Chapter OneThe doorbell rings again. I’d invited him here.
Alex, my partner of six years, comes out from the bedroom as though the bell has only just rung, and I guess it has, but it seems forever ago. I’m sitting in a brown leather chair, my chest stuttering, knocking at me to leave. Our dog noses the doorjamb and I peer over at my boyfriend like a child before the nurse comes back with a needle.
“I really need you,” I mouth.
Alex squeezes some part of my body. Suddenly I’m up, pressing the lever of our front door with my thumb. I’m letting him in.
Because I invited him here, I repeat to myself.
On the other side of the door is a man who has my same hair, cheeks, and nose, and who I haven’t seen for five years. He has loved me since I was only an idea of me. We’d stare at thunderstorms together, catch fish together, and when he ate a cookie, I’d watch him tap it against his teeth after each bite, dislodging every crumb so it landed on his tongue instead of the floor. I idolized him for the small things—for his nightly snack of cheese and apples before a bowl of ice cream, for the mousse he combed into his blond hair while he drove and half sarcastically said into the rearview, “Damn I’m good-looking.” For our trips to the mall to buy me five-dollar shirts from that tacky store with the loud music, for the mornings he blasted Van Morrison while vacuuming our house, for the wood he turned into sloping lamps, and for the puppet he brought to life every night in my room to say “Sleep well,” knowing that when he left, the dark would be nicer for me because our puppet would stay.
We stand inches apart, a wooden door and a screen between us.
Maybe if I freeze long enough, he’ll have to turn around and board the plane back to Florida. Then everything stays the same, never having seen each other. That could be our reality if I want it to be. But to not open the door when someone knocks would not be normal. And I always keep track of normal. What would anyone do who is not me?
Do that.Okay.You sure?No!Alex looks at me like,
This is getting weird now, open the door? Again, it rings. I adjust my turtleneck and baggy pants and take a final look around the house.
Do we look like we have too much money? Will he be angry for the simple fact that our apartment is bigger? Can he feel me standing inches away?I open it.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, Anna.” He rarely said my name.
“It’s been so long.”
“Yeah.”
“Come in,” and he begins to but the door catches on the corner of my rug. “Whoops, sorry. The corner guy. Not the guy—the corner. Whatever.”
He looks at me, worried but dressed nicer than I thought he would be, a crisp white shirt tucked into dark jeans. We hug but I’m not sure if I want to.
“Dad this is Alex. Alex, Dad. His real name’s James but everyone calls him Peter.”
“Or Mr. Konkle?” Alex asks.
“Nope, call me Peter.” Dad’s voice, already strikingly low, goes a few notes deeper on his own name. A male peacock showing hidden feathers.
Alex looks nervous. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Peter. Nice to meet you.”
We all sit.
Dad’s eyes go to the floor, to Alex, back to the floor, back to Alex. I can almost see him imagining the tales my boyfriend’s heard about him and Dad looks scared. Right around the time we started dating, my relationship with my father disintegrated. Totally. I wonder if Dad thinks our distance could be Alex’s influence, which it wasn’t. Or maybe he’s just upset I have a boyfriend at all. Somehow a betrayal. He hadn’t liked any boyfriend in the past.
There’s nothing for anyone to say for maybe twenty-five seconds but it feels like a full minute and a little man parades around the room with a mallet and drum, singsonging “You have nothing to talk a-bout! You have nothing to talk a-bout! You’ve already run out of things to talk a-bout!”
“The test,” I say, finally. “That’s tomorrow?”
“That’s tomorrow, yup, yup,” he answers.
“And you came for just like, one night for that? I mean—”
“Two nights, yeah.”
“I meant two. I meant two. I misspoke.”
He nods, chin bobbing like a professional. “Needed a day to see you, and one to take the test. Plus it’s very early in the morning, so a single night wasn’t an option. It worked out.”
“Good flight?” Alex adds.
“Shitload of turbulence,” and my dad inhales the last of his words, throwing his body onto the ground in the shape of a U, lungs all scrunched for a second, before sprawling flat onto his back next to our dog.
“Awschhhw good boy. Awschhhw good boy.” Dad is repeating compliments in the tone of a Muppet. “Your breaf shtinks but you sure got a shweet shoul. Is it George?”
“Yeah, George,” I say laughing.
On cue, he licks my father on the neck, eye, cheek, and back of the head.
Dad had always been crazy about cleanliness, with a sole exception for animal residue.
“We looked for the whole year before we found him at Pasadena Humane Society,” Alex says, adding, “Do you have an animal, Peter?”
“Uh, no—not practical for me right now.”
“Why. We always had cats growing up. You love them and you’re retired now so why not.” None of these are questions. Just go back to being the guy who had cats.
“No. I—uh, no. My volunteering at the animal shelter every week fills the cuddling quota, the, the pussy quota—”
Alex laughs, surprised.
I’m serious. “That’s nice that you volunteer.” My dad coughs. “And the scan— You said this is the only one in the country?”
“The, uh—?” He seems uncomfortable that I’m bringing it back up. Health talks with him were always hard. I try again, tactically cheerful this time, “The test, yeah!”
“Uh, that’s what they said, seems hard to believe that it’s the only one. But yeah. Three thousand bucks, this thing costs. Christ. If it saves my life, it’s worth it.” All of our eyeballs move a little. After a few seconds he goes on, “I really, really don’t want to get claustrophobic. I do not like small spaces.”
“I know, Dad. But the music they play in the machine helps,” I say, assuming an old role.
He nods, comforted. Dad was always most at ease with the animals or the kids. At a party, he’d crack a joke to the grown-ups and then find us.
For a moment, I try seeing him that way once again. “Just imagine you’re canoeing on a lake tomorrow, Dad.”
“That’s a great idea, sweetie. When I’m inside, picture being on water.” And he chuckles, like it’s a super clever thing to say.
Everything’s nice for a second. Maybe Dad’s best when he feels taken care of.
The restaurant’s a nice spot, just five minutes from our apartment. I hate thinking about it though. I’m not sure why. Maybe because this feels like the eye of the storm: after the estrangement, before whatever comes next. From his vantage point, maybe I look fine, but I’m not. Maybe I look like I have my shit together. I don’t. My life has largely been an exhausting pursuit of the opposite of what my parents put together. I have a long-term relationship. Pet. House. Financial freedom. A career I don’t hate. Alex and I can afford ordering from a restaurant without looking at the price. And we round our tips up instead of down to the eighteen-percent penny on the back side of receipts.
This pulses through my brain while I browse the menu and work to push away my worry. It’s made easier with the help of a new word I’ve become aware of through my therapist:
boundaries. Just because he may or may not be jealous doesn’t mean I should feel guilty. I know that between his intelligence and talent, Dad believes he should have ended up a CEO, a millionaire, not an ex-hippie turned human resource manager for 7-Eleven. Yet for all his years there, he never even made it to regional manager, a real misstep by his boss, Steve. And we’d liked Steve! Dad always considered him more friend than superior, despite Steve’s shortcomings. But the promotion never came. When I was ten years old, I’d asked how his friend-boss could let him down like that.
“Good f***ing question. Steve, I supported Steve.”
Copyright © 2026 by Anna Konkle. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
