Page 95 of The Apparent Trap

I walk in, and he’s seated at a table draped in light from the giant window.

“Hiya, Ez,” he says, standing to give me a kiss on the cheek. He hands over a little Tupperware that I know will be full of banana bread. “For later.”

“Oh, you don’t think I should pull out my own pastry in a place known for their pastries?”

He chuckles. “I bet the waiters here are so tired like me that they don’t care anymore.”

“Who ya calling tired?” I chide.

He sighs, and I hate a little that I do see it. He’ll always be handsome, but he’s in a different stage of his life. And it doesn’t do anyone any favors when we pretend away realities.

“I think I have to get the goulash here,” he continues, moving on without needing to acknowledge. “Ever since that pozole, I want more meaty stews. ’Tis the season and all that.”

“I get that, it’s comforting,” I point out. “Maybe we all need that right now.”

He stares at me a little more closely. “Is this about you worrying about me? Or should I be worrying about you?”

I grin. “Neither?”

“Good,” he replies.

A waiter comes over, and my dad orders his stew. I go along with him and order one, too, since who am I to say no to comfort food this time of year? We chat about the easy stuff at first: the paper he’s working on with two colleagues that he’s really enjoying. The movies we’ve each watched recently and want to recommend to the other. The faucet in my apartment that my building super keeps saying he’s going to take a look at.

But when the food comes, we slip into a comfortable silence. And it’s then that all the real stuff feels like it needs a place to bloom.

“How are you doing, Dad?”

“I’m fine,” he says.

I lean forward. “You know, we’ll find the balance. There’s got to be something between ‘sharing too much about every single topic other than love’ and ‘willfully pretending to be fine so as not to bother the other person.’”

“Those do sound like appealing options.”

“I’m just saying, talking seems to be good for us. Let’s not stop that now.”

He breathes in, considering. “I’ve missed your mother more lately,” he admits. “I’m glad Carmen and I made the decision we did. I know it’s the right choice, so I’m not regretting it. And I really am hoping it spurs me to get back out there generally once I’m a little more whole again.”

“That’s good,” I encourage.

He nods. “But it’s kind of like . . . I set the bone wrong when it broke. So I had to break it again all these years later to get the conditions for it to heal properly. And that part was needed, but doing it was always going to hurt.”

My chest aches for him, even as I’m so glad he’s able to share the worry out loud. “I get that.”

“I keep wondering what she would think of all this.”

“You dating a younger woman?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Just me dating again.”

“I wish I knew her well enough that I could tell you definitively that she would’ve said she’s proud of you,” I admit. “I hate that I don’t know that. But I can tell you what I think. I look at you, and I just am so glad you’re trying. I want you to have all the happiness and partnership you deserve. And maybe this whole thing with Carmen was a circuitous way to get to that realization, but I’m glad it got us here.”

He reaches across the table, his eyes shining. “That’s how she would feel, then.”

I swallow. “How do you know?”

“Because the biggest comfort to me has always been that you are so unbelievably like her. And maybe that’s why I leaned on you too much—every time I look at you, I see all the good in her. You’ve got her spark, her wit, her wisdom. So if that’s what you believe, then I think that’s what she would’ve believed too.”

“Damn.” I wipe the tear that’s dropped onto my cheek. “I’ve gotta stop crying all over New York.”