Chapter 10
“She’s out,” Nick says forty minutes later, shutting Kira’s door softly. “And by that I mean, your cousin is asleep on Kira’s floor.”
“Don’t apologize. While Kira held you hostage in her room, I tackled unpacking two more boxes of kitchen stuff.
” He opens an upper cabinet that contains two wineglasses and approximately seventeen reusable water bottles covered in stickers.
I assume Kira takes these to school and loses them. “I found my wineglasses.”
He grabs both glasses and kneels to pull a bottle from a cardboard box on the kitchen floor. “Don’t wineglasses usually come in sets of four?” I ask.
“These were part of a set of eight. Or maybe twelve? From the wedding registry. Williams Sonoma. I only grabbed two when I moved out. I don’t have dinner parties and”—he nods at Kira’s bedroom—“my roommate’s kind of a lightweight.”
I watch him rinse off the glasses. “I thought dad jokes were supposed to be corny puns or something.”
“Hey, I’ll take that as an acknowledgment of my dry dad wit.” Nick dries the glasses and places one in front of me on the island. “Anyway, it didn’t really seem necessary to get a full set. You drink wine, right?”
“Nothing goes better with cold pizza.”
Nick gives both glasses a healthy pour. “It’s Trader Joe’s Pinot Noir, but it does the trick.”
I’m not about to turn down wine; my nerves are shot from trying to keep up with Kira and her minefield of questions while trying not to think about the theoretical messages I’m potentially missing on my phone.
Hal and I don’t make plans in advance, but I’m confident there’s a text from him waiting for me.
“Do you mind if I continue unpacking the boxes?” he asks. “I get so much more done when Kira’s asleep.”
“I can help.” I grab the box cutter sitting on his kitchen island. “I’ll break down this tower of cardboard.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he says.
I take a sip of wine, sit on the floor, and slice into the first box, collapsing it.
“I like to make myself useful.” Because I feel pretty damn useless most of the time.
Perry would have this place unpacked in a matter of hours. It’s not a mindset I understand. I grew up surrounded by stuff. Boxes, stacks, piles, loosely organized according to a system that made sense to my dad.
Nick nods toward the TV, which is paused on an old episode of Star Trek. “Feel free to change that if you want to watch something. The remote’s somewhere on the sofa.”
“I’ve never seen this show,” I say. “I mean, this version. I know my dad watched one of the newer ones sometimes. He probably knows who Kira Nerys is.”
“Did you know that you also have a Star Trek name? Doctor Katherine Pulaski was a character on Next Generation for one season.”
I look up from the flattened box. “Are you a Trekkie?”
“Oh, I watch all of them.” Nick pulls bubble wrap out of a large box labeled Kitchen Appliances. “But I have a soft spot for the original. It’s what I put on to decompress—when I get home from work, or whatever. I’ve probably seen every episode hundreds of times.”
“It’s your comfort show.”
“I go through phases with it,” he says, lifting a toaster out of the box. “I was obsessed when I was a kid. My sister and I had a play set and we would invent our own storylines.”
“I think Kira’s following in your footsteps with her ‘OCs.’ ”
“She is definitely my daughter.” He laughs.
“It faded away when I was a teenager because I was convinced that being too knowledgeable about a science fiction franchise was the one thing keeping me from being incredibly popular. Then in college I rediscovered it. I’d put it on and get really stoned and it felt so relaxing. ”
“I’ll bet.” I make a long, straight slice along the crease of a cardboard box.
“In retrospect, the getting stoned aspect was probably the biggest part of the appeal.” He chuckles, grabbing another piece of kitchen equipment out of the box and unwrapping it. “Now, I’m just a casual viewer.”
I squint at the circular item he’s holding. “Is that a spaceship?”
“It’s a waffle maker in the shape of the starship Enterprise,” he says sheepishly. “Kira thinks it’s fun.”
“Oh, Kira thinks that?” I bite back a smile. “You’re just a very casual viewer.”
“I do have some collectibles,” he says. He glances at a stack of unopened moving boxes on the other side of the TV. “They’ve been packed away for a long time.”
