will swing clean. And on that day I don't know how we'll reach each other. A house where nothing's broken might be the loneliest place I know.