12
Absentee Dads
DENSITY: Based on average North American divorce rate of 45 percent, plenty of them to go around.
RESOURCES: “Nine hundred Canadian dollars less per month until offspring reaches age eighteen.”
NESTING HABITS: Predisposed to desert their first nest.
PRONE TO: Late-night ice cream and hockey-highlights viewing behind Mom’s back, affairs, broken promises.
It was nearly a month into his career at Anderson High before Norris and his dad could coordinate an actual webcam session. Their first attempt had been the night of his arrival in Austin. Norris had rushed to his computer and spent a good couple of hours idly waiting before giving up on that gray icon ever turning green. Around eleven that night, just as he was getting into bed, he’d finally gotten a text: Sry, Reggie fever!
The next time, it was a rash, and the time after that, his dad had been called in for a double shift at the hospital, leaving Norris with a call from a very apologetic Janet.
“Felix feels terrible about bailing on you,” Janet had said, leaning into the camera’s frame behind the empty desk chair without sitting down. There was a stain on her shirt, and Norris could hear cooing in the background.
“It’s fine.”
“Are you liking Texas?” she asked distractedly.
“Nope.”
“That’s great! Your dad will be so upset he missed you!”
“It’s fine, Janet.”
It was understandable. Work or new baby, Norris knew his dad was spending a lot of time elbow deep in fecal matters that weren’t his. Felix Kaplan was a nurse technician who had recently transitioned from a hospital in Montreal to a senior center in Vancouver, where he was still getting his bearings. The sudden move from Montreal, four months before their own, was stated as being necessary to be closer to Janet’s family. This was both a valid excuse and complete bull; Janet had a way of skirting that line.
“I’ll tell him to text you! Bye, Norr—!” Janet had said, cutting herself off midsentence with a click. His father’s text didn’t come for another day and a half.
Norris knew that disliking his, urgh, stepmother was a cliché and that as far as stepmothers ten years younger than your mom went, he could probably do worse than Janet, but he couldn’t help it. Janet had a gap between her front teeth, wore bright makeup, and had talon-like nails that were covered with intricate designs. Massive chest aside, he did not see the appeal. Plus, she’d called him “Maurice” for their first few interactions, a fact she now made up for by using his name as much as possible—Norris, Norris, Norris—which was just obnoxious. Then again, maybe it was all just genetic loyalty. The fact that Basic Janet had been the preferred alternative to the half of Norris’s own genetic makeup that was Judith caused him to naturally dislike her.
When they finally managed to check in, Norris’s father looked exhausted, still in his green scrubs with what Norris could tell was an ID lanyard around his neck. His kitchen’s light was too bright, and with the late-afternoon sun coming in from his window, Norris could barely make out his dad’s features under the pixelated reflection of his shaved head.
“Nice room, kid! How is the rest of the new place?” Felix asked through a yawn that was quickly masked by a smile.
“It’s fine.”
“It looks pretty big from here,” Felix said. “You’re on your laptop, right? Give me a tour.”
“Um, mom’s studying in the living room.”
“Ah. Maybe another time, then.”
“The apartment is fine, Dad. It’s the zip code that’s the issue.”
“C’mon, it can’t be that bad. Find a rink yet?”
“Yeah, Dad,” Norris answered. He flashed back to Monk Liam scrambling on the ice. It was going to be interesting, that was for sure. The kid was pretty good, but still just as weird.
“Did you know Austin is consistently listed as one of the top ten cities in all of North America?”
Norris made a point of rolling his eyes for the camera. “Those lists are written by people whose brains collapse because a row of food trucks have Christmas lights dangling from their counter.” His father just smiled absently. “How’s the brood?” Norris asked, nodding to the bassinet he could see right at the frame.
“He’s good. Although, honestly? I forgot how much of a sleep killer these things could be,” Felix said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m too old for this.”
Many in their extended family agreed, Norris included, so he said nothing.
“Did you get the last pictures?”
“I did.” Norris nodded. “Very baby-like, with baby-like features.”
Norris had no idea what it meant, that he now had a half brother, more than a decade younger than him and one country away. He wondered if he would even see it, him, Reggie, more than fourteen times in his entire lifetime. Probably not.
“You, on the other hand, were a quiet baby.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Smart too; always watching. I would wake up, and you’d be staring right at me and smiling.”
