Visitor

He knocked on my door about a month after the funeral. I almost didn’t answer, since I wasn’t expecting my fuck buddy. It was entirely too late for anyone to be visiting, but the man in front of me said that he’d been a friend of my father’s—and I slipped on the face I wore for those people. It was three or four in the morning. He’d caught a late flight from Kingston to Houston.

Then the man said something else, in a heavy patois. I asked him to repeat it.

His lover, this guy said, rubbing both of his elbows.

I made a new kind of face. Except it couldn’t have been a new kind of face. We only get so many.

What, I said.

It’s true, he said.

No, I said, and then I laughed.

The man asked to come in. He set his duffel on the carpet, and his jacket beside it, and the doorway was crammed, so we stood, and that’s when I got a good look at him: mid-fifties, Asian. Short hair, messy and curly, sloped just below the nape of his neck. His boots were too large. His track pants were too tight. He told me that he’d never flown in a plane before.

The motor, he said, pantomiming the way the engine turned.

He made a circle with his finger, slowly, and then not very slowly at all.

A few hours later, I found him in the living room, sleeping on the rug. I’d made something like a bed on the sofa, out of some hoodies and a quilt my mom had given me. But I guess it hadn’t worked out. He’d folded everything up and placed it on the coffee table.

Hey, I said, toeing him.

The man blinked himself awake, slowly.

Morning, he said. Wah gwan.

No, I said.

No?

No. You got a free night out of me. So tell me who you really are.

I told you, the man said.

You lied, I said.

That’s when my visitor sat up, cocking his head at me. He scratched it, mussing his hair even further.

You look just like him, he said.

Stop that, I said.

But you do.

Look, guy.

Completely uncanny, the man said, still scratching, yawning, shaking his ass a little bit.

He stood, arching his back, leaning one way and then the other. We were about the same height.

But you’re chubbier, the man said.

Hey, I said.

It’s true, he said. Your father could never hold any weight.

The man sat and crossed his legs, slumping with an elbow on the sofa cushion. When he started to yawn, I braced myself, biting my gums, but I couldn’t help it—I yawned, too.

The man didn’t want me to take him to breakfast, but I’d stopped keeping groceries in the apartment. Everything always rotted.

I drove him to this Jewish deli a few blocks up the road. I’d been living in Bellaire for the past while, just west of the city proper, where it’s all Vietnamese coffee shops and Chinese markets and Venezuelan grocery stores and there are loan sharks posted on every corner. No one looks like anyone else, until you drive twenty minutes east, toward midtown, and then everyone’s white. My visitor set his ear on the window, and I thought he’d fallen asleep, until he burped and settled his elbows on the dashboard.

At the deli, he ordered one thing from the top of the menu, tentatively, scanning my face. Then he ordered a bagel and some eggs and some potatoes and three biscuits with grits, and also a small plate of lox. Our waiter—some whiteboy—made a funny face and looked from my visitor to me. He wore the same face as he brought our food to the table, juggling three plates with his elbows.

Sorry, my visitor said, when he came up for air. Haven’t eaten.

That’s fine, I said.

Been about a day.

No worries.

Two days.

You don’t have to lie, I said.

You don’t have to lie, the man said, grinning, in a voice four octaves higher.

Our waiter stopped by the table again. Lingering. I asked if there was a problem, and he shook his head and stepped away.

So you’re from Jamaica, I said.

That’s what I told you, the man said.

I opened my mouth, and then I closed it. My visitor tugged on his ear.

I know what’s in your head, he said. Plenty of Chinese all over the island. Everywhere. Even if you didn’t know that.

I didn’t say there weren’t, I said, although it’s exactly what I’d been thinking.

Eh, the man said.

And then: Your father and I were just kids, he said. Lasted five years, on and off.

Five years, I said.

One, two, five.

And then you stopped?

Stopped? In Jamaica? Of course we stopped.

Did you stay in contact?

Ai-yah, the man said. How would we do that? We stopped. Do they have orange juice?

Maybe, I said. Fuck.

Your father swore, too, the man said.

Fuck, I said again.

