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Dad takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, and I start to feel a little guilty for confronting him like this. I’m sure he’s exhausted from trying to keep it all together for Mom and Lilly. “There’s nothing in particular happening,” he says finally. “You know the chemo takes a toll. Medically, everything is looking stable. There’s no news to share.”
“Okay.”
“But,” he continues, and now his voice is so quiet I have to lean in to hear it, “she says that this time feels different. She feels like…like this might be it.”
The earth might as well drop out from under my feet. I’ve wondered, of course; when you have a loved one fighting a serious illness, you always do.Is this the last time? Will there be another chance?Hearing it from my dad makes it feel real.
“But her doctors didn’t say that?”
“Her doctors say the same thing they always say. Complete the chemo cycle, scan to reassess.” Dad raises his eyes to mine. “It’s just her feeling. That doesn’t mean it’s right.”
From downstairs, I hear some dumb dance song coming from Lilly’s phone. Down the hall, I see that there is no light coming from beneath the door of my parents’ bedroom. Mom is already fast asleep.
This house has always been the safest place in the world to me.
Until now. Now, it feels like the walls are closing in.
I turn my back on my dad. “I’m going for a walk.”
Chapter Nine
Azalea
SometimeswhenIcomehome and fall into the familiar routines that Dad and I have had for my entire life, I start to feel guilty for what I’m doing—for the searching, the secrets. It seems wrong, almost, to be looking for the parent who wasn’t there and hiding it from the one who was. Throughout my childhood, I had my questions and even some loneliness, but I was an overall happy kid. I had everything I needed and most of what I wanted. There was no doubt that I was cared for, safe, and loved.
It used to be enough.
Why isn’t it now?
I wonder as I stand side-by-side at the kitchen island with Dad, assemblingtamales. He spent his day slow cooking the beef and preparing themasa, and now we’re each doing our usual job: I spread each ingredient inside the corn husks, and he rolls them up. We work quickly, without needing to discuss what we’re doing, because we’ve been doing this since I was five years old.
“I wanted to talk to you about something, Zay-Zay,” he says out of nowhere.
My heartbeat picks up a little bit as I think of Maverick and the news that was suddenly delivered to him not so long ago. “Okay.”
“Everything’s fine,” he says hastily, hearing the trepidation in my voice. He finishes rolling atamaleand takes the next one from me. “I’ve, uh—” He concentrates heavily on the task before him, avoiding my gaze. “I’ve been on a few dates lately.”
My hands still and my jaw drops. “Youhave?” I don’t mean to act so surprised. It’s just—well, surprising. In my entire life, I’ve never known Dad to go on a date. “Since when?”
“Just in the past month. The last one I went on…I really like her. We’re going out again this week.”
“Where did you meet her?”
It’s hard to tell beneath his dark beard, but I think he flushes. “One of those dating websites.”
Struggling to absorb this information, I grab my spoon and scoop moremasafrom the bowl. I feel Dad’s eyes on me as I spread the dough across a corn husk, perhaps a tad more aggressively than before. A moment later, he puts his hand on my wrist, making me pause.
“Honey,” he says gently, “why are you upset?”
“I’m not.”
Dad pulls on my arm, turning me so I’m forced to look at him. Tears are burning the backs of my eyes, and I use every ounce of willpower within me to keep them there. “Nothing serious is happening. I’ve gone to dinner a few times. That’s all.”
“Okay.”
He studies me from behind the fog of his glasses. “When you were a kid, dating just seemed like more trouble than it was worth. But now you’re out of the house, starting your own life, and… I’m only forty-one, Zay-Zay. That’s a lot of life left to live without a partner.”
I realize, suddenly, what is happening here. I’ve been feeling so guilty about looking for family, for people beyond Dad, but here he is, doing the same thing.