Norris suspected this wasn’t true but liked the story nonetheless. He was about to ask for more details when his bedroom door opened.
“Honey, I can’t access my work folders,” Judith said in a frustrated tone, dangling a laptop on her arm.
“Can you take a—oh.”
“Hi, Judith,” his father said in that sweet and measured tone meant to hide months of contentious fights and the plate he’d received across the head that one time—one of the Kaplan household’s most dramatic moments.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were on a call. Hello, Felix.”
“Hi! How is the new job?” Norris’s computer answered in false cheerfulness.
“Good. Yours?”
“Good.”
A protracted silence followed—Divorced Decorum, Norris called it. He simply couldn’t help himself.
“Call it a hunch, but I think you two have had sex before.”
“Jesus, kid!” Felix chortled.
“Your son,” Judith said accusingly.
“Your son,” Felix answered in kind. Years ago, Norris remembered this being a bit of theirs.
“All right, logging off,” Felix said with a preemptive wave.
“Dad, wait, I—” Norris looked over to his mother hesitantly. What he was about to say would not make her happy, but he wanted a confirmation on the record, and it wasn’t often these days all three of them were in the same room, webcam or otherwise.
“I can still spend the summer there, right?”
It all happened in a split second, but Norris counted three exchanges of glares: one from his mom to his dad, one from his dad to someone offscreen to his left (Janet, of course), and the last one from Felix to the bassinet at his side. Norris could imagine what Janet was probably frantically mouthing just out of sight. How long had that gap-toothed Fantine been standing there?
“Yeah . . .” Felix began. “We can definitely talk about that then, kid.”
This clearly wasn’t enough for off-camera Janet.
“The thing is with work and the baby . . . I wouldn’t be able to spend much time with you, y’know? And we wouldn’t be able to visit Montreal too often.”
“That’s okay,” Norris said quickly. “I can call or Skype with people from your place.”
“Well, you can do that from Texas, can’t you?” Felix asked.
“I guess, but—”
“Excuse me, but our child’s not a package, Felix,” Judith chimed in.
“Oh yeah, how was the overnight shipping to Texas, Judith?” Felix replied without missing a beat.
Uh. So, that’s where Norris got it.
“You know what, Felix—”
“No, but please educate me, professor.”
“Guys?” Norris said. “It’s going to be really hard to repress memories made at my age, so can we not?”
Felix and Judith shared a guilty look through the camera. Reminding them both of the effects of divorce on an only child’s fragile psyche was one of the easiest ways of defusing these things. Not to mention that new computer he had gotten for his last birthday.
“We might, I don’t know . . . We might be able to make it work,” Felix said after another moment. “Things might have calmed down by then. I’ll let you know. It could be fun.”
“Okay!” Norris answered. The fact that his dad was resolutely avoiding breaking eye contact with the camera told him that this executive decision was being made above Janet’s clearance.
“Good!” Felix said with a grin. “There, everyone’s happy! I have to go, but I’ll talk to you next week, kid.”
“Bye, Dad.”
The icon went gray again, relegating Norris’s father to a simple silhouette. Whatever was passing through Norris’s face at that moment, Judith felt the need to rub his shoulder, awkwardly dangling the laptop on her arm. It was infantilizing, but Norris also didn’t want her hand gone just yet.
“Summer is still a ways off. I’m sure it’ll work out by then,” she said soothingly.
“Liar,” Norris answered, though he still made no move to shrug her off his shoulder.
When the Kaplan marriage ended after fourteen years—roughly ten of them pleasant by Norris’s calculations—Felix Kaplan had made a point of telling Norris over and over again that he was not going away. Every time they saw each other, every phone call, I’m not going away.
I know you’re not, Norris remembered answering. And then, as these things tended to go, Felix had gone away. Little by little, weekends had turned into weekly dinners and “check-ins” that came without any concrete dates, except when it came time to announce that he would now be a big brother, whatever that meant. The prospect of father and son spending two months under the same roof, with a six-month notice no less, was now a “maybe.”
“Your dad really is very busy these days, and babies are no picnic, believe me.”
“Babies: hard. Got it,” Norris said, shrugging off his mother’s hand. He cleared space on his desk by pushing crumpled water bottles, socks, and stray sheets to the floor with a slow, encompassing arm swipe.
“Let’s have a look,” he continued resolutely. “Did you remember to turn on the Remote Desktop app at work?”