Coming home to find Dad has grown old

When she got home, her father was asleep in the hammock, the TV still playing to an empty room. She almost woke him to go out for coffee, the way they used to when she was in school. Then she stopped. The hair at his temples had gone almost completely grey.

He never used to nap this long. She works far away and only makes it home every few months, so each visit he looks a little different, and each time it catches her off guard. But he didn't age in a day. He aged every day, steadily. She just wasn't there for those days. She picked up the bamboo fan, sat down beside the hammock, and fanned him while he slept.

She couldn't remember the last time she had really looked at him. In her head he was still the man who carried her on his shoulders at the fair and pedalled her to school every morning. The man in the hammock breathed slowly, with lines on his face she had never noticed. He had been getting older for years. Today was just the first time she looked.

He woke up, saw her sitting there, and smiled: "When did you get in? Why didn't you wake me?" She said he looked like he was sleeping so well. Really, she had been staring at his grey hair and couldn't find a single word. In the end she only said, softly, "Let me take you for a haircut tomorrow, Dad."

Dad doesn't need to hear I love him. He needs me to come home more.

She never said what she had just realised. She just decided to come home more often. When did you last really look at your parents?