As a kid, I loved that about him too.

Until I realized his gifts were consolation prizes: Yes, I canceled our spring break visit, but my buddy gave us tickets to an amusement park!

I missed your choir concert, but isn’t this candy my chocolatier girlfriend makes amazing?

I set the bouquet on the coffee table, and Julia jumps up. “I’ll put that in water,” she says, and flees the scene.

Miles, genius that he is, starts filling the wineglasses and asks, “So, how’d you two meet?” He sits back onto the other chair, mimicking my ready-to-run posture.

“Starfire is my life coach,” Dad says, after a gulp.

Starfire nods, a smile still stretched tight across her lips. “But we actually knew each other before that.”

“Apparently, we were married in a past life,” Dad says, like, Can you believe that coincidence?

Starfire nods. “Several times.”

“Oh,” Miles says. “Well. Congratulations.”

“I was an heiress on the Titanic,” Starfire explains. “And Jason was a handsome artist, but he was so, so poor. My social circles never would have approved. But we had a torrid affair, and he saved my life.” She goes back to nodding, a very earnest bobblehead.

Miles and I make eye contact. He looks like he’s trying so hard not to laugh he might throw up instead.

“So just,” I say, “exactly the plot of the movie, then.”

Starfire’s head cocks to one side. “What movie?”

“What brings you into town?” Miles, with the assist. “You live in California, right?”

“That’s right.” Dad relights his joint. “But we’re on our—”

“Excuse me,” Miles cuts in, smiling pleasantly. “Would you mind waiting to smoke until you’re outside?” He says it so warmly and naturally. He really does have a superpower.

Just as unflappably affable, Dad says, “Oh, sure! Of course,” and tucks the joint back in his T-shirt pocket.

“So, California?” Miles says.

“Right,” Dad says. “But we’re driving across the country to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” I ask.

“Oh, Daffy,” Starfire says, officially the first adult to ever abbreviate my two-syllable name that way. “Our union.”

Dad frowns, a vague look of hurt around his eyes. “Didn’t you get the card?”

“What card?” I say.

“The birthday card,” he says. “Where I told you we got married!”

“You told me in a birthday card?” I say.

“You didn’t see it?” he says again, still the injured party.

“When was your birthday?” Miles asks, brow furrowing.

“End of April,” I say.

He frowns at that, no doubt doing the math, realizing I was already living with him.

“I must’ve misplaced the card,” I tell Dad.

Actually, since his birthday cards rarely contain anything other than my name and his signature, when they come at all, I’d opted to put it exactly where I put the murder-house beanie he’d mailed me last year: in the trash.

The last thing I needed was another halfhearted gesture from a man who sort of loved me.

The other last thing I needed was a reminder that I was turning thirty-three and had no one at all to celebrate it with.

Starfire is still smiling like if she lets even the corners of her lips touch, the apocalypse might be triggered.

And after everything she endured on the Titanic, who can blame her for being so cautious?

“So you’re passing through,” I say. “Headed somewhere fun?”

“Well, eventually,” Dad says, “we’re going to Starfire’s family in Vermont. But we figured we’d stick around here until Monday, if you could stand to have us that long.”

My skin prickles. My blood runs cold. I wonder if this is how animals feel when a tornado is brewing.

I’d braced for this to be an offensively short pit stop. Now I realize it’s so much worse. We’re a free place to stay while they break up their transcontinental drive: Here are some beautiful flowers that reminded me of you; can I sleep on your couch?

This apartment is quickly becoming the set for a terrible sitcom.

Dad’s still talking, but I’m hearing his voice as the warble of Charlie Brown’s teacher.

“I’m sorry,” I finally get out. “What did you say?”

“We’re on no set schedule,” Starfire says. “So we can stay as long as you want!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Julia walking into the room, with the flowers in a vase. She, very smartly, turns and heads right back into the kitchen.

Dad says, “We’re so happy to be here, kid. Starfire’s cousin Sandra says we have to go see the dunes while we’re here.”

“She’s a psychic too,” Starfire tells me, nodding enthusiastically.

“Who?” I say.

“Sandra,” she says. “She’s got the gift.”

Too bad she didn’t warn them there was no space for them in our apartment.

“I’ve got a bit myself,” Starfire goes on. “My therapist says I’m an expath.”

“You mean empath?” I ask, momentarily distracted from my overall goal.

She shakes her head. “No, mine’s the other kind. I project powerful emotions.”

I take a beat to retrace my steps to where this conversation went off the rails. “We don’t have a guest room,” I tell Dad. “We don’t even really have a couch right now. Julia’s staying with us.” I wave feebly toward the tower of clothes, pillows, and bedding.

Dad’s dark blond brows knit together, a look of confusion, probably at being denied something he hasn’t even fully bothered to ask for yet. Then he lets out a laugh. “Oh, no,” he says, shaking his head. “We wouldn’t dream of imposing.”

Since when?

“No, no, I got us a motel room,” he says. “It’s a ways outside of town, but we don’t mind ferrying back and forth.”

This is a surprise indeed.

“Wait a second.” Starfire’s eyes widen. “I thought there were two bedrooms in here.”

“There . . . are?” Miles’s eyes narrow, like if he focuses, he might be able to see her logic drifting through the room.

“And you don’t use one as a guest room?” she asks.

“There are two of us,” I point out.

“You two don’t share a room?” Dad says, dismayed.

For the first time, Starfire’s smile falters. “Oh no.” She almost sounds like she’s going to cry. She looks between Miles and me. “Do you want to talk about it? We can be, like, your mentors. Your love mentors.”

“What,” I say, as Miles says, “Love?”

Starfire drops her voice to a whisper, like somehow that will keep the rest of us from hearing, and leans over to pat Miles’s knee. “You two will get through this.”

“Get through what?” Miles shakes his head, squinting again.

Unfortunately, I’m not as lost as he is. “We’re not together.”

He flinches when understanding hits.

“Oh no,” Starfire cries. “You broke up?” Her shoulders hitch. I genuinely think this woman I’ve never met is about to cry for a relationship that never happened.

“We’re friends!” Miles clarifies, a little too frantically. “Just friends. Separate rooms.”

“Oh, phew!” Dad eyes me and jerks a thumb at Miles. “I like this guy. Glad I don’t have to dislike him now. Especially after what happened with the last guy! So is anyone hungry? Would love to have a little belated birthday, kiddo.”

“Of course we don’t want to intrude.” Starfire drapes a manicured hand over the crook of Dad’s elbow. “Since you weren’t expecting us.”

“Definitely,” Dad says. “We’ll work around your schedule, take whatever time you can spare for a couple of old coots.”

Starfire scoffs and swats his arm. “Oh, you take that back, JayJay. You’re only as old as you feel.”

“This one feels about twenty-two most of the time,” Dad tells me, adoration sparkling in his eyes.

It triggers a confusing flurry of emotions in my chest.

A softening toward this new incarnation of him, the one with an age-appropriate partner and the foresight to book a motel room.

But also, a reawakening of the old hurt. The reminder that my father never found a person he couldn’t love more than he’d ever loved me or Mom, a place he didn’t want to be more than he wanted to be at home.