I nod casually, like we’re talking about our weekend plans and not the deterioration of our father. “Yeah, well. I tried to tell you.”

Milo exhales, absentmindedly running his fingers over the sweat pants on the shelf. “I guess I didn’t listen because I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening, you know?”

“Not really an option for me.”

“I know, I know.” And then Milo surprises me by leaning in for a hug. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

Tears spring into my eyes, but I bat my eyelashes quickly until they go away. Save it for a Five-Minute Cry, I tell myself. If I start crying here, under the fluorescent lighting of the Target men’s department while a Rascal Flatts song plays, I may never stop. Those ugly sweat pants will float away on a river of my tears.

“I’m sorry you weren’t there, too,” I say, reluctant to let Milo off the hook, even though every cell in my body is crying out to forgive and forget, to file this away with all the other ways Milo has let me down, all the things I’ve never complained about.

“I’m here now,” he says into my ear.

“I know,” I say, and I decide to let myself believe it. To give in to this moment right here, to let the magic of Target fix all my problems, to let Milo be Milo.

* * *

By the evening, I’m so sick that I can’t get out of bed. You know how everyone says that sharks have to keep moving constantly or they’ll die? That’s how I feel as I huddle in bed, my knees pulled up to my chest under my blankets, watching whatever sitcoms are on Antenna TV (right now, Welcome Back, Kotter). I stopped baking pies and working and studying and running around and now I’m forced to be in bed, alone, thinking about my own life, and I feel like I’m going to die.

I text Nick that I can’t come in on account of snot is pouring out of my head and customers tend to find that gross. He texts to ask me if I need anything, but I ignore him. First off, no one ever means that when they say it (it’s too vague; what is anything? Could I ask you to pay my dad’s rent for a month? Be more specific!), and second, the kids on Welcome Back, Kotter are really in a scrape this time.

Typically I like to watch shows about murder investigations, but on the rare occasion I’m sick, my go-to comfort viewing is sitcoms. It’s probably because they remind me of my dad—he always had an episode of Happy Days or The Partridge Family or One Day at a Time playing. Sometimes he even mixed it up and watched sitcoms that were at least relatively new, like Family Matters or Full House or Step by Step. He would get home from his job selling insurance, exhausted and usually kind of cranky, and I would serve him whatever I made for dinner. And then he’d turn on the TV and we’d watch something old or something new, laughing at the predictable jokes and well-worn plotlines.