There is something beautiful in the monotony of weekday mornings. It is 6:30 AM and the sun has just barely come up. The streets outside are quiet. There is a man who lives alone in his apartment and he sits with the silence every day. The coffee is stale and strong. It’s bitter. The cereal is crumbly and the milk is slightly sour. He looks at the paper and doesn’t read a word of it and he listens to the weather channel on the radio. He shrugs on a blazer that doesn’t sit quite right on his shoulders. He curses when his hair doesn’t comb over like it should.

On this particular Tuesday morning, his mother calls. The ringtone breaks the illusion of quiet stillness in the air. She hasn’t called in three weeks. When her son picks up, he finds her voice to be impassive but not disdainful.

“Harry, your father is coming to see you today.” No question, just a statement. There is no world in which he can dispute his mother’s wishes.

“Okay,” he replies, tone equally neutral. Nothing more to say. He hangs up and the emptiness of his home envelops him again.

Harry isn’t exactly distressed about his father coming to visit, though something akin to anxiety stirs in his gut. They haven’t spoken in a while, purely out of circumstance as opposed to any sort of strong animosity. Schedules didn’t line up. Plane tickets are expensive. Not to say that much has happened to warrant a trip. What is there to talk about, really?

He drives his silver Toyota to his nine-to-five office job as a receptionist and forgets his parents by organizing papers by date. Harry likes his job, for the most part. It pays decently well and it’s not overly rigorous. If he has ever had elementary aspirations for something bigger than where he is now, they have been whittled away by time and reality. His coworkers are kind to him. Becky asks him about his weekends and evenings, even when she knows Harry has no plans besides laundry and dinner. Rose brings him cookies on occasion. Josh invites him to every single party he hears of despite knowing the negative answer beforehand. Harry feels something like affection for them.

They know nothing about his character, soul, or motivations, and he would truly rather keep it that way. If he is lonely, no one will ever be aware.

Harry meets dozens of new people every day and he can’t help but want to know each one just a little bit. Even if he can never bring himself to be known, he still longs to understand the complex hearts of others. The old woman with a scar high on her cheekbone. The young man with a shaky, personal tattoo. Stories of people. People soothe the ache deep in his bones that only sleep and alcohol can fix.

When he leaves work, he doesn’t feel anything but stiffness and hunger. No excitement at the prospect of seeing his dad. No sadness at not being invited out tonight. Nothing. Nothing but the most basic human discomforts.

Harry sits on his couch and loosens his tie. He puts a football game on the TV and watches for an hour straight until his father knocks at the door. It is, admittedly, a bit jarring to find the man he hasn’t seen in months standing in his doorway holding a small stack of high school yearbooks.

“Harry.” The greeting is accompanied by the slightest of head nods.

“Dad,” Harry responds. “Welcome in. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?”

“No thank you, I won’t be long at all. I just felt it was right to give you these.” He hands Harry the books. Four years worth of memories that Harry can hardly remember. He flips through them, landing on his freshman year school picture. He almost feels as though tears are pressing behind his eyes as he looks down at the image of him with a bright smile and mussed hair. If it wasn’t absurdly ridiculous to cry in front of his father, he might have let the droplets run down his skin.

“Thanks, these are fun to look at.” The pictures are cute and Harry can almost feel a smile peeking at his lips.

“You were a weird kid, weren’t you.” The smirk falls off Harry’s face. Why are his eyes hot again? Little Harry looked so innocent, so unassuming, but it pains him to say that he was, in fact, quite eccentric. His stories were overexaggerated. His voice was too high, especially when he was excited. He hugged people so tightly it hurt.

“Sure, I guess.” Harry rubs the back of his neck. “The start of high school was pretty hard on me, remember?” His father tilts his head incredulously and lets out a soft chuckle.

“Nah, you were doing just fine. You were top of your class and captain of the basketball team.” Indeed he was. Hours after school were spent hunched over math problems that he was so close to understanding but not quite good enough at. Weekend practices with boys who laughed at him ended in scraped knees and jammed fingers. His dad can remember points on the scoreboard and numbers in the gradebook but not the loneliness or the breakdowns late at night.

“Right, I just mean that I had some trouble making friends.” Harry pauses, debating whether to say this next part. “I didn’t have a lot of time to hang out with people because you and mom were always dragging me to different activities.” His father rolls his eyes and lets out a loud sigh.

“Are you seriously complaining about me giving you a good education and extracurriculars to put on your resume? You probably wouldn’t even be friends with anyone from back then now. I don’t remember anyone I was close with in grade school.” He sounds irritated, ready to leave. This brief visit with his son has already been too much. “Just be grateful. It’s nice to have those memories now, isn’t it?”

Harry still clings to the idea of his father seeing something special in him. Seeing a son instead of something to control. So, in order to protect his hopes and his pride, he nods in agreement, ending the conversation.

His dad’s embrace is cold, mechanical. It is the best thing he’s ever been given and the least a father should do.

When Harry is left alone in his apartment at last, the walls feel much taller and emptier and the only sound is his choked-up breathing.