Rude boy.

Stop that. How did you two even meet?

He worked in my mother’s shop, the man said. At least in the beginning. Short walk from the schoolhouse.

And then what? You just hooked up?

Hooked up?

Never mind, I said. What did y’all do together? How did you two even know?

Know what?

You know what.

This prompted a smile from the man, between mouthfuls of eggs and jelly and bagel. He slid the plate toward me. I tore off a corner of a biscuit.

We just knew, he said. It was obvious. At least to us. Happened how it always happens and then it ended.

I watched this man eat. I tried to think of him with my father. I’d only thought of my dad in the context of my mother, whenever I thought of him at all. His death had felt abrupt—he’d got sick with a brand of illness no one comes back from—and none of our relatives had said much to me, about anything at all, in the years beforehand. We existed on separate planes of reality. But they’d shown out at the funeral. They’d handled all the arrangements. If anything, it seemed like another attempt to push me aside.

Why are you here, I said, and the man looked up.

He grinned again, widely. When he tugged at a napkin from across the table, nearly tipping over the holder, I passed him one of mine.

To meet you, he said. You’re his son! He had a son!

I knew that my father was born in Jamaica. I knew that he’d lived on the coast. I knew that he’d left the island in his twenties. I knew that he’d met my mother in Toronto, and that they’d moved to New York, and then to Tampa, before tumbling over to Houston. I knew that my father didn’t argue, he just made decisions. I knew that, when I was a kid, sometimes my mom would grab my hand, in the middle of the evening, and we’d go for walks around our suburb, leaving my father to himself. I knew that my father played soccer. I knew that he wasn’t very good at it. I knew that the day I came out to him, after my mom died, he flipped over the kitchen table, and then a coffee table, and also the dresser sitting under the television. I knew that I slept in the park a few blocks away that night, until my father came looking for me in his pickup, and that when I woke up he was sleeping right next to me, hands tucked under his armpits. I knew that we drove up the road for kolaches the next morning. I knew that we chewed them, sitting across from each other, silent in the diner while high-school girls laughed and poked at their phones behind us. I knew that my father and I didn’t talk much after that. I knew that, some days when I was a kid, my mother would look from me to him, shaking her head, smiling.

But I also knew that I couldn’t discount my visitor’s statements outright. He’d nailed his dates. His geography checked out. Everything was just true enough that I couldn’t call bullshit.

My visitor had no itinerary beyond seeing my father’s tombstone. His return flight wasn’t for another five days. He had, apparently, booked the wrong morning to fly back to Jamaica.

Should’ve been a shorter trip, he said. Slip of the hand.

That’s a pretty big fuckup, I said.

Everything worked out.

What if I’d been out of town? What if I’d told you to fuck off?

You weren’t. You didn’t.

At least not yet, I said.

You won’t, the man said. Everything worked out.

That anyone could be this trusting seemed absurd to me, but my visitor was absurdity incarnate: sometimes, mid-speech, he’d drift off and he wouldn’t come back. He fingered the posters—maps of places I’ll probably never go—in my apartment. He touched all the cups. He napped, and talked in his sleep, and then he woke up in conversation with himself, cheesing at the punch line.

When my visitor fell asleep, I slipped over to the fuck buddy’s apartment. His name was Joel. He stopped me at the door with one kiss, and then another. Before I could say the thing that I came over to tell him, we were on his sofa, out of our hoodies, nearly out of our shorts.

Wait, I said.

You wait, Joel said.

Seriously, I said. I’ve got this guy staying with me.

This was enough for Joel to look up from what he was doing. His face made something like a smirk. His living room wasn’t large, but it was warm, and from the center of it I could smell whatever he’d cooked for dinner—some kind of fish soup, probably, seasoned heavily enough to linger for days. Initially, I couldn’t stand that smell. Now I daydreamed about it at work.

Joel blinked. Then he exhaled.

I don’t mind, he said.

Good, I said.

Nobody said we were anything official, he said.

Correct, I said.

Are you at least being safe, Joel asked.

It’s nothing like that, I said. Not a sex thing.

Then he’s a roommate?

