Seth comes out wearing shorts and a hoodie. He took a shower, though, so he’s not smelly like some of the other boys. I reach out and hook hands with him the way men do. He grins.

“You did a good job,” I say.

“I almost fu—” He shoots a glance at Sky. “I almost messed up that one time.”

I laugh. “Yeah, you did.”

We get in Sky’s car and go back to the apartment, with Seth grumbling about having to sit in the backseat with the girls, but he does it. When we arrive, I pull Seth back on the sidewalk.

“Do you care if I go up with you guys and spend some time with Sky?” I ask.

His eyes narrow at me. “Would it matter if I did mind?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I admit. “It’d matter a lot.”

“In that case, I don’t mind,” he says. He punches my arm and runs into the building ahead of me, chasing Mellie and Joey into the elevator. He holds it open for us, and we all go up together.

“To the bathtub,” Sky cries as soon as we get in the door. The girls scurry toward the bathroom.

“You’re getting pretty good at this barking-orders thing,” I tell her, drawing her toward me. I hook my index fingers in her belt loops and pull her closer.

“Kiss me,” she barks, laughing.

Seth makes a gagging sound. I shoot him the bird behind her back.

“I’m going to go help the girls,” he says, rolling his eyes.

I finally get to kiss her. She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls my head down toward hers. I’m almost breathless when a naked child streaks through the kitchen. I laugh, and we spring apart.

“I’ll get it,” I say, and I take the towel Seth tosses me and go after Joey. I catch her and carry her back to the bathroom, all wrapped up in a fluffy white towel. I give her to Seth and look around. I realize I’m suddenly where I’ve always wanted to be. Now I just need to figure out how to make it permanent.

Skylar

The last time my dad invited me to lunch, he gave me three children and a new life. I’m a little worried about what he wants today. It has been a week since the wrestling match, and Dad has called four times just to talk. I am having a little bit of a difficult time adjusting to the presence of a parent in my life, particularly now that I’m an adult.

I’m working from home today, so Dad is coming to the apartment. I made a very simple lunch for us. A knock sounds on the door, and I go to let him in.

“Hi, Dad,” I say when I open the door. He leans in to kiss my cheek and shrugs out of his suit coat.

I haven’t made any changes in the apartment, but Dad looks around and nods his head. “The place looks nice,” he says.

“Thanks?” I say unevenly.

“I talked to Seth yesterday,” he says as he sits down and opens a cloth napkin in his lap.

“Oh yeah? What about?”

He shrugs. “Nothing important. Sometimes I like to call for no reason at all.”

“Do you call Lydia and Tim’s kids, too?” They’re my brother and sister, but they’re a good bit older than me, and we have never been close. I can’t even remember their kids’ names. That makes me feel bad for a second, but I get over it quickly. They don’t know my kids’ names, either.

He nods. “I do.”

“So, it’s just me you never had a relationship with?” The words are out, hanging in the air, before I even realize I said them. I want to jerk them back, but it’s too late.

He lays his napkin down.

“When I met your mother, I was flat broke. I went to college in Virginia on a scholarship, and one day I saw your mother walking barefoot on the grass.” He smiles. “She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She was wearing a green flowery sundress and her toenails were painted pink. Her hair hung down over her shoulders, and it was a riot of curls.”

I’ve never seen my dad get all nostalgic. I’m not sure I like it.

“I was a total nerd, and she was the most free-spirited person I had ever met. I fell in love with her in seconds.”

“What happened?” I ask. I stop eating because I have never heard him like this before, and I’m afraid he’ll stop. I don’t want him to stop, despite the fact that this feeling is so foreign to me. I actually want to hear about their past from my dad.

“I played around with computers. That’s all I wanted to do, until I met her. Then life became fun and playful. We built forts in our dorm rooms, and then we’d spend the day wrapped up inside them.” His face gets a little red, and he coughs into his fist. “It was magical.”

“That doesn’t sound like Mom at all.”

He makes a snuffling noise. “I know, right?” he says. “But she was amazing. We got married, and then your mom got pregnant with Tim and then with Lydia, and we didn’t have a pot to piss in, but we were happy. So happy. Sometimes it hurts to even think back to those days. Because then things changed.”

“You cheated.”

His eyes jerk up to mine. “No. That was after.”

“After what?”

“Your mom got pregnant a third time and then miscarried late term. Very late term. She sunk into a depression and had a really hard time coming out of it. At the same time, I sold some computer software I wrote to a big company, and we suddenly had some money. We bought a house, and your mom started to settle in. But I had long hours, and she started to pull away from me more and more. She started dressing in fancy clothes and going out to lunch with friends, all of whom were really wealthy, and we were growing more and more wealthy, too.”