My timing had to be perfect.

You see, my folks as much as they loved me - god bless their hearts - were deviant in many ways. Like in the animal kingdom, they could sense predators from miles away. If my folks felt my interrogation was invasive, they'd rescind to the safety of their shell of silence.

I sat in the car - blinkers on which illuminated our driveway like flickering Christmas lights. I had to come with a plan to reel my folks in. They couldn't know they were being questioned.

By the time I walked into our kitchen, dad had already chopped and peeled the veggies. Upon seeing me, he grabbed the netted grocery bag from my hand and toss them on the counter. His eyes furrowed when he saw the price tag on the wine bottle but decided to remain silent.

Mom too had returned from the saloon.

I fetched the wine bottle, plopped off the cork with a satisfactory thirst gulp from the bottle. Serving it, I swirled and sniffed the crimson liquid that danced inside the long-stemmed glass.

Mom's eyes were pressed shut as she leaned near the granite counter. Her left hand ran over her temples, un-creasing her forehead stress lines. Her right hand ran finger-comb through her curls, untangling any rogue knot which may have formed in the day.

She took a chair at the dinner table, her legs plopped onto the adjacent chair. Mom's job required her to be standing for hours together. Having crossed the age of fifty, it was not only strenuous but also troublesome for her.

"Mom," I called out, lending her a glass of wine.

"Thanks, sweetheart," she said, sighing deeply before taking the glass off my hand and sipping a long, relishing slurp. Her eyes widened, gazing at the glass and its content before shifting over to me. "This is really good."

Her seal of approval was all it took for me to walk back and pour her a generous serving while dad and I conducted our experiment in the kitchen.

Sitting near the stove, I refilled dad's almost empty glass too. I had half the mind to fetch another wine glass and serve myself. After all, the pairing of Italian food with wine was only divine, to begin with.

But I had to steer clear of the temptation.

If my plan was to go without a hitch, then I needed to stay focused. That meant I wouldn't be sipping any remnant from anyone's glass.

I plugged the cork back into the nearly empty bottle of wine and set it aside.

Some other day, my old friend.

Dad was a genius behind the stove. He already had the pasta boiled and drained before running it under cold water - a tip I told him whenever he whined about overcooking it.

A tangy burst of cooked cherry tomato and boxed Italian tomato paste made for a rich spicy Arrabiata sauce onto which the pasta was dumped, only to enliven them. With the Basil leaves stirred into the pot, dinner was done.

The kitchen was filled with a warm, mouthwatering aroma of flavors, married together in a pot.

It reminded me of the times at the restaurant. From the boastful searing of meat to the shy swirling of sugary concoction or the fiery tossing for caramelized veggies - everything came together to produce a symphony of smell, a treat for the olfactory glands.

At the dinner table, we followed our routine.

Dad said a silent prayer, mom bowed her head and I peeked around to see how long would it last. When dad drew a cross across his chest, I shut my eyelids and faked a prayer in parallel.

I wasn't an atheist. I did believe in a higher power - a power beyond the realms of human imagination and interpretation.

That power didn't walk on water or turn water into wine. It didn't hide his wife in plain sight - thank you Da Vinci Code for that. Nor did it sacrifice its precious life to absolve every one of their sins.

That power which I believed in didn't define us as good or bad, pretty or ugly. It just made us neutral at birth and tossed situations at us as we lives. What we decided to do with those situations defined us.

That power gave us a chance to be either good or bad. It made us choose what we wanted to be.

And today, as I swirled my fork into pieces of penne pasta, I choose to wrap my head around the day that ensued between my folks and the man I love.

Dad took his first bite and hummed to himself, words of appreciation. Mom soon followed the trail, patting his unused left hand on the table and giving it a tight squeeze.

Beneath all my smile, a storm brewed. It was ready to toss the whole place upside down, ready to pierce and plunge through things and hearts just to discover the truth. To know the answers.