Hardly.

So it’s just an everyday living-with-you-rent-free-with-no-sex thing.

He’s a friend of my father’s. Maybe more than a friend.

Joel leaned back on the sofa, crossing his arms. He was round, like me. When my father died, he was the first person I told. Joel grew up in Katy, out in the suburbs, and he came from money, through his parents’ restaurant on Mason Road, until that restaurant caught on fire one night and both his parents died in it and Joel had to move in with his sister. The money went away.

Now he was a barista. We’d met at a Starbucks, after he fucked up my name. Among other things, Joel was extremely hard to shock.

He said, Did your mystery man say why he’s showing up now?

No, I said.

Well, I said, maybe.

Maybe, Joel asked, or no?

He wants to get to know me, I think.

And how’s that going?

It isn’t.

Sounds about right.

Don’t be a dick.

You won’t let me, Joel said, brushing mine. Just think about it, he added. If he isn’t lying, then this man came back from the dead, too.

I’d hardly call it that.

He came up from Jamaica, right? Where your dad’s from?

Was from, I said.

Right, Joel said. So this dude basically split the universe.

That sounds dramatic.

Because it is. You should hear him out.

I am.

In your own way, I’m sure.

Before I could say anything to that, Joel set his head on my chest, hanging halfway off the sofa. Folded his arms into the creases of mine, and just lay there. And I shivered, just a bit, but I didn’t get up or anything, and I shut my eyes, and it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

The next morning, my visitor asked me where I went when I left the apartment. I sat cross-legged on the sofa in sweatpants, watching him watch me inhale a bag of shrimp chips. I’d made it back home maybe thirty minutes earlier.

Work, I said. Where else?

Boss man, my visitor said. You have a degree?

Do I look like I have a degree?

Funny guy. How would I know what that looks like?

I went to community college for a while, I said. Shit was expensive. It didn’t work out.

So you stopped?

It didn’t work out, I said, and the man placed a hand on his chest, and began to hiccup.

What does that mean, he said. You have anything else to eat here?

No, I said. And it means that it didn’t work out. Why the fuck do you care?

I’m just trying to figure you out, my visitor said, shrugging and smiling.

I work and I get paid. That’s all you need to know.

There’s more to life, the man said, and he reached for my chips.

Before I could lift the bag, he’d grabbed four, five, six, dropping crumbs all over the carpet.

The next day, I told Funke, one of my co-workers at the gas station, about my visitor. We were stacking columns of gum on a shelf, or I was stacking them while she stood beside me, texting.

The man had started folding my clothes, rearranging everything in the drawers. Whenever I left the apartment, he’d stare at my face beforehand, squinting, while I tied my shoes. A layer of fuzz had made its way around his chin.

Bring back some food, he’d said that morning. You hear?

Excuse me? I said. Who the fuck are you talking to?

Fresh food, my visitor said. Something from the earth. Natural.

When I told Funke all this, she made a face.

What’s the problem, she said. You don’t believe him?

I don’t know. It’s not like I can ask anyone in my family about this. They wouldn’t fucking know.

Well, Funke said.

Right.

Does he have any reason to lie?

Not really. Can you hold these?

Wait a minute, Funke said. I’m talking with my son.

How’s he doing?

Don’t worry about him. I already tried introducing you.

Fine, I said.

You thought I forgot, Funke said.

I get it. Jesus.

Tell me more about your dead daddy’s boyfriend.

It’s too soon for you to say that shit.

Wrong, Funke said. Time moves whether we want it to or not.

Fine, I said. This guy knows too much. I guess it’s possible that he’s not bullshitting.

Stupid, Funke said. Of course it’s possible. We all live many lives.

She glanced up from her phone while I juggled some Trident. She started to hand me the boxes I’d dropped, and then she dropped them, too.

I don’t know, I said.

That’s the thing, Funke said. You don’t have to know.

Knowing is a privilege, she said. The best we can do is brace ourselves.

