The Ex Talk

Day four post-PodCon, I finally turn on my laptop. I drag it over to the couch, push aside a takeout container to make room for another half bottle of wine. Instead of going straight to social media or the work email account I’m sure has been deleted, I open up a file I haven’t touched in forever.

My dad had all kinds of recording devices, some from this century and plenty that weren’t. We argued about analog versus digital in between recording our many “radio shows.” Eventually, I uploaded everything to my computer,

tucked away in a folder simply labeled with his initials, DG. Like only two letters would make it somehow easier to look at.

The thing about losing someone is that it doesn’t happen just once. It happens every time you do something great you wish they could see, every time you’re stuck and you need advice. Every time you fail. It erodes your sense of normal, and what grows back is decidedly not normal, and yet you still have to figure out how to trudge forward.

Ten years, and I am still losing him every day.

At first it’s really fucking hard to hear his voice through my laptop speakers. Our recording equipment was too good—there’s no static, nothing that makes it sound like the audio has aged even remotely.

“This is Dan and Shay Do the News,” he says in that perfect voice, and I suck down more wine.

I hear my eleven-year-old self giggle. “No, no, you’re supposed to say my name first.”

“Whoops, sorry, I forgot. Let’s try that again. This is Dan and Shay Do the—”

“Daaad, you did it again!”

“Oh shoot, did I? One more time—”

He was doing it on purpose, of course. I can hear it now.

I listen to the two of us spar, laugh, tell stories. It tugs at my heart, it aches, but it doesn’t give me the kind of clarity I was hoping for.

Fact: I loved doing these shows with my dad.

Fact: I wanted to grow up and be on the radio.

I dreamed of telling stories that would make people feel something—the same way radio did for me. For a while, hosting a successful show felt like an answer to the questions I’d had my whole life. It was validation.

The Ex Talk gave me that, just for a while, but if I’m being honest with myself, I hadn’t felt it on Paloma’s show in a long, long time.

I keep clicking through files. I’m already at rock bottom, so what’s a little more suffering?

The funny thing is, my dad would have gone wild for what happened at our live show. Oh, he’d absolutely be disappointed in me, but he loved when radio went off script. He craved those human moments, the times you got to see the people behind the personas.

Well, here you go, Dad. Here’s how I ruined public radio.

34

My mother gets married in my childhood backyard on a clear July day.

It’s just shy of eighty degrees, perfect for a Seattle summer, and she’s radiant in her navy jumpsuit, red hair arranged in a sophisticated knot with a few curls tumbling onto her shoulders. Phil is in a charcoal linen suit and navy tie, and neither of them can stop smiling.

The wedding is small, only about thirty people. My parents were always proud of our backyard—lord knows my dad spent enough time maintaining it. Turns out, there’s enough space for a chuppah, several rows of chairs, and a small dance floor. Everything is adorned with yellow roses and elegant calla lilies, a marriage of my mother’s and Phil’s favorite flowers, and we strung tea lights along the fence. There’s a string quartet made up of their friends from the symphony, and later, the two of them will play, too.

It hits me that not everyone gets to see a parent so deeply in love like this, and that makes me feel lucky, that I’m privy to this side of my mother.

That I’ve seen her this in love not once but twice.

My new stepsiblings and their kids are enough to make a small party feel alive and electric, and while I’m wistful for the quiet celebrations I had with my parents, I think I could get used to, well, fun.

There’s so much to set up that I don’t get a chance to talk to Ameena and TJ, who arrive close to the start of the ceremony. I know I’ll have to talk to them at some point, but I’m putting it off as long as I can. My mother is my first priority.

The ceremony itself is short and sweet. My mother and Phil wrote their own vows, and they’re both appropriately sappy. They incorporate the Jewish tradition of breaking a glass—after which we yell out, “Mazel tov!”—and a Nigerian tradition where guests spray money at the bride and groom, which they opt to donate to a cancer charity in honor of Phil’s late wife.

“How are you doing?” my new stepsister Diana asks after the ceremony, while we’re in line at the small buffet next to the dance floor.