My dad was sympathetic at first, but after about a month of me only getting up for meals, to walk Pollock, and to get myself ice cream for another full-season-marathon of old OLED screen shows, he started to get mad.

“You’re wasting your life,” he said. He had just come into the OLED screen room from his afternoon run, and was wearing his running shorts. He kept glancing at the screen embedded in his wrist to see his vitals. He took a break from video conference calls and whatever else he did every day just before lunch to run two miles. He ran at the end of the day, too, at least five miles. He said it helped keep him Zen.

He didn’t intend to be mean, but I still took it that way. I guess I looked hurt, because he leaned down and put his arm around me.

“I know you’ve been through a rough time, Evann,” he said. “But you need to do things besides sit in front of the screen all day. You’re not even watching anything that’s been on in the last twenty years.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll watch shows that came out this year.”

“Evann,” he said, dragging my name out. “Get it together. You’re going to get fat like your stepmother if you sit around all day.”

He didn’t say that to be mean, either. She’s not even fat. He knows it cracks me up when he makes fun of my stepmother, who I don’t like very much, and had been avoiding since I got there. Her name is Valentina, if you can believe that, though she likes to be called Tina. She only married my dad for his money, which she spends on clothes and makeup and salons. But I couldn’t even laugh at him making fun of Tina.

I stretched my arms out above me and stood up. Pollock started yipping like I was going to take him out, dancing around in little circles. I felt so neglectful it almost killed me.

“Okay, I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “I’ll get off the couch if you promise to stop working and go somewhere fun with me.”

He shook his head. “No can do, sweetie. I have to meet Richard Bradley tonight.”

“Mayor Bradley?” I said. “Doesn’t he actually have things to be doing in the city? Should he not actually be working on getting things up and running there?”

“He actually wants to talk about plans for the city’s renovation, my little skeptic.”