The Worst Dad Jokes

The Story

Maya was twelve years old when she decided that her father was the most embarrassing man in the United States of America. He was a middle-school librarian who pronounced library lie-berry on purpose. He wore Crocs to public spaces. He owned a polo shirt that said WORLD'S #1 DAD ironically and unironically at the same time. And every single morning, while making her grilled-cheese-for-breakfast and her chocolate milk, he told the worst jokes in the world. I tried to start a hot-air balloon company. It never took off. Did you hear about the man who lost his left hand. He's all right now. And his very worst — the one he told her every single morning for the entire fall of sixth grade — I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down. Maya rolled her eyes so hard her father said, one of these days you're going to lose them in the back of your head. Maya screamed DAAAD the way only a twelve-year-old daughter can scream DAAAD. He laughed. And every morning, when she walked to the front door to catch the bus, he held her small hand for one beat too long, and he squeezed it twice. That was his code. Two squeezes. He had been doing it since she was four. He had never told her what it meant. She had stopped asking when she was nine.

In the spring of seventh grade, Maya's father took her to the mall to buy back-to-school clothes. They had agreed beforehand that he would not, under any circumstances, talk to anyone they passed. He could not be trusted. Maya had three rules. One — walk five feet ahead of him. Two — do not make eye contact with him in public. Three — if Liam Henderson, the boy from her math class, was at the food court, her father would pretend he was on the phone and would, under no circumstances, speak. Liam Henderson was at the food court. Maya saw him from across the room. Maya's father saw him from across the room. Maya's father walked up to the table where Liam Henderson was sitting with his friends, and he said, in a voice loud enough for three adjacent tables to hear — are you the famous Liam I have heard so much about. My name is Joe. I am Maya's father. Maya is the world's most embarrassing daughter. My wife told me she would leave if I made one more pun. Then I shrugged. She left. Liam Henderson laughed. The friends laughed. Maya turned around and walked into a kiosk. She did not speak to her father for the entire car ride home.

On Maya's thirteenth birthday, her father baked her a chocolate cake. It said HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAYA on top in white frosting. Underneath, in smaller letters, also in white frosting, it said — SHE IS THIRTEEN AND SO IS HER PATIENCE. Maya's seven friends laughed. Maya did not laugh. Then her father stood at the head of the dining-room table and he said, before we eat the cake, I want to tell my daughter one thing. He cleared his throat. The seven friends went silent. He said, Maya. I love you very much. And the very last thing I will ever do for you in this life is embarrass you in front of your friends one more time. He paused. He smiled. He said, in a voice carefully tuned to the timing of a stand-up comedian — Maya. I just bought a thesaurus, but when I opened it, all the pages were blank. I have no words. The seven friends collapsed in laughter. Maya put her face into her hands. He laughed. He kissed the top of her head. He squeezed her shoulder twice. She did not know, then, that he had been timing all of this. The bad jokes. The embarrassments. The squeezing. He had been timing it since she was four. He was making sure that one day, when she could no longer hear him, she would be the one telling the jokes.

Fourteen years later, on a Tuesday in October, Maya sat beside her father in a hospice room. She was twenty-seven. He was sixty-eight. He had been a middle-school librarian for thirty-one years and he had told the worst jokes in the world for every single one of them. The cancer had taken his words two weeks before. He could see her. He could hear her. He could blink at her. He could not speak. The radio in the corner of the room played soft afternoon classical music. The hospice nurse came in to refill the water cup and she left again. Maya held her father's right hand in both of hers. His hand was thinner than she remembered. The nail beds were pale. The wedding band he had worn for twenty-six years — a thin gold band; her mother's, kept after the divorce — was loose on his finger now. Maya looked at her father. She did not know what to say. She had spent the last three weeks rehearsing the things she wanted to tell him before he left, and now that the moment had come, every word she had practiced had walked out of her mouth and out the door. So she did the only thing she could think to do. She told him the worst joke he had ever told her.

She said, Dad. I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. She paused. She felt the air get very still in the hospice room. He blinked at her. He blinked once, slowly. Then she said, the rest of the line, in his voice, in his timing — it's impossible to put down. The corner of her father's mouth lifted. Just a small fraction. Just enough. And then he squeezed her hand. He squeezed it twice. Maya felt every cell in her body remember what it had not known how to remember for twenty-three years. Two squeezes. The code. The thing he had been telling her since she was four. Since the morning her mother had gotten in the car. Since every breakfast he had made her. Since every embarrassment he had committed at every food court in the state. Two squeezes. I love you. He had been telling her every single day. She had finally heard it. She held his hand. She did not let go for a long time. He blinked at her once, more, slowly, and then he was gone. The hospice nurse came in. Maya could not speak. Maya could not stand. She held the hand of a man who had spent twenty-three years saying I love you in code, and she said, into his still hand, in the gentlest voice she had ever used, two squeezes. Two squeezes. Two squeezes.

Maya walked out of the hospice room. She walked down the hallway. She got into the elevator. There was a man already in the elevator — he was about thirty, in a navy work jacket, holding a brown paper bag. He looked at Maya. He saw her face. He looked away politely. Maya pressed the lobby button. The doors closed. The elevator began to descend. And Maya, for reasons she could not explain to herself, turned to the man in the navy jacket, and she said, in a perfectly steady voice, I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. The man looked at her. He waited. Maya said, it's impossible to put down. The man laughed. He laughed honestly, the way a tired stranger laughs at a small kindness. Maya laughed. Maya cried. Maya laughed and cried at the same time. The doors of the elevator opened. The man stepped out. He paused. He turned back to her, and he said, I'm sorry for whoever you just lost. That was a really, really good joke. Maya nodded. She walked out of the elevator. She walked out of the hospital. And on the drive home, she practiced telling the joke again. She would tell it to her own daughter, someday. At her own daughter's birthday party. The bad jokes were the inheritance. The embarrassments were the love. The squeezing was the language. Two squeezes. I love you. She kept driving.