Once both George and Helen Matthew were down with three glasses of wine, and halfway through the meals, the dams of my self-control burst open.

"Hey guys," I smeared the pale-green basil leaf over the red richness of the sauce on my plate. "I met Sasha today. She was saying something... I don't know how to say this. And I didn't want to trust her with..."

The plan was on.

I played my words onto them and their alcohol-induced happy state. My confession, letting them know, I didn't trust Sasha with some information and wanted confirmation.

Sentiment - it had a deeper impact than I ever gave it credit for. Today, that same uncredited emotion became my trump card.

"What is it, sweetheart?" Dad asked, chewing up the last piece of his dinner before sliding back comfortably on his chair, his wine glass topped with a fourth serving.

"Oh, you know." My shoulder rose and dipped. "Something about Philip. That he came to visit you."

The guilt in their eyes widened, darkening with every passing moment. Hanging his head, dad sighed into his chest. It was then when I decided to smear in more guilt.

"But I know Sasha's lying. I mean, after all, I broke up with her brother-in-law and she is trying to guilt-trip me. Philip never came to meet you." I chuckled, two planned huffs of air. "I know you guys would've told me if he did indeed. Isn't it?"

The iron was hot and I struck a blow with my wordily hammer before plunging it into the guilty cold water of shame and regret.

"Sweetheart," Mom called, straightening her back.

She and dad held their hands on top of the table like before. But this hold was different. This wasn't the appreciative, loving hand-holding. This hold was reading them for the impending storm. They were prepared to face it together.

"Daisy, Philip did come to meet us," dad said, turning his face towards mom, who lent him a softer nod. "It was almost a month back and you were in L.A. He drove overnight to meet John. Philip wanted their advice on something. And in the morning, he came to meet us."

I was already privy to all this. What I wanted for them was to get sooner to the unaddressed topic, yet I couldn't rush them. It would spoil everything.

But I did nudge them. "And?"

Mom took over, partaking dad's burden. "He was getting into surgery for his vision but that was not what he wanted to talk to us about."

Her head hung low, the weight of hurt and sadness pushing her towards the table. When she pulled her face up, I could see shame swirling in her eyes. Her lower jaw struggled to remain shut. Every time she tried to talk, her brimmed eyes spewed a fresh supply of tears.

"He wanted our blessings for asking-" Her sobs followed her words. The dinner table, even with the brightly lit chandelier overhead, felt darker.

"Asking what?" I gritted my teeth together, tasting the powered substance in my mouth. "Tell me."

"Asking for your hand in marriage," dad said, letting loose of mother's hand for her to palm her face, muffle her sobs.

Words had a higher impact on me.

Philip wanted to marry me. He wanted to propose and I, the brilliant problem-creator, decided to toss him away, thinking he was lying. I broke us up.

"Philip came to meet us." Dad cleared his throat, gulping the last drop of his drink from the glass. The last of his liquid courage. "He was telling us about the surgery. At some point, we were scared, Daisy. He told us about the complications, about how John had advised him to tell you about it. He wanted you to be beside him when he recovered but-"

Dad waved his hand in the air.

The air around me felt warmer. Maybe, it was the effect of the bright light or my body radiating heat upon hearing their confession.

"But what?" I asked, breathing as normally as I could.

"But we suggested him to do it some other way." Mom took back the center stage. Overhead light focused on her reddened nose and puffy eyes. A few rogue strands of hair fell on her face. "We told him to talk to his parents if John couldn't be beside him after his surgery. Or to talk to his friends if they were available-"

"He doesn't have friends, mom," I roared, thrusting my hands on the table, breaking the sound barrier. The neighbor's dog seemed to have been hurt with my echo. The silence of the night crashed with his barking. "He doesn't have many friends after the incident."

Right on cue, Philip's image from the day he confessed his love and the day I walked out on him, unwilling to hear his confession, all danced up. My heart - that organ which didn't believe Philip would ever hurt me, taunted my more logical side - my mind. It mocked me for walking out on him without giving him a chance to explain.