My visitor stood over my stove with the groceries I’d bought from the H Mart down the road. He sautéed bell peppers, lightly fried a slab of mackerel, stirred garlic in a pot I’d never seen before. He poured the marinade of garlic and peppers over the fish, dousing everything with red pepper, and slipped the mass from the pan to a bright-blue plate, beside stir-fried spinach and rice.

We ate on the floor, picking at everything with plastic forks. I watched my visitor stuff his face, while buried in one of my oversized flannel shirts.

Your father hated reggae, the man said. He only ever listened to Bob Dylan.

(This was true.)

Your father couldn’t cook a lick, the man said. But he loved to eat.

(This was true.)

Your father didn’t have a favorite color.

Bullshit, I said. Everyone has a favorite color.

Everyone but your father, the man said. Although he hated purple.

My family flew to Jamaica only once. I was eight, I think, and I spent most of the trip holding my stomach. Everything was too hot for me. Everything tasted too wild. Too fresh. Eventually, my mother and I settled into a circuit between our hotel and a McDonald’s, while my father disappeared for hours at a time, meeting us in the lobby after the sun set.

I sat with my mom by the concierge. She read on the floor beside me, my head in her lap.

Once, I asked her where my father went. She looked at me, and closed her book.

After enough time had passed that I’d forgotten the question, she said, Home.

And he can’t take us with him?

There’s nothing for you to see there.

But I want to see him.

I know, my mom said. But his family does, too.

Why can’t they come here?

Mmm, my mom said. He’s coming back, she said, rubbing my stomach, and then my neck. He’s gone, my mom said, but he’ll be back.

And she was right. When my father came back to the hotel, he beamed. That smile didn’t dim until we’d been back in the States for a couple of months, and then it went out entirely. I never really saw it again.

My visitor wanted to see things.

Everything your father saw, he said. The things he liked.

Impossible, I said.

You’re his son. If you don’t know, then who does?

So we drove to the Menil. We drove to Buc-ee’s. We walked through the Rothko Chapel. We drove to the Children’s Museum. We drove up and down Chinatown. We drove to a fish fry on Scott Street, where my visitor got an upset stomach, and I called him a little bitch, until my stomach imploded, too. We made a pit stop at a coffee shop in Montrose, and watched the young men in high heels and trenchcoats order almond lattes. When I asked my visitor if he wanted to see NASA, his eyes lit up, but he declined.

I’d have a heart attack, he said. I’d join your father.

That isn’t funny, I said.

No, he said. You’re right. Everyone dies. We all go.

Then stop fucking laughing, I said.

I’m sorry, my visitor said.

No, you’re not.

No, I’m not.

But by then I was cracking up, too.

Joel and I rarely went out in the world together: I could count the number of times, in two years, on two hands. Once to the CVS behind his place, for lube. Another time to wash his car. A third time for sesame seeds at H-E-B. Once again to the Thai Spice, down the road. Mostly, we were in his apartment: eating or fucking or lying around.

I told him about my customers at the gas station, piss drunk or courteous or stoned beyond all recall. Joel told me about his own customers, inconsolable before caffeine and approachable afterward. Sometimes we watched horror movies. We never finished any of them. Neither of us ever really questioned our routine.

Also: Joel collected facts. Impractical shit that neither of us could use. When I asked him why, Joel blinked and said, Because facts are things that cannot be changed. Facts can’t be taken away.

So when, one night, he asked if I’d like to go for a walk, all I could do was stare.

We don’t have to, he added.

No, I said. But why not?

So we slipped on our sneakers and walked.

As we rounded the corner of his complex, Joel asked if I knew that less than ten per cent of the world’s plastics were actually recycled.

We passed the grocery store by the taquería, and Joel asked if I knew that in 1960 every state in America had antisodomy laws.

We rounded the corner of Walgreens, where I learned that spontaneous yawning is exhibited in all vertebrate mammals.

We jogged across Bellaire Boulevard, and I nearly lost a shoe, and Joel asked if I knew that there are only two distinct seasons in the Philippines.

We turned in to an elementary school’s playground, tightroping the length of a sandbox, and I learned that the ring-of-fire eclipse is a semi-regular phenomenon, in which Earth’s moon blots out everything but the barest silhouette of the sun.