I stand up and walk over to the boxes. “These are all Star Trek collectibles?”
“I feel like this is creating the wrong impression.” He puts down the waffle maker and stands next to me. “I swear, this is a very small part of my life,” he says, laughing. “These boxes are, like, ninety percent packing material. It looks like more than it is.”
“Hey, you saw the boxes in my, uh, room.” I stumble over the words slightly, never sure how to phrase it. “I’m the last person who should be giving you a hard time over a niche hobby.”
“The comics?”
“They’re my dad’s,” I say. “He started the collection and we both added to it. It was a hobby we did together for a long time.”
“See, that’s what I’m hoping will happen with Kira. I’ve shown her a few episodes and she doesn’t seem that excited about it, yet. But someday we can watch it together, you know?”
Nick sounds so genuine, so enthusiastic about this possibility that I don’t have the heart to tell him where my dad is now and that I haven’t seen him in person in years. Instead, I pick up my wineglass off the floor and take a big sip.
“I want certain things to be specific to Kira and me. When she lives half her life at her mom’s house, I never know what I’m missing out on.
Like, Nora taught her how to ride a two-wheeler.
I found out after the fact. And I’ve always pictured myself doing that classic dad thing, you know?
Running behind the bike, holding on to the seat until they just get it and zoom away.
And now she just does it and I never got to witness that moment. ”
“Maybe her mom always wanted to teach her daughter how to ride a bike,” I say.
“Sure,” he replies. “It’s just hard to accept that half of those milestones will happen without me. It’s weird to see video of your own child reading her first word instead of being there. But I need to be the one to teach her how to drive. That’s nonnegotiable.”
I feel my cheeks flush and I don’t think it’s the wine.
“You should definitely follow through on that,” I say. “In fact, I’m going to call you in seven years and make sure you’re doing it. Otherwise she might end up like me: tethered to Columbus’s shitty public transit system, ride-sharing, and friends with cars. I never got my license.”
“You don’t drive?” Nick asks incredulously. “How is that possible?”
“My dad started to teach me, but he moved out of state before I really learned anything. I went off to college and I didn’t really need a car on campus.
And in New York, it obviously wasn’t an issue.
There wasn’t a reason to learn until I ended up back here.
My mom tried to teach me a few years ago, but she was so nervous I just couldn’t calm down and focus.
Neither of us wants to repeat that experience.
But I get by. I use Lyft when I need to.
I don’t pay for car insurance or gas. It’s one less thing to worry about. ”
Nick looks deeply unconvinced.
“Well, thank you for being patient with Kira,” he says. “She’s very”—I can see him searching for the right word—“curious.”
“I’m not great with kids,” I admit. “I feel awkward around them, like…I’m trying to be cool. I guess it’s different when it’s your own daughter.”
“Kira calls me ‘cringe,’ ” he says. “But you handled some awkward questions.”
“Really? I introduced her to the term furry.”
“You’re a natural,” he says.
I let out a scoff in protest. No one has ever complimented me on my skill with children. I never dreamed of having babies, raising a family. In fact, every choice I’ve made has steered me in the other direction. But I don’t feel comfortable saying that to a parent.
“I’m not used to having conversations with kids,” I say. “I need a better filter.”
“Well, she’s getting to the age where she needs less filtering. It’s good for her to see adults who aren’t her parents—women, especially—who are smart and independent and funny.”
I stare at him for a second, going over those words in my head.
“Oh, I’m a terrible role model.” I feel blood rushing to my cheeks again. I genuinely can’t imagine a child looking to me for guidance about anything.
“What makes you say that?”
Oh, the list I could provide! All the holes that have been poked in my self-esteem for the last five years.
“Living with my mom, for starters,” I reply.
“You’re saving money, right? That seems responsible.”
I open my mouth to respond, but I don’t know how to have a casual conversation about the fact that I’ve been living here “by default” for the last five years. It’s probably any parent’s nightmare: the adult child who hasn’t managed to start their own life.
There’s a knock at the door.
“Sam?”
“And there she is, right on cue,” I say. “I better wake up Romily.”