“You just what?” She turned off the faucet, dried her hands slowly. “Think I’m some kind of homewrecker? A gold digger? Your dad’s midlife crisis?”
Then came the night of September 26, 2016.
For three weeks, I watched her like a nature documentary. She painted watercolors in the backyard, humming Billie Holiday. She fixed the garbage disposal without a manual. She called my dad “honey” and meant it. I hated her for being perfect. I hated myself for noticing the way her tank top clung to her when she stretched to reach the top shelf.
The first time I saw her, I tripped over the dog. Not a graceful stumble—a full-on, face-plant-into-the-coffee-table, kibble-scattering disaster. Because my dad, the man who wore socks with sandals and clipped coupons for canned tuna, had somehow landed her .
“You see a ‘hot girlfriend,’” she continued, putting air quotes around the words. “But I see a man who cries at dog commercials and still writes letters by hand. That’s who your dad is. And you? You’re the person he loves most in the world.”
I froze. I didn’t know she’d lost a brother.
That was the moment I stopped seeing my dad’s hot girlfriend and started seeing Mira.