Like a scream from the past, my dad calls the next day right at our mercilessly negotiated hour.

“You get my email?” he asks in lieu of a hello when I answer the new special phone.

“Yes, Dad, I got Mom’s email.”

My dad won’t so much as touch a computer or even deal with the email app on his smart phone. My mom, Cassie, handles all of that for him. But Dad always insists on referring to it like he sent it himself.

He must realize I’m in no mood for his bullshit this morning, because he concedes, “Mommy said she sent you the ticket yesterday morning and you still ain’t said nothing. You know it wasn’t cheap.”

“Whatever, Dad. It’s a one-way ticket. Stop being a cheap, bitch,” I answer in my snottiest tone. But then my voice softens as I admit, “One of my kids died yesterday and it really took a lot out of me.”

Dad pauses on the other end of the line. My sister, my job—and especially little kids dying at my job just like my sister did—are all on the list of things we aren’t ever supposed to discuss.

But Dad recovers in his typical fashion. “That’s why you don’t need to be messing around with them sick kids in the first place. You out there watching Chanel die over and over again. How you doing anybody any fucking good with that shit?”

“Okay, Dad,” I say with a sigh, steering us back to the main topic. “So it’s the first day Mom’s been out of town. You know the first day’s always the worst. Curt will be back in a couple of months, and I’ll be there by the end of the week, so you can disparage my job all you want then.”

“Fuck you and Curt, always throwing them big words around. Trying to psychoanalyze me and shit. Your mama’s lucky I don’t run up in some other ho while she out of town. You know how many bitches round here looking to upgrade me?”

“Yes, you’re very handsome, Dad, and you’ve still got it going on. You should totally cheat on Mom just to prove that. And eat more red meat while you’re at it. Oh and maybe start drinking too much on top of all the weed you smoke.”

“Fuck you, bitch! I was missing you before I heard your voice. But you think this is why I had kids, so you could call me and come at me like this? Fuck all you ungrateful bitches!”

“First of all, you called me. Second of all, just how many hos do you plan to acquire for this thought experiment of yours? One? Two? You think three would be enough to get Mom to leave you?” I ask, knowing this question will set him off even worse.

My dad cusses me out for a full minute before abruptly hanging up, because he’s got better things to do than fuck around on the phone with an ungrateful little shit like me.

So yes, a typical phone conversation with my dad, who only sprinkles regular words into his steady cuss stream as flavoring. And who after twenty-nine years of marriage, still has the nerve to miss the hell out of my mom whenever she leaves, but pretends she and him aren’t like the most solid couple on earth—especially by California standards. He’s the type who’ll send a “not cheap” ticket to West Virginia, so his daughter can fly home to accompany him to the one event my mother can’t attend with him this year, but refuses to put a dime toward my medical career because he truly believes the whole thing is ridiculous and morbid.

Now that I think about it, I shouldn’t be surprised that the first time I fell hard for somebody, he ends up being made up of a million contradictions. Seriously, look at how I was raised!

Speaking of whom…John pads into the kitchen in nothing but his black sweatpants and presses a sleepy kiss into my temple before saying, “Hey, Doc. You sleep good?”

“Really good,” I answer, pocketing the special phone in my knee-length kimono and continuing with my original task of making us breakfast. All that’s left is to pour the almond milk, but I find myself feeling like this offering isn’t good enough.

I mean, it’s fine for a busy, single doctor. But not so much for a woman on the verge of leaving behind the man she…my heart gives a little shiver just thinking about it…loves. The first man she’s ever loved in this way.

When I sit down at the coffee table with him and our bowls of cereal, I find myself saying, “I bet I can do better than this for breakfast tomorrow. Maybe I’ll see if I can pick up some frozen blueberries when we’re in Meirton, and some applesauce. I could make us Blueberry Oatmeal Waffles...”

John shakes his head and continues eating. Fist over spoon with his elbow up. “I’m good with cereal, Doc. You don’t have to go and do anything fancy for me. Who were you talking to earlier?”

I crook my head, confused.

“On the phone. I heard you talking to someone when I woke up.”

“Oh, that was my dad,” I answer. Strange, less than an hour has passed but that phone call already feels like it happened long ago. Like it came from a galaxy far, far away on a different time continuum. “He just wanted to make sure I got my plane ticket for my California visit.”

“To visit your family back in California,” he says in a way that makes me think he’s my family in West Virginia, even though that’s not probably not what he meant.

I nod. “Dad’s getting kind of antsy. Both my brother and my mother are out of town, and he’s one of those guys who doesn’t do well on his own. It’s kind of a long story.”

One I don’t remotely feel like explaining.

“So you done any thinking about it yet?”

“About what?”

“Introducing me to your family.”

I go completely still.

“And I’ve scared you again.”

“No, no…” I insist. “But, see, my family is a lot. I mean, we’re really close, but we’re not like normal families. We’re kind of crazy. Well a lot crazy. A lot—a lot. I know you don’t think your feelings will change, but I really feel like it would be better if we um…wait.”

“Until my memory returns?”

“Or until we’ve known each other a lot longer than six weeks,” I counter.

I grab our dishes and carry them to the sink before he can take the conversation any further, though. Then I rinse off the dishes, doing my best to ignore all the, “What happens when…?” floating around our relationship.

What happens when I leave West Virginia for good? What happens when he gets his memory back?

I rinse out our bowls, but end up lingering at the sink long after I’ve switched off the water. Why does the simplest relationship that’s ever happened to me have to become so complicated as soon as I leave this state?

But I’m not allowed to linger with my thoughts for too long. He comes up behind me, wraps his arms around my waist, and rests his chin on my shoulder. His hospital beard has become a full-on beard now.

“Wanna get a razor while we’re in Meirton?” I ask him, stroking the fuzz with one hand. Changing the subject.

His answer: “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do, Doc. You know I’ll do anything you want. But if it’s up to me, I’d just as soon keep it.”

I chuff at his unusual brand of acquiescence. My possessor. My thrall.

“No, do what you want,” I answer. “If you want to keep it, keep it.”

We stand there together, looking out the window towards the nature preserve where we’d be doing yoga if it wasn’t Saturday. Our agreed upon day off from exercise, work, and pretty much anything else that doesn’t involve us spending time together.

Had I only been kidding myself about how deep I was getting into this thing with him over the past month? It seriously feels now like we’ve been a couple from the start. My whole life I’ve only gone into relationships after putting in a lot of practical thought. Our connection, what we said to each other last night in and out of the heat of the moment; I’m not sure how to process any of it this morning.

“I’m not trying to scare you, Doc,” he says, voice sober, as if he’s read my thoughts.

I sink further back into his embrace. Grateful for him. Confused by him.

“I know,” I answer. “This is just so…” I seize upon the word in a flash of inspiration, “New. It’s all new to me, too. I mean, my best friend Sola kind of fell fast for her husband. But she was a drama major, and I’m a doctor. I never thought I could feel like this for anyone.”

I’m making some valid points here, but I can feel him grinning against the side of my neck.

“Why are you smiling? How is this funny?”

“You thinking about becoming my wife someday, Doc?”

“No, I’m just saying…”

But he cuts me off, turning me inside his arms and silencing me with a tender kiss to my forehead. “You have permission to think those thoughts,” he says, knuckling my face as he looks down at me. “Them are the kind of thoughts I like.”

“I’m not—”

But he kisses me again until I forget to protest. Until I forget to think. Until I forget how doomed our love may very well be. At least for a little while.