“Dad,” I said, finally, as we got to the front steps.
He turned and saw me first. Put on his Father Face. (It never quite fit.) Then he looked next to me and flashed some genuine surprise.
“Oh,” he said.
“Yeah,” my mom replied. “Oh.”
We stood there clucking for a minute, pleasantries without any feeling of pleasantness. Mom asked after Dad’s new-but-not-that-new wife. Dad asked after Mom’s new-but-not-that-new husband. It felt surreal—the names didn’t match the voices that usually said them. I was at a loss—and the loss was one I had grown up with. It was not something I wanted to get any closer to.
The present that Dad was holding was wrapped—maybe by the wife, maybe by the shop. Whatever the case, it showed more care than I’d received in years. I got checks—when I got anything at all. She always signed the birthday cards for him.
Even before Lily answered the door, Mom and Dad started to peck at each other—Dad saying, “I didn’t know you were going to be here,” and Mom saying, “Why wouldn’t I be here?”—until I pecked at both of them to be quiet. I knew Lily’s whole family would be here, and the last thing I wanted was for them to see how rocky the surface of my gene pool was.
Lily opened the door and I had to remind myself: She had no idea she had no idea she had no idea. So I didn’t scream. I just said, “Guess who I ran into?”
A different girlfriend would have answered my sarcastic salvo with one of her own. Krampus? Lily might have said. Or Scrooge. Or Judah Frickin’ Maccabee. But that wasn’t what Lily was going to answer. Instead, she asked, “Can I take your coats?” Only, none of us were wearing coats.
Instead of answering, my father held out his present. “For you, my dear,” he said to Lily.
“I would have brought something,” my mother quickly interjected, “but Dash told me it wasn’t that kind of party.”
My father laughed. “Typical!” he said to Lily, as if she knew as well as he how bad I was at figuring out what kind of party a party was.
“It really isn’t that kind of a party,” Lily said. “But thank you anyway.”
And my father, true to form, said, “Well, if it’s not that kind of party, I can always take the present back.” He lunged to take it from her, and then pulled away, laughing again. “God, it was just a joke, people,” he said once he realized he was the only one laughing.
“I’ll put this in my room,” Lily said. I understood from the way she said it that I was meant to follow. But there was no way I could leave my mom alone.
“We’ll go in and meet everyone,” I said.
“Oh. Okay. I’ll be right in.”
In most situations involving stress and strife, the last person you’d want to add into the mix is an ex. But in this case, when I walked into the living room and saw Sofia, all I felt was gratitude. She and my mother had always gotten along well.
“Come say hi to Sofia,” I said, leading my mother over. “I told you she came back from Barcelona, right? Why don’t you ask her if that cathedral is finished yet?”
“So good to see you!” Sofia’s smile was wide, and her eyes were reading my SOS. “I don’t really know anyone else here—Boomer’s late, and Lily’s been running around getting everything together. It’s great to see a familiar face.”
My mother smiled back. “You have no idea.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said. Because there was still the bomb-disposal task of managing my father.
He was starting to talk to Langston, and I didn’t have to hear what he was saying to know that every word out of his mouth was confirming Langston’s worst view of my lineage.
“…no reason to look so smug. I have every reason to be here. I was invited, for Christ’s sake.”
“I’m sure Lily invited you, sir,” Langston replied. “But I don’t think she did it for Christ.”
This flustered my father for a moment, and Langston used this pause to say “I have to go see a man about a reindeer” and bolt to another room. My father immediately started scouring the room for his next conversational hostage.
“Dad,” I said. “Over here.”
I knew that if there was anyone in this room who could handle my jackass father, it was Mrs. Basil E. I wouldn’t need to say a word of explanation to her—from her perch on Lily’s sofa, she would have already taken in the situation with a knowledge approaching omniscience. I knew she didn’t suffer fools gladly, but she’d gladly make a fool suffer.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” I told my dad. “This is Lily’s aunt.”
My father eyed her, and paid her little more mind than he would an old lady trying to cross the street. He was prepared to walk right past.
“So,” Mrs. Basil E. said, eyeing him with both curiosity and a desire to kill a cat, “you’re this rapscallion’s father?”
My father straightened up a little at that. “Guilty as charged. Or at least that’s the story his mother told me.”
“Oh—and you’re rakish as well! I’ve often found it helpful to have a shovel around when you’re dealing with a rake.”