In my silence he steps forward, rests his face against my shoulder and wraps his arms around my back. I’m too startled to even move. It’s so foreign, the feeling of him, the warmth of his body, his strength, that none of this makes sense to me at first. And then I realize what this is. A hug. I can’t remember the last time I felt his touch, any touch, much less an embrace.

My instinct is to pull away, but I don’t. Of course I don’t.

“That’s amazing, Dad,” I finally croak, and my voice sounds hollow even to my own ears.

I don’t know what to do with my hands.

Eventually, I manage to pat his back and even that small movement feels like a lie. When he looks up at me, his eyes are damp with tears, and I know I should be the one crying, but when I try to force it, nothing happens.

“Not to compete with your good news,” I say, “but I chugged a gallon of water on the ride here.”

“Right. Let’s get this over with,” he says, just as there’s a knock on the door, a sleepy voice calling his name. He rushes over to open it.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” she says. “Just letting you know I’m home.”

I fold my arms. “Actually, we were in the middle of something.”

Her eyes flick to me.

“I’ll be right down,” he says to her before she can say anything to me, stepping slightly outside the door. “Just give me a few minutes, hmm?”

His arms ease around her waist as he nestles his face into her neck. A soft laugh escapes her mouth, and then she is whispering into his ear.

I roll my eyes and look away. He never made Mom laugh like that. He was too busy making her cry.

I remember him in the oncology ward in the beginning, the few times he bothered to show up to see her on her deathbed, the way his face hung slackly around his sunburned nose. The way he cried softly as he held her limp hand and whispered sweet, meaningless words of encouragement, of hope. Emo as fuck.

I fell for the whole fucking act.

But his tears were paltry, forced. He couldn’t wait to get out of there, run to the new bitch he was fucking behind my mom’s back, the one he didn’t know I knew about. His lover is a cliché. Barely older than me, unencumbered, quiet like a lamb but not as sweet. The kind of woman weak men use to boost their fragile egos, make them feel like the men they wish they were.