But mostly we walked in silence. There wasn’t really a route. Sometimes Joel led, and sometimes I led. When I took too long to round a corner, Joel stopped; whenever he lingered, I turned around to check on him. Then he’d nod, and I’d nod, and we’d start again.

Whenever the sun set, my visitor asked more questions about my life. I had nothing to tell him. I’d brought some food home from this fusion Caribbean spot by NRG Stadium, and he picked at the beef patties with his fingers, separating his plantains from his rice.

This is how they packed it, the man said.

You don’t like it, I said.

Well, the man said. Our food is hard to cook.

Is it?

For the first time, the man gave me a look, a bemused sort of thing, the look you’d give a certain kind of shithead kid. If I’d blinked, I would’ve missed it.

I’m just saying I wouldn’t know, I said.

You’d know better than anyone else, the man said. Your father loved to cook.

You said he sucked at cooking.

Doesn’t mean he didn’t love it. But I want to hear more about you.

Fine, I said. I work at this gas station. I played football until I fucked up my back. I’m fucking broke.

You work at a store! Like your father.

Sure.

And your mother?

Got sick when I was a kid.

Ai-yah.

Yeah.

She’s beautiful.

She’s my mom. She was my mom.

She is your mother. I always thought he’d end up with someone beautiful.

And what about you, I said. What’s your deal?

My deal?

Your life. Your fucking story.

Eh, the man said, and then he didn’t say anything else.

He picked a little more at his plate, scooping his peas into piles.

You have anything to drink here, he said. Any beer?

Not really.

A Jamaican with no beer. Glad I lived long enough to see it.

Half, I said. My mom was Canadian.

Is, the man said. And it’s all or nothing.

I don’t think that’s true, I said. And you’re changing the subject.

There isn’t much to tell, my visitor said. I live on the island. I fish for the market. You really don’t have any Red Stripe?

I really don’t have any Red Stripe.

Huh, the man said. And no girlfriend, either?

I’m gay.

At this, my visitor covered his mouth. I still don’t know whether or not he was feigning it.

And your father? he said. He knew about this, yes?

He did, I said.

Good man. He supported you.

That’s one way of putting it.

This made my visitor very quiet. He stood up, and walked into the kitchen. I heard rustling, and then silence, and then more rustling.

In all fairness, my visitor was probably only the third person I’d told whom I wasn’t fucking. The second had been Funke, who’d clocked me on sight. What no one tells you is that sometimes, even if you’ve figured yourself out, you’ll have no one around you to share what you’ve found.

When my visitor came back to the living room, twenty minutes later, I was face down on a pillow.

He sat across from me and put a bowl on the coffee table between us: fried dumplings and avocado slices.

He leaned over, wrapping me in his arms.

Hey, I said.

It’s O.K., he said. Relax.

You don’t have to do that.

I have to do this.

You don’t, I said, but I didn’t move, didn’t nudge my way out of his arms.

Eventually, my visitor untangled his arms from my body. He motioned toward the food.

Real food, he said. Get it before it gets cold.

My father’s death was quick. My mother’s was quicker. She caught the flu on a Tuesday. We took her to the hospital on a Thursday. She fell into a coma that Saturday, and she was gone four days later.

I was almost fifteen. The last interaction we had was me tugging at the end of her hospital sheets, and her laughing under her breath, covering her mouth. I don’t know why this was hilarious, but it was. So we kept doing it. Eventually, my father walked in, and we tried to keep it going, but he didn’t get the joke, and of course we couldn’t explain it. So we stopped.

When I told Joel about this, he sneezed into his elbow. We were eating shabu-shabu at his apartment, in our boxers, and the steam fogged the air between us.

Joel said he knew about the laughter. He’d shared it with his sister.

Sometimes, he said, we’d go on for minutes at a time. I don’t think either of us could’ve said why.

Did you ever talk about it? I asked.

Never, Joel said. We just laughed.

Eventually, I told Funke about the dumplings. She gave me a long look, turning away from her phone.

What, I said.

