My dad is not my real dad, but I like him enough. I think I would like him less if he had played some role in making me. As is, it’s easy to enjoy his crooked nose and frizzy hair, the way he always gives a little wave when he says hello to someone, even when it’s over the phone, how he chews on chicken bones after all the meat is gone. 

Randall used to talk about his dad so much, there were no questions left to ask. I guess that was the point. I never went to Randall’s house. I never met his dad. My house was closer to school and had a larger yard. At our baseball games, Randall’s mom made herself small on the top row of the bleachers, her arms crisscrossed over her chest. When we were in ninth grade, Randall had a baby sister. Randall called her “the baby” and never mentioned her once she was born. I never saw her close up, never got to see if she had Randall’s big forehead or fat lower lip or sharp chin, features that I had too and were common in kids at our school.  

When I visit my dad I look for you in your yard, even in the winter, but you’re never there. This time it’s summer, muggier and stickier than I ever remember. I ask my dad if you still live here and he looks surprised and says, “Of course. Where would he go?” I say, “I guess I don’t know. Sometimes people leave.” Then my dad says how you’re still a young man, only a couple of years older than himself. I nod, I guess in agreement. Even though my dad seems older than he used to, it doesn’t bother me. We’ve already had a good run, though of course I’d be devastated if it ended. With my mom, it ended too early for me to be devastated. For that, I’m grateful.

Before driving back, I tell my dad I’ve met a woman that I’d like him to meet. “She’s a Capricorn,” I say jokingly because I know what my dad really wants to know. “And she’s not from around these parts.”

He would like me to be more specific. His look says, Define ‘these parts.’

“She’s Canadian.”  

My dad tries his best to look excited instead of relieved. He likes to say how we should diversify our family. The alternative could be dangerous. But when I ask what exactly he means, he just says something like, “I want you to be happy and healthy,” which always comes out genuinely but is starting to wear on me. He might as well just go ahead and say it. In my senior year, our high school printed a pamphlet titled “Know Your Partner Before You Know Your Partner.”