"Maybe they can rehabilitate Anthony Weiner at Blue Sage Farm after he's released from prison."
Dad shakes his head and laughs. "I think you should go to the market with me again. I loved having you there, and you said you had fun with Rhett the other night. Don't you want to see him again?"
Dad moves alongside the final goat on the milking stand, sprays her teats with cleaning solution then wipes them with a cloth.
I wrinkle my nose. "Geez, I feel like I should give you guys some privacy."
"Ha ha. I don't even think about what I'm doing anymore. It's just routine. And stop using humor to deflect my questions."
I tap my fingers against the side of the bucket I'm perched on. "Rhett is a good guy." Dad shoots me a hopeful look. "But he's too young, lives too far away, and isn't my type. The best part of the night at Ricky's was beating Seth at pool."
Dad stands up and puts away his sterilization supplies. "I'm still annoyed he didn't give you a ride."
"He offered. I wanted to drive myself."
"Still, he knew that place was really difficult to find. You could have gotten lost out there."
"Please don't say anything to him about it."
Seth already thinks I'm a daddy's girl, and that idea doesn't need any reinforcement.
"Fine, I won't say anything." He gestures to the goats. "Time to fill their buckets with food. Eating keeps them occupied during the milking process."
"Got it."
I pick up the bucket of goat food next to me and fill the containers in front of the goats while Dad messes with the milking apparatus.
"Sometimes you have to give things a chance," he says. "I didn't fall for your mom right away. It wasn't until we'd been dating for a few months that I really started to see a future for us."
"How about with Renata? Did you know right away?"
Dad smiles. "Pretty much."
He attaches tubes to the goats' teats and flips on the power switch. The machine hums to life. What's happening in front of me looks eerily similar to when I walked in on a co-worker pumping breast milk in the faculty bathroom.
"With Renata, it was infatuation at first sight. She was in my chemistry class, and the minute I saw her walk in the door on that first day of school, it was like kapow!" He grabs his heart like he's been struck by Cupid's arrow. "I know it sounds silly, but I was drawn to her right away. Of course, I didn't know her yet, and once I did, my feelings grew. She was the smartest girl in the class—an A on every test—and the prettiest, too. Prettiest girl in the whole school."
"Wow, you had it bad."
Dad sighs like a lovesick schoolboy, then laughs at himself. "First love. There's nothing like it."
First love. I always thought of Mom as Dad's great love and biggest heartbreak. What he's telling me changes everything I believed about my parents’ relationship. Renata was always the one for him.
Dad stares at the milk pouring into the containers, but I know he's seeing forty years into the past.
"I asked her to go out with me at least three times, and she kept saying no. Finally, I stopped and focused on becoming her friend. I wanted to be around her, and if being friends was the only way, so be it. But after a few months, she asked me why I wasn't asking her out on dates anymore. She was ready to say yes. Of course, she knew better than I did what would happen if she started dating a white boy."
"But it was the late seventies. I would have thought things were different by then."
Dad shakes his head. "Honey, things aren't that different now. Some people are still unhappy to see us together. Back then, it was much worse. Kids at my school didn't date across the color line."
I try to imagine the two of them, my father, the wiry track runner with a head of shaggy hair, and Renata, the straight-A beauty. They were young, like my students, a combination of innocence and raging hormones, flirting with each other over Bunsen burners and test tubes.
"So what happened?" I ask.
"She lied to her parents, and I lied to mine. We'd meet up at the movies. I took her to Coney Island—that was a great day. We'd go on long walks in the park. I was just happy to hold her hand and talk to her. We talked for hours about everything. She had plans for nursing school, and she helped me think about what I wanted for my future. We were living in a dream, thinking we could actually be together after graduation. Eventually, word about us got back to her folks and mine. And they were not happy."
"Her parents were opposed to it, too?"
