His hands are, um, large.
“Da-ad,push me in!”
“Nope,” he says. “It’s time to go.” He tosses a towel at Kira. “Why don’t you dry off?”
“Five more minutes,” she declares, letting the towel drop to the concrete. Without waiting for permission, she jumps into the pool, leaving me alone with her dad.
“Your daughter taught me everything I know about water horses,” I say. “You must be very proud.”
“In her spare time, she breeds dragons,” he tells me. “On her tablet.”
“Imagine being this powerful, fearsome fantasy creature that can destroy cities but you’re still subject to the whims of a girl who wants you to have dragon babies with Sunwing because his orange underscales are pretty.”
“It’s very consensual,” he says. My eyes are starting to adjust and I can just make out his face. “Sunwing is into it.”
“I’m sure he is. But he’s not the one giving birth.”
Her dad laughs. I’ve made someone laugh multiple times? “I think they lay eggs, actually.” If I squint, I can almost see the outline of his nose now. It’s wide and has a bit of a bump like it got broken at some point and never healed correctly.
“Da-ad!” Kira pushes herself up out of the pool. “I’m hungry.”
“Okay, so grab your towel and dry off,” he says. Kira pulls at his arm and starts dragging him back to their lounge chairs. Her dad turns back to me, walking backward. “Do you live in this complex?”
I’m stumped for how to answer that.Yes, but it’s only temporary and only because of the pandemic and I’m trying my best but rent prices are through the roof and I can’t find a job in my field so I’m tryingto get into another graduate program and—“My mom does.”
It’s still the truth, right?
He nods. I’m looking for evidence that he’s a tiny bit disappointed, but I can’t see detail well enough to discern that. “Well, thanks for playing with her.”
I’m tempted to clarify and correct my residency status because…how often in my daily existence do I make someone laugh? But he’s already turned around and gathering their stuff.
4
Kira and her dad exitthrough the gate, dripping a trail of water all the way to the entrance to Building 3. The tension in my shoulders eases. I pop my headphones back over my ears and resume ignoring the remaining divorced dads, who are probably counting down the minutes until they can drop their kids off at their ex-wife’s house.
Here’s the thing: in my own head,Iam a baby even though I’m twenty-six. But people don’t truly age until they complete the trifecta: get a “real” job, get married, have a kid.
Since I don’t see myself doing any of those things, I guess I’ll be forever young. Or, at least caught between “wise-beyond-her-years child” and “nascent adult.”
I blame my parents.
My dad liked to show me off as his little wunderkind, whilemy mom pushed me to be more independent. Given my current “failed to launch” status, I guess neither of them got their way.
I suspect that’s why I don’t talk to my dad very often. I’m not the talented young artist tagging along at comic book conventions. We’d stand in line for hours waiting to get the most valuable books signed. When I was nine, I stood next to my dad as he opened up my sketchbook to show Chris Claremont—the writer of the most quintessential X-Men books—my drawings of Magneto. I experienced this intense jolt of pride—a physical, almost shimmering sensation. And it wasn’t because a famous writer briefly laid eyes on my drawings.
In that moment, my dad was my biggest fan.
I didn’t particularly enjoy drawing Magneto, but I never told my dad that. Magneto was his favorite character, so I practiced sketching an angry man in a cape and helmet and tights with the body of an aged professional wrestler. I gave him so many Magneto drawings over the years. Some parents mark their kid’s height on a door frame, like a timeline. You could tracemyadolescence by the progression of how I handled dynamic poses and facial expressions for this one character.
Dad would call me a “prodigy,” which was, to put it mildly, an exaggeration. He was a master at stretching the truth and I was happy to believe him.
I ate up that attention. I made it my mission to prove I deserved it. Each perfect grade, first place, high honors, felt like evidence of my innate talent. I obsessed over hobbies and extracurriculars where I excelled (art, reading, volleyball, Tumblr) and quit the ones that didn’t come as easily (music, chess, cross-country, socializing).
When my dad moved to Florida, I stopped drawing Magneto. Something about it seemed juvenile, and I was overdue for my moody teenager phase. I began sketching my own comics—albeit with the cheat code of borrowing existing characters I’d already practiced. I cast myself as Lydia Deetz fromBeetlejuice.My various love interests were portrayed by Daredevil, Storm, or Punisher because I already knew how to draw them in a variety of poses.
I studied the most visually striking panels from my favorite issues, learning how to construct a story through visuals alone, boiling down scenes to the most vital moments. I created a DeviantArt profile and posted my comic-style works there, getting a little dopamine hit every time someone left a nice comment.
I took line drawing classes, watercolors, landscapes, mixed media—anything to build up my portfolio. At high school graduation, I won an art award.
