Emergency Medical Dad

L: present, mid august

"Yes he is, are you kidding?" Dad cracks a smile at the end of it. "But if you say so."

"I definitely say so."

Dad sidesteps me, offering his hand to Jay, who takes it, "I'm Nick Kingston."

"Jorgen Hadley."

Dad shakes on it, then gives Jorgen a once over, "you know, I should've known it was you earlier, I was moving out of the house back a few months ago and I came across the photo I kept of the frisbee team. That's when I realized it was you, not any earlier, which was stupid. And you did get taller."

"I hit another growth spurt at nineteen," Jorgen offers. "I'm done now, though, we don't have to worry about me getting taller."

"Probably a good thing, I've heard after a certain point it gets inconvenient."

Jorgen smiles, "sometimes it already is, but I can see how it could be more inconvenient."

Dad glances at me for a little conversation assistance but I really don't know what I should say. Luckily, Connor fixes that.

"Grandpa, look, I lost another tooth," he pulls down his lip to show him. "And where's Grandma?"

My dad purses his lips, "your grandma and I are in a bit of a situation."

Connor frowns, "is this why we had to leave?"

Jorgen backs up slightly, not particularly wanting to be a part of this conversation. My dad looks at me, both of us sharing almost the same thought.

"Most of it," he says. He must know I didn't tell Connor the real reason. "We're not together anymore, if that's okay?"

Connor nods, "that's okay, she was mean to you anyway."

"Yes, she was," Dad sighs. "This is too sad, I don't want to be sad. Connor, what have you been doing this summer?"

Connor's eyes light up, "every three weeks I have to spend a week at school because Jorgen's on day shifts but when he's not we've been building all the lego sets he has in his house from when he was my age. It's so awesome, he's got the Death Star."

"How many pieces are in that set?" My dad is clearly excited by this, legos was one of the things that he also really liked doing with Connor.

I step back to where Jorgen is, removing myself from their little geek session.

Jorgen leans down, head next to mine, a little half smile on his lips, "and I thought you were as red of a redhead as it could get."

"Shut up," I poke his side and he just laughs.

"Sorry I stifled that gene," he jokes. "Might be a little hard to get red hair past me."

"I don't know much about genes, but sometimes I do find red in his hair. One or two strands here and there."

He just smiles, "he could pull it off."

"I'd have to see it to believe it."

"So, how... how much are we telling your Dad?"

"About what?"

"Me, generally. Me and you as a side topic."

I breathe out, "I figure... probably as little about the stuff that might scare a suburbia dad as possible until he's more used to you. I don't want to risk getting you two on bad terms with each other. Both of you are too important to Connor and I to have you not like each other. And... probably nothing about what actually happened for Connor to exist in the first place."