Page 49 of Something Like Fate

“I like pickleball.”

“Isn’t it for people north of fifty?”

“Am I not basically a fifty-year-old on the inside?” he asks, unironically reaching under his shirt to tug his money belt down.

“Valid point.”

“Who’s he playing pickleball with?” Teller asks.

Good question. “I actually don’t know.”

“Maybe he’s seeing someone.”

I snort. “Doubtful.”

“Has he ever dated? Since your mom?”

“No. Never.”

Dad has been single since Mom passed, even though my aunts have encouraged him to date. Every time the topic comes up, he gets solemn and tells us about someone who went on an online date and wound up chopped up and buried in someone’s potted plants. Aunt Ellen once told me it’s his coping mechanism, that Mom still has his heart. Maybe she always will.

Romantic as the sentiment is, it reminds me of Cousin Lin. Just thinking about the reality of eternal loneliness is heartbreaking. One day, I’ll eventually move out and Dad will be all alone, eating dinner at our dining table every night. Maybe he’ll start eating on the couch in front of the TV. Just him—and Brandon and Brian.

“It makes sense that he wouldn’t date,” Teller continues. “He was raising a daughter all on his own. I’m sure dating and having friends was the last thing on his mind for a long time. It’s probably hard to get out of that mindset even though you’re nineteen, especially since you’re still at home.”

He’s not wrong. Dad has always done his best to be involved. He showed up to every extracurricular, every school event. He dropped me off at school and supervised my homework after dinner, trying his bestto keep me on track when I’d inevitably get distracted. For anything he didn’t know how to handle, he’d call in my aunts for support. Lucky for him, I was a pretty independent teenager, but I always knew he was there if I needed him.

That’s something Teller and I bonded over—our dads being our primary caregivers. Teller’s mom is very much alive, but she pours her everything into the coffee shop, working early mornings and into the evenings when they couldn’t afford more employees. His dad held down the fort at home, cooking meals, refereeing, and chauffeuring the boys around. He wasn’t resentful either. Every time I saw him, his forearms covered in suds from washing the dishes, he seemed happy.

“It was kind of weird, though. Our conversation.”

“How so?”

“Well, he got really awkward when we talked about my mom and Caleb.”

“Understandable. His daughter did fly halfway across the world searching for her soulmate. He could be anyone. A murderer.” Teller glares at the back of Caleb’s head suspiciously, and I roll my eyes. “Just kidding. Anyway, sounds like it was a weird conversation. Maybe talking about your mom makes him sad. And he doesn’t want you to see him sad.”

“That’s possible. But it felt like something bigger, something specific. I can’t help but feel jealous. It’s like ... he’s hoarding all these memories with her. My whole life he’s been like this. Most of what I know about my mom comes from my aunts.”

“Have you ever told him it upsets you?”

“No.”

“How come?”

A heaviness gathers in my throat just thinking about it. “I feel guilty, I guess. I don’t want to upset him. I think most people assume I’m not really impacted because I was so young. I’ve always kind of had to pretend I’m not sad about it.” One time, a teacher said to me point-blank, “You’re lucky it happened when you were too young tounderstand.” Apparently, Mom’s family felt the same, assuming I didn’t know what was going on, putting on fake smiles, pretending like everything was okay. Their logic was, the happier they appear, the easier it’ll be for me. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Teller shakes his head. “Sure, it’s harder on them in the sense that they have years’ worth of memories with her. But in my opinion, the sadder thing is that you were robbed of time with her, and your own memories.”

His words strike me in the gut. No one has ever framed it that way before, or validated my feelings. “That’s why being here, in Italy, means so much. It feels like I’m building a memory with her, in a weird way. It’s how I felt when I used to watch all those rom-coms ... I don’t know why, but they made me feel connected to her.”

“It makes sense. They reminded you of your parents and all your family stories.”

I nod. “That’s exactly it. Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“Understanding me. I’m not an easy person to understand.”

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