Syncretism

"My father does not believe in God or therapists- instead, he pedals his bike past Brighton Beach to the Coney Island Y to swim his fifty laps. Once, I went with him and watched as he emerged from the locker room in faded swim trunks moving slowly to the edge of the pool. He paused, lifting his hands over the gray halo on his chest, pressing his palms together in a gesture I know he learned as a boy."

"My father's eyes: devout with a darkness he keeps buried deep inside where it glows hell-hot as the ember from the cigarillo his father-a womanizer, drunk, half-asleep-dropped on the sheets setting the bed ablaze, and even though extinguished kept smoldering invisibly inside the mattress springs, reigniting, sending the house up in smoke a second time. So my father's anger burns, a blood-wicked flame scorching through the softest parts of his interior until it rages through the house, blackening the rooms again."

A father who disbelieves in God or therapists bikes past Brighton Beach to the Coney Island Y to swim fifty laps. A son accompanies him and watches him emerge in faded swim trunks, pause, and press his palms together in a boyhood gesture over a gray halo on his chest. The father's eyes are devout yet contain a buried darkness that glows like an ember from his own father's roughness, which repeatedly ignited the house metaphorically. The father's anger burns through his interior, blackening rooms. The son tries to learn forgiveness as he watches the father dive and the ripples reach him.

Read at The Atlantic