And so I built a city.

On my tenth birthday in 1987, my father bought me Lego Town Land and Friends ®. It was a gift just from him. He drove up to our front door in the early evening because he had been staying at the Holly Springs Motel on Sarah Street since the end of summer. He wouldn't ring the doorbell but honked and flung the passenger side door open. Mom sighed, her dark eyes rolled upward, the gray bags beneath them sagging further with her wincing expression, and said monotone, Your father's here.

I got in his car, a two door coup brown beast, two decades out of style with a back bumper fastened with navy and orange bungee cords and a dent in the side near the back end that looked to be from a heavy boot or a man's head. It smelled of cigarettes, Winston Full Flavor 100s, the kind dad smoked, half-eaten fast-food hamburgers left in bags, dirty clothes with no smell, dad's tools covered in grease. A pine-scented air freshener tried to mask the odor; an empty pint of vodka was thrown on top of the garbage in the back seat. "Ticket To Ride" played low on the radio, barely pumping through a whimper. I used to like that song. He kept the car running, the vinyl seat vibrated my thighs with the engine's churning and hot air blew from the dashboard vents into my right ear.

Dad's hair looked darker, like he had dyed it richer brown, a deeper black. His beard was gone and his chin was weak, receding, making his front teeth stick more forward and his lower teeth stick farther back. His eyes still steel grey but soft. Springs on a mattress, a warm sweatshirt I wore every fall. Maybe he had been crying but I couldn’t tell.

"I want you to know that I love you. And I want you to have a good birthday today."

...

"Here son. This is yours. Just from me to you."

Before he could reach his arms around me, I evaded him. Ducked under his flannel-covered limbs and ran toward our front door, gift under arm, back to the incandescent-lit warmth, the catalog-like order of our furniture, matching plaid, the chair dad used to sit in recovered in a new pattern of cream-colored background with rosy cherry blossoms.

I raced to my room, slammed the door and barricaded it with my books and a small dresser that sat next to my bed. I muffled the sounds of my mother's coercions to come out and opened dad's gift. Every year after I asked for Legos, though that was the only set dad would give me. I built everything the same as the world only better. Everything bright, everything in color, everything clear and smooth and sharp. The tiny symmetrical blocks of red blue yellow orange green purple black and brown lit the room, formed towers in the darkness.