I could ask you the same thing, she said. It’s starting to sound like you’re taking advantage of this guy.

You’re fucking joking.

I don’t joke.

He’s living with me! For free!

Funke crossed her arms and leaned against the register.

A grieving man flies into your life from out of the blue, she said. He just found out his lover’s died. He’s also just found out that the man had a son. How do you think he’s feeling? Have you even thought about that?

He’s good, I said.

Have you even thought about it?

O.K., I said. You’re not even supposed to be on the register.

Don’t be mad that I’m right, Funke said, turning back to her phone.

It doesn’t even matter, I said. He’s leaving in a few days.

It won’t hurt you to give a shit about someone else for two minutes, Funke said.

But whatever, she said, and smiled. I guess gay men are still men.

That night, my visitor and I sat in the living room. Out of coffee mugs, we drank the Red Stripe I’d picked up. I’d fried some tortillas alongside eggs and tomatoes—the outer limit of my cooking abilities—and my visitor scarfed two at a time, sprinkling shredded cheese and drenching the paper plates in Cholula.

You’re a secret chef, he said.

Hardly, I said.

You should take compliments as they come. It’ll clear up your skin.

My skin’s fine, I said.

Then I said, Tell me something about him.

My visitor grinned. And then he frowned. For the first time since we’d met, his cheeks turned entirely solemn.

Your father never combed his hair, he said. Your father had the softest skin. Your father hated his brothers, but he loved his sister. He couldn’t dribble a soccer ball. He hated the walk to school, but he never missed a day of it. He crossed his eyes when he whistled. He couldn’t stomach allspice, but he cooked with a heavy hand. He taught me how to swim.

My dad hated the water, I said.

Correct, the man said. And he still taught me. I asked him to do that and he did.

At that, my visitor turned silent. We both chewed, with our legs crossed. I asked what was wrong.

It’s nothing, the man said.

Nothing’s nothing.

So you’re a sober philosopher, the man said.

I mean that it’s nothing to you, I said.

Then I asked the man, Were you there when he left Jamaica?

My visitor looked up at me. He looked away.

No, he said. I told your father not to tell me.

Why?

Because that was easier. What could I have done?

And I thought about that. What could he have done? Two boys meet on an island where they shouldn’t be meeting at all. They feel things that they shouldn’t be feeling at all. They do what they can. One of them leaves. And then he dies.

What could he have done?

Later that night, at his place, Joel asked me what we were doing.

We stood barefoot in his kitchen, hunched over his counter, kneading dough. Immediately after fucking, I’d mentioned, offhand, that something sweet wouldn’t be a bad idea, and Joel had gone over to the pantry. Now he patted and stirred while I massaged. We dropped globs of sugary dough into the fryer beside us.

Cooking, I said.

I think, Joel said, that we’re doing more than that. And I think that you know it. And I think that we should talk about that.

We’re talking now, I said.

When Joel went silent, I looked up. The sizzling beside us was all I could hear.

I feel pretty good about you, he said, sighing. All things considered.

Noted, I said.

And I’d like to know if you feel the same. It would mean a lot to me to know that.

But what if I don’t feel what you feel, I asked.

Then nothing changes, Joel said. Except that I’d know.

O.K., I said, and what if I do?

Then I don’t know, Joel said. But you have to say it. I can’t know unless you tell me.

Neither of us said anything to that, until we noticed that the batter was smoking. We lifted three sweet pancakes from the pan to a bowl, and Joel immediately tossed one into his mouth—but not before tearing off a piece for me.

It burned me. It was delicious. We both reached for another.

The night before my visitor flew back to Kingston, I drove him to see my father’s tombstone. I smoked by some vending machines instead of wandering the graves beside him, because I’d spent too much time there already. I’ll never know if he cried.

Afterward, we sat at Fu Fu Café, a Chinese diner twenty minutes from my apartment. The evening bled through the windows. We settled into chairs at the one empty table. I was friendly with one of the waiters, and he smiled my way, then he said something to my visitor in Mandarin, and my visitor only shook his head, cheesing.

