"No." Dad shakes his head, and there's no argument in it. "I hear you, I do. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong, because you're not. Not entirely. Love like that comes with a debt. I knew it when I was in it, and I'd choose it again a hundred times over, but I knew."
He taps the table once, looking for the right words.
"What I'll say is this. The thing you're describing, the good life, the solid foundation, the woman you respect and choose on purpose. You're not going to build it with someone you only like. Because when it gets hard, and it does get hard, like won't be enough to hold you there."
He picks up his fork, resigned. "But I understand what you're afraid of. I'm not going to pretend I don't."
I nod, not able to meet his eyes.
"Your mother would've had opinions," he says after a while. "Very loud ones. She'd have told you all of this was nonsense and then cried on the porch."
I laugh. "She sure was a crier."
"Happy tears and sad tears. The woman was a full weather system."
We've gotten better at talking about her. It took a fewyears, but we got there. The grief still sits here, though, the third person at the table, always has a seat.
Dad reaches over and refills my water glass without asking, which is such a specific, automatic thing. Eleven years of missing half of himself, and he still remembers to be here for me.
We move on, the way we always do. Dad tells me about the piece of walnut he's been working on, a commission for a couple in the next town over, something about getting the joinery right on a corner that's been giving him trouble. I listen, ask the right questions.
I think about the drive last night and the fogged-up windows and a single song I put on repeat after it was over. And I had kissed her. Again and again and still it hadn't been enough.
I stare at the table, my vision flooding with flash after flash of her on top of me, eyes bright even in the dim light. My brain keeps focusing on her mouth, over and over, glistening and bruised. Because of me.
"You're far away."
He pulls me back so abruptly I have to blink a few times to focus.
"I'm here."
"Where did you go just now?"
I press my thumb into the edge of the table and stare at the grain of the wood. I don't know why, but the thoughts are growing too thick for me to carry alone.
"I kissed Lily."
Yeah, he didn't expect that. He lowers his glass to the table very slowly.
"Moreland," I add, in case there's any confusion. As ifthere could be. As if there's any other Lily in this town, in this house, in the entire radius of my life.
"I know which Lily."
"Right."
Then Dad laughs. I sit there as he presses both hands on the table and laughs until it spills out around the edges. I wait it out, but it doesn't take long for it to start grating on my nerves.
"You can be such an asshole, Dad. You know that?"
He holds up a hand, as if to tell me he's sorry, while still laughing.
"You done yet?"
He just keeps going, deeply unrepentant. "I am just so happy, son. What happened?"
"I don't want to discuss it."
"You brought it up."
