Perhaps it's because my dad and I connected so few times that I remember this so vividly. We were all on his boat: him, me, my idiot stepmother, and my stepsister Erin, who was my age. At 15, Erin had already been arrested more times than I can accurately remember. 10 times? 12? 30? I don't know.
Despite her predilection for kicking my dad in the nuts, I hated her. The day we met, at their home in L.A., 10 year old Erin had put cigarette butts in the bathroom toilet. "LOOK AT WHAT JOHN DID!" she screamed gleefully. My dad glared into the toilