The Ringer

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This one is a bit of a slow burn, and could be considered an extended alternate take on my first story "Fatherhood." If you haven't read "Fatherhood" yet, you should check it out -- it's more straightforward. And if slow burns aren't your thing, well, consider this the trigger warning.

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Judith's text had come in at 4:51 AM -- she was in Vietnam again -- so he didn't hear it or see it until later that morning. The time difference being exactly twelve hours made the math simple -- her day was his night, and vice versa -- but it also didn't give them a lot of time to connect. When he thought of her now, he pictured her riding around in the back of a rickshaw, munching on a bánh mì, texting with one hand. This most recent site visit had already been extended a week, but she was certain, she said, that she'd be back for Christmas. Besides, their daughter was home for her first winter break.

< Do I need to do anything? > By the time he got around to messaging back she was probably already asleep. He had his own shit to do. He didn't really feel like doing any more shit. Once upon a time the two of them had been in the same publishing house (she was in Design, he was in Editorial). They lived downtown, and for a few years -- even when Judith had been pregnant, even for a while after Milly was born -- they were one of those hip downtown couples. The kind who went to events. Restaurants with multi-course tasting menus. Today, their house was still scattered with pieces picked up from former adventures, folk art from Mexico, or Morocco, or Japan, or Nepal.

There hadn't been any sudden or definitive halt, just a gradual diminishment. He was still working at the same place -- he had settled into his station, with seniority and influence but no real authority -- but she, after a few other stopovers, was now an Executive VP for the largest athletic footwear multinational on the planet. His job, even now, came with a modicum of prestige -- but she made the money. Within her world, which was not the real world, she had real power, which was probably more useful than the real world's prestige. She said things like "wheels up," now. She called them "her factories," even though they weren't, strictly speaking, hers. Four years ago, they had moved out here into a two-story colonial with a finished basement. There was a lot more space and much better high schools, but his commute got longer, but it was easier for Judith to get to the airport. If she brought anything back from her trips now it was the kind of stuff you found in the duty free.

She never responded to his last -- somewhat pissy, slightly passive-aggressive -- text. He hadn't really expected her to. It was, in a way, a rhetorical question. Over the years, as her position had steadily advanced while his remained stagnant -- both of them, respectively, responsible for this; Judith had rededicated herself to her career, he hadn't -- an interesting reversal had occurred. Without a lot of discussion, he had found himself doing more and more of the drop-off and pick-up; taking Milly to art class, violin lessons; bringing the cat to the vet, even though it was their cat. A housekeeper took care of the laundry now and their monthly spend on Uber Eats was approaching ridiculous, but he still did most of the grocery shopping and all the real cooking. It hadn't happened all at once, just another incremental unwinding. A different guy might have been bothered more by all this. It did bother him, sometimes, but not really.

At this moment, their daughter was upstairs in her bedroom. < Mom said you want to have a friend for a sleepover? > he texted.

< Yes >

He waited to see if more information was forthcoming. Finally: < Ok when? >

< Friday is that ok >

----

That Friday after lunch, on a whim, he ducked into his favorite pub near the office for a postprandial drink. It was the start of the last weekend before Christmas and the city streets were thronged with people bustling, the usual decorations, and a festive anticipatory eagerness in the air. He wasn't feeling it. He was feeling restless and bored. For the first time in maybe ever he hadn't gotten a tree -- there didn't seem to be any point. Outside on the street corner Santa was ringing a brass hand bell, collecting donations in a black cast-iron pot. The sign in the window outside asked: "Need a fill up of holiday cheer?" Why yes, Rudolph. Yes he did,

Now he was sitting here, sipping his bourbon. Recently, he had started getting into bourbon. The bar wasn't crowded but was a lot livelier than it otherwise might have been on a grey winter afternoon. Something he was supposed to ask Milly was nagging at him, but he couldn't pin it down yet. She had been home for almost a week. Her mother was supposed to have been home by now. Did they even celebrate Christmas in Vietnam? If they did, her factories probably still stayed open. They probably ran 24/7, 365, with child slave labor.

For her seventeenth birthday they had bought their daughter a car. He had been conflicted about this -- he didn't want her to turn into one of those girls -- but conceded it also might help get him out of the mire he had, somehow, got into. At first, he had enjoyed it, evenings of blessed uninterrupted silence, just him and the cat. But then in August, right after Milly went off to college, another interesting thing occurred. The uninterrupted hours turned into days. Weeks even. Presented, for the first time in he couldn't remember how long, with time he had no idea how to fill. He's not that old, he keeps telling himself, but he sometimes forgets he has this magic box in his pocket which can conjure up just about anything. Sometimes -- like now -- he'll be having a drink by himself, fortifying himself for the long commute home, and suddenly remember this. But it's not a ingrained habit with him, not like with Milly. It's more of a hobby and not like it would be if he had been born always knowing this.

Which was interesting, because his daughter was like him in all sorts of ways. A lone wolf, at heart. Possibly neurodivergent, though neither of them had ever been diagnosed. Like him, she would get a wild hair and tear about the kitchen, improvising some complex concoction (though in her case these were almost always desserts.) The two of them were so alike they almost no longer needed to speak to each other. They texted even when they were both in the house.

He couldn't blame her exactly; if he had a magic box when he was growing up would he have ever spoken two words to his parents? He and Judith had actually been really strict about this, at first. No social media, for example. Not even YouTube. Maybe it had actually worked. Most of what Milly did on her phone now -- as far as he knew -- was listen to music, or podcasts. She did this constantly. But she still read books, actual printed ones. She sketched, played an instrument, got good grades without even trying, except for the subjects which really interested her (those she bored into.) Incredibly, it was looking like she might turn out okay.

Something else interesting: he's never really thought of himself as an authoritarian -- sure, he has flashes of temper -- but now that he's thinking about it, it's been a while since someone just did what he said without the backtalk, the equivocation, or -- worst of all -- radio silence. His daughter used to be like this, with him. Her grandfather -- his asshole father -- had been the real authoritarian, but he's dead and gone now, far too soon, god rest him. He felt himself grimacing as he finished his drink. Won't someone think of the poor white man?

Down at the end of the bar a woman's voice broke out over the murmuring hubbub: "No! It can't just be a poached egg!" It might be time to be getting out of here. He was reasonably sure they'd played "Baby It's Cold Outside" at least twice since he'd sat down. He thought about it some more, then ordered another bourbon. He's never thought of himself as indecisive either; it's just that shit kept accumulating. Compared to when they used to live down here, the amount of stuff they had in the house was mind-boggling.

He didn't even know his daughter had made any new friends. He doesn't really know the details of her life, anymore. Still, it bothered him that she had asked Judith to ask him if her friend could sleep over instead of just asking him directly. But he wasn't surprised. Even though he had probably spent more time with her over these last couple years, she was still closer to Judith. Told her things. Asked her things. He assumed this was just mothers and daughters. "Closer" was probably not the right word for it, since Milly, like him, didn't really let herself get too close to anyone. For most of the past week she had traipsed around the house in her underwear and her Bluetooth headphones. They moved around each other like ghosts.

He can still remember the first time he caught a guy checking her out. It had been right after they moved. She had just finished eighth grade. The two of them were at the local mall, in the food court, and while he was waiting for their poke bowls Milly wandered off to find seats. As he walked over with their trays, he noticed a guy sitting a few tables over, staring at her. She was heads down in her phone, oblivious. The guy was just some guy, maybe his age, maybe slightly younger, but definitely old enough to be her dad. To be fair, his daughter didn't exactly look adolescent. She had started getting her period almost three years earlier, and her breasts were already bigger than her mom's (according to Judith, this happened to all the girls now, because of hormones in the food, or something). As soon as he sat down, he saw the other guy glance away. Kept glaring at him anyway, burning holes.

A thought that still intrigued him: which one of them was she more like? From Judith, she had gotten her nerviness, but also her tenacity. From him, aloofness, along with a kind of disdainful forbearance. She already had a easy urbanity which had taken both her parents years and years to develop. He wasn't sure where her body had come from. She had been a tall toddler, had averaged out as a tween, but was turning into a taller young woman. Striking, in a way, but a way he found singularly puzzling since all he could see was this unsettled admixture: his eyes, Judith's nose, his hair, her mother's legs. If anyone else had seen how she'd been traipsing around in her underwear they probably would have found it inappropriate, indecent even. He could no more imagine having sex with her than the cat.

Behind him, a motley group was holding the door of the pub open as they bundled through, a chill along with the bell's brassy incessant alarm floating in. He suddenly remembered what he was supposed to ask her. < What time is your friend coming? > he texted.

She responded almost immediately. < Meeting train at 330. > Some more typing dots. Then: < Her names Eulia >.

---

When he got home her Volvo was gone. He hadn't even taken his coat off when his phone dinged. He guessed it might be her, possibly Judith (though unlikely, given the time difference), but it was work. Some more shit had come up. That's what he got for ducking out early. At one point, the afternoon sun had reemerged and was now streaming into the family room through the bay windows at the back. Within this, the cat lay curled in a lazy circle, on top of a folded-up blanket at the short end of the large L-shaped couch. He pulled out his laptop and sat down next to her. That's where he was, deep into email, when the girls burst through the front door, cackling like hyenas.

"Hey there," he called out, not bothering to glance up as they dashed in.

"Yah!" Milly was yelping, quickly followed by another volley of boisterous outbursts. "I didn't know you were here!"

The sound of this -- he couldn't recall the last time he had heard so much laughing in the house -- made him finally raise his head. Instantly glad that he did, and then immediately regretting having wasted those earlier moments. Milly might have been striking, but the girl with her was something else, something wild. There weren't a lot of girls taller than Milly, but this girl might have been one of them. Or maybe it was just all her hair: she had the most incredible afro -- not one of those solid 70's Black Power spheres -- but kinked and indiscriminately curling, an explosion of butterscotch coral.

"That's my dad," he heard his daughter announcing.

"Hi Milly's dad." Something in the other girl's voice, not an accent exactly, more a low upward lilt, melodious. Something in her fair(ish) skin, a shade darker than his, though it was hard to be sure since there was a dense scattering of caramel dots all over her cheeks and her forehead, too large to be called freckles. Sand-colored eyes as seen through shifting clear water, possibly from the thick black hipster glasses fitted to her face. Striking, but in a much different way, and in her case -- with her even starker polarities -- somehow, incredibly, in balance. She wasn't a hyena. She was a lioness. Exotic. There was no other word for it. Even the cat seemed to be interested in her.

Something in Milly's voice too, just a moment ago, which he had been too distracted to catch.

Now the girls were pulling stuff out from all the kitchen cabinets, clattering, still giggling. Her friend -- Eulia, he remembered -- was holding a plastic shopping bag, he finally noticed. "What are you guys doing?" he wanted to know.

"Making pie," said his daughter, like this should have been self-evident.

"We saw it on TikTok," the other explained. For a heartbeat the two of them paused, both imperturbably gazing at him.

He closed his laptop and watched them from the other side of the room. Watched her. She was romping about the kitchen like she owned it, unruly but purposeful. Not a clear sense of her rangy body, just impressions. In bold lettering on her sweatshirt: "CROSS COUNTRY;" above this, the name of the college, and two "C"s with an arrow stuck through them below. Long flowing plaid sweatpants that might have been actual pajamas. Her kinky curls were like bunches of Chinese finger traps. In his head, he saw himself patting them and them bouncing back everywhere. The way she was bouncing around in her hoodie was making him wonder if she was wearing a bra.

From out of the plastic bag came a pie crust and a smaller bag of frozen mixed berries and an odd-looking slab of chocolate. Milly handed her friend scissors, and she cut the bag open and dumped it into one of his saucepans and then set the pan on the flame. Now they both had their backs to him, at the Vulcan range. From behind, with that displacing profusion of hair, it was like looking at the head of a giant. He could see her stirring with a rubber spatula. Roused himself, finally, closing the distance. Her skin was the color of milk tea.

"That should probably be hotter," he told her, restraining himself from brushing alongside her as he turned up the flame. "Don't use that," he told her, taking the spatula out of her hands. "Use this," replacing it with a wooden spoon.

Her massed curls bristled against him as she turned her head. "Yes chef," with an inflection that somehow managed to sound sarcastic and demure at the same time. Her lips protruding, voluminous.

His daughter was scoffing. "You're such a trad wife."

Eulia turned away, this time brushing him with the back of her head. "You're got main character syndrome," she shot back. The two of them started sniggering.

Meanwhile, Milly was tossing chunks of chocolate into the pan as the other girl kept stirring it, light-fingered, swirling the melting concoction together, a rich earthy syrupy smell beginning to simmer up. She was still standing right next to him, her long fingers languidly resting near his fingers on the wooden spoon. Both of them moving it around, like they were conducting a séance. "I feel like we need this to be... thicker," he heard her murmur. He could almost feel the friskiness rustling off her, staticky.

"We could try cornstarch," he suggested, not knowing what else to say.

"Where is it?" Milly interrupted.

Stepping away, he dug it out from the baking drawer and handed it to her. Just then his phone on the couch gave another ding. Resignedly, he left them at the stove and carried his stuff into the home office near the foyer. If he didn't get this shit done it was going to ruin his whole weekend. Sometimes the magic cut both ways. He could still hear the girls back in the family room. He hadn't heard his daughter speak these many words in the whole week she'd been home.

"He reminds me of my dad," he overheard Eulia saying.

"Oh yeah," he called out from the other room, "is your dad cool too?"

The girls seemed to find this hilarious. Chuckled.

Then the other one, murmuring in that voice again: "He's not fat like my dad."

Directly their voices dropped into some coded conference he eventually guessed was about a boy they both knew. He had gone back to his interrupted email, no longer really paying attention. Minutes must have passed. Then, abruptly, he was aware of two different things simultaneously: one, a faint burning smell creeping into the foyer; the other, Eulia loping towards the front door, the cat stalking her. When she flung it open a wave of cold air swept inside, and before he could do or say anything the cat made a leap, disappeared.

"Fuck!"

He was on his feet and rushing out in his socks and the cat was already down the steps and in the front yard but had stopped, sniffing one of the bushes. Before she could get any further, he snatched her up.

"What are you doing?" he was snarling before he could stop himself. "She can't go outside!"

Up in the doorway, Eulia was stock-still, looking stricken. "I'm sorry," she whimpered, her voice small, her eyes behind her glasses big as sand dollars. "It's just... " -- she managed to let her hand shoo through the faint fumes, then left it hanging there too.

"What the fuck," he muttered, stamping past.

Back in the kitchen, Milly had the oven wide open, peering inside as wisps of black smoke kept curling out. He got his mitts and brushed her aside and pulled out the pie and banged the door shut with his hip. From both sides they edged up against him, peering intently at the carbonized crust.

"That's not how it looked on the FYP," the other one said sadly.

"We'll never speak of this again," Milly assured her. Around him, more cackling.

The girls figured they would let it cool before deciding what to do with it -- aside from the crust, it actually didn't look bad. While they waited, they began cleaning up but making almost as much of a mess doing this as before. From the other room his phone dinged again.

Fuck it, he was going to help load the dishwasher.

He was already feeling bad about startling her, and she still seemed a bit wary, but the kitchen was pleasantly overwarm from the oven, the air filled with a warm savory holiday smell, and the window above the sink was steamy and streaked, dripping with condensation. He wasn't at all drunk from the bourbon -- it had been hours ago -- but he still had that last lingering, tingling afterglow. In the air, a faint smoldering undercurrent. Her plaid red pajama pants looked remarkably like gift wrapping paper, flowing and loose, but not enough to entirely hide the way her ass swung about, wobbled. A long dangling drawstring tied in a floppy bow over her notch.

"What kind of name is Eulia?" he decided to ask.

"Fa-ther!"

Her friend ignored this as she swung back around, handing him one of the mixing bowls. "It's Greek. It's short for 'Eulalia.'"

"I thought you were Spanish?" asked Milly.

The other girl made a lighthearted scoffing sound. "I'm kind of a mutt," she replied coyly. She looked like she was getting the spring back in her step. Her eyes looked liquid and tawny, full of spunky mischief.