He steps onto the elevator with the sort of leisurely pace of a man who’s used to people and machines waiting for him.

“My chef is really excited about it.” That’s a bold-faced lie. My chef has barely spoken to me for the past week. I thought her silence was bad before I asked her to sacrifice her emotional well-being for the sake of my restaurant’s bottom line. I texted my apology that night, after our dinner service, after hours of silence and quietly simmering anger. I had no idea it was that bad for her, or that she felt so strongly about a return to reality television. She never responded. Our conversations have been in-person, courteous, professional, and distant ever since. I miss her quiet huffs of annoyance and the bite in her tone when she pushes back.

Dad scrolls his phone. He does one of those finance jobs, with bonds or mutual funds or what the fuck ever. The kind of job where he has to take clients out for fancy dinners—never to my restaurant though—and where he gets to expense things like Wagyu beef and gentlemen’s clubs.

“If this menu is successful we’re going to open another location. On the moon.”

Dad whistles through his teeth.

Cool. It’s nice to know that at the very least my father’s primary parenting technique remains disassociation.

“You should come sometime,” I say. “To the restaurant.”

He grunts. “You still driving this thing?” he asks as I lead him to my car, the one he bought for Wes and I when we got our driver’s licenses. Well, I got my driver’s license. It took Wes a couple more tries.

“I am,” I say, careful to regulate my tone so as not to seem prematurely defensive.

“Why don’t you buy a new one?” he barks, as he slides into the passenger seat.

Because they cost money, Dad.

Money I don’t have because every last cent goes to the restaurant. The light from his phone screen turns his face a ghostly shade of blue in the darkness of the condo’s parking garage.

I shrug and pat the dashboard. “A new car doesn’t have these memories.”

I had my first kiss in this car. I’ve filled the hatchback from countless trips to the garden center in this car. I’ve shared a joint with my brother in our mom’s driveway on the hood of this car more times than I can count.

“Well, it’s a shit box,” Dad says.

It’s strange, the small ways he can still hurt me. My father’s opinion of this car shouldn’t matter at all. It’s just a car. But hearing his disdain is like taking a bullet.

“I like it,” I say quietly.

Dad says nothing and this time I let it stand.

As kids, my mother always said I was most like our father. At the time—since none of us knew he was a philandering liar—I took it as a compliment. Dad was successful. He worked too much but he gave us such a beautiful life. He was strong, stoic, and people looked up to him. I looked up to him.