Philip was the first man I loved and the last I wanted to. Everyone in-between was merely transitional. Philip was the constant in a sea of uncertainty. He was my constant. My north star.

I tossed him away for a lie. A lie that he never even wanted to state.

"Why did you do it? I asked, squaring each of their faces.

Their betrayal cost me my Philip.

Yet, I couldn't blame them completely.

Had I stayed strong, if I'd have tried listening to Philip or probed him further, he would have confessed. Even when I was breaking his heart, thinking he broke mine, Philip was protecting me.

He was securing me from the lies he was forced to say. Saving me from the knowledge about what my folks made him do. Philip wielded all my blame and let us wither away than make me hate my folks.

"Sweetheart," dad cooed, wiping away the shame named sweat beads from his face into his non-existent hairline. "We did it for you. We thought if the surgery didn't go well, you'd suffer more. You would hope for its success but crumble if it failed. We thought-"

"You didn't think, dad..." I placed a hand to my chest, rubbing the rock that wasn't allowing me to breathe. "You decided for me. You sealed my fate when you thought what you did was right. But you were wrong, dad. You were wrong, mom."

"Sweetheart." Mom lent her hand for me to take, her head refusing to pull up.

I denied her the comfort.

My chest radiated pain into my throat. A prickly pain that made my voice hoarse and my eyes flood.

"You see," I began. "Had Philip told me, I would have stayed with him. I would have been his constant support, come what may. What you don't understand was my decision. I made peace with the fact that he wouldn't ever see me again. I was fine with it. If after the surgery he was able to see, I would be elated but if he couldn't, things would still be the same."

Warm tears dripped down my face and chin. My napkin was half drenched and half knotted since the beginning of this conversation. But my resolve to speak was ironclad.

"You took away my right to decide. You thought I'd fall into some deep, dark void if he wouldn't regain his sight but you were wrong..." Sniffing my nose on my sleeve, I fell back on my chair. "Dad, you underestimated your daughter. I'm stronger than you give credit for. I'd have-"

I was cut off with their tears and sobs. Mom's was prickly, loud, and shrill. Dad's were muffled, lowered tone, and suppressed.

I felt as if he was holding back more things than he led on.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," in-between sobs, he narrated his confession. His repentance. "You're right. You're strong but we are still your parents. Not letting you have even an ounce of pain was our top priority. So we did what we thought was right."

"We didn't think you are weak, sweetheart." Mom patted her face and drank water, holding it in her mouth. "We were the weak ones. In the name of protecting you from any pain, we ended up hurting you more. We screwed up what was clearly the best thing that happened to you."

Dad and mom held back each other's hands again. She leaned over his shoulder and he patted her heaving back. They were suffering in their own way - knowing they were the reason Philip and I weren't together.

Timing - the funny thing that it was.

I couldn't rewind it to ease them into their suffering. Hell, if I could, I would have rewound it to the day I broke up with Philip. I would have travelled back in time and held Philip in my embrace, making up for not being by his side when he wanted me to. For all that happened and all, I put him through.

The one direction in which life and time flowed, only one thing could be done.

Move along.

I walked back to my folks, rubbing their backs. They slowly looked up at me.

"You guys did what you thought was best for me. Nobody is blaming you," I said, falling on my knees and resting my head on mom's lap.

Dad's hand ran over my head, patting me back to calmness.

I leaned in more, absorbing their love and affection. Their tender hold and over-amplified worries.

Mom used to say something to me as a child - "You would know when you'd become a mother yourself."

I didn't have to bear a child to understand their concern for me. Their love for me.

I guess, part of growing up also involved forgiving people who wronged you.

In my parents' case, they never did anything to hurt me. Their love made them do what they thought was necessary. After all, love made people do stupid things. Including myself.

Needless to say, I forgave them.

~

That was intense.

Ever faced something where your folks got involved in things they shouldn't have?

Let me know ;)