I am subletting a small one-bedroom apartment in Bed-Stuy, my first time living without roommates or a partner, when my father calls. He is going to be in Connecticut for his high-school reunion. On his drive home to Virginia, he would like to stop and spend the night with me. Is this okay?      

      Of course it is. He is my father.

      “Feichang hao,” he replies, using the Mandarin expression for “very good.” He began studying Mandarin when I moved to Shanghai and has a goal of learning enough to read the original I Ching.

      He has told me to expect him around two in the afternoon. The day of his planned arrival, I call him at one to get an update on his ETA. No answer. At two, I call him again. Still no answer. Three p.m., same thing. Four p.m., still no answer. At 4:30 p.m., my buzzer goes off.

      I go down to the entrance of my apartment building and find my father standing on the stoop. He is wearing jeans and a cowboy hat. His long-sleeved Oxford shirt is damp with perspiration.

      Upon hearing the door click open, he turns his gaze from the street to me. We don’t look particularly alike, but we do have the same wiry eyebrows. Mine are tamed through monthly threading appointments while his emerge over his glasses—the hairs curly and pointing in different directions. At seventy-three, he has shrunk a bit. I am 5’9”, and when I hug him hello, I notice we are almost the same height.

      Pulling away from the hug, I ask what happened.

      “Oh,” he shrugs. “My phone died and I forgot my charger, so I had to feel my way here,” he explains.