Page 123 of The Heat of Us

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HAZEL

Dad

Can we meet?

I had never received a text from my dad before. Not in the group chat with my mum and certainly not on an individual text chain initiated by him.

My immediate thought went straight to death and terminal illness.

Are you ok?

Dad

In person better.

What did that mean? Deciphering the tone of texts was already hard enough. Deciphering the tone of the texts of a 59 year old Asian man was absolutely impossible.

It could be a trick. But it didn’t feel like one. If mum thought she could use dad to see me she would’ve done it a long time ago.

Can you come into the city?

Dad

You come out here, is ok?

Dad unwilling to inconvenience himself even on something he deemed important? Now I was even more convinced he was reaching out of his own accord. If my mum had been perched on his shoulder then he would’ve said yes as soon as it seemed like I was open to meeting.

I gnawed my lower lip before making what I hoped wasn’t a foolish decision.

Tomorrow 1pm at Sunbrook Plaza. In front of the weird horse looking sculpture.

Dad

ok

He was never one to mince words.

The guys insisted on coming with me, of course. I think they were panicking about not knowing what to expect. They threw so many increasingly fantastical, world-ending scenarios at me on the drive that I eventually had to tell them all to shut up.

We arrived early and I shooed them into nondescript corners of the plaza. I wish I had told them to behave less like creepy stalkers because their unbroken eye contact was extremely disturbing. I texted the (still yet to be renamed) group chat.

Be more normal!

I turned back around to check on them. It had gotten so much worse. Remy was rubbing his chin as he pointed at a bird in a tree. Aleks apparently thought it looked more normal to sit down on a nearby fire hydrant. Ben held up his phone and I assume attempted to appear to be scrolling. But the angle at which he was holding it made it look like he was filming instead.

omg you’re all hopeless

“Hazel?”

Funny how a voice could transport you back in time. I had a flash of 10 year old me, eating an icy-pole I was not meant to tell Mum about.

“Hi Dad.”

It was jarring to see how far back his hairline had shifted, the new lines etched on his face. The lost years between us felt like a chasm.

“It’s…good to see you. You look healthy.”

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