Our waiter looked at me. I shrugged. He shrugged right back. A few minutes later, a spread of chicken and noodles and spinach sat in front of us.

Who was General Tso really, my visitor said.

This is what you want to talk about, I said. Of all the fucking things.

I refuse to believe something so delicious could be the work of a war man.

That’s very poetic.

All Jamaicans are poets, my visitor said.

That’s bullshit, I said.

It’s poetry, my visitor said.

He sipped at a beer, and rubbed his cheeks. In between bites, he looked up and smiled my way.

You should find a boyfriend, he said. Someone steady.

Thank you for your advice.

It’s true. I know this. There’s some nice boy walking around Houston, with untied shoelaces, waiting to make you happy.

Calm down, I said. And I’m seeing someone.

This made my visitor stand, shaking the table.

Good! the man said.

Can you stop that?

You should’ve told me! You didn’t tell me! What’s his name?

I’ll tell you if you sit down, I said.

The man settled into his seat. He crossed his legs, stumping his chin in a palm.

Joel, I said.

Joel, my visitor said.

But it probably doesn’t matter, I said. I don’t even know if it’ll work.

Don’t take too long to figure it out, the man said.

Well. It’s complicated.

Nothing’s that complicated.

You wouldn’t know. I’m not exactly on top of the sexual pyramid.

Now you’re making assumptions about me, my visitor said, smiling.

We looked at the tables beside us—Korean couples and Mexican families and some Nigerian nurses enjoying the end of their workday.

I think you could be more kind to yourself, the man said. And I think you should give this boy a chance. Give yourselves a chance to be happy.

And how exactly would I do that, I said.

Do what?

Make a dude happy. Make someone happy.

Oh, the man said. That’s easy. You don’t have to do much. A little attention goes a long way. A little bit of food. A fuck from time to time.

This dinner isn’t going to end with you teaching me some massive lesson about myself, I said. Life isn’t like that.

Sure, my visitor said. But it’s not so hard to understand, either.

You get it, though.

I do. Your father did, too.

I opened my mouth, but then I closed it.

I figured I’d let him have that.

And my visitor gave me another one of his long looks, scratching at the hair on his cheeks, chewing his lip. He looked a little different in the lights above us. A little like he was glowing. I wondered if I did, too.

And then my visitor said, Your father told me we’d see each other before we died. That was the promise.

A promise, I said. That’s romantic.

He was romantic.

He wasn’t that romantic.

Ai-yah, the man said.

The thing on both of our minds hung above us, swaying below the lights.

He did, the man said. If that’s what you’re thinking.

When I made a face, my visitor shook his head.

Your father held his end of the deal, he said. Even if he didn’t come back to the island.

That’s bullshit, I said. That’s nothing.

And this made the man smile. He took my hand in his.

You don’t understand, he said. And that’s O.K. I don’t expect you to understand.

When our waiter returned, my visitor said something to him, something I couldn’t catch. The two of them laughed, rocking the entire table.

A few weeks before my dad’s funeral, I’d visited him at his home in Spring. We didn’t see each other often. There was always a reason to avoid it. After my mom died, he’d mostly lived by himself. He’d entertain a girlfriend from time to time, but no one ever stuck around, and I wondered whether they grew tired of him, or he grew tired of them, or if the relationships were constructed from the start to fizzle out like matches.

He answered the door with sleep on his face. I had to remind him that he’d called me over to help with some insurance paperwork. It took him a second, but then he nodded, waving me in and wiping his face.

There was luggage in the hallway, but I didn’t ask him about it. I didn’t want him asking me about my life, either.

He clicked through channels while I typed at his computer in the kitchen. I’d call out for details—an aunt’s maiden name, a first childhood pet—and my father yelled them from his perch on the sofa. Then there was another question, your first love, and I typed in my mother’s name and that didn’t work. I called my dad over, but I didn’t tell him why. I told him there was a question I didn’t know, could he fill it in.

My father stumbled over to the computer. He typed something in, wordlessly. And I sat down and finished the rest of his paperwork. I put my hand on his shoulder before I left, and I told him I’d see him in a few weeks, but something came up so I didn’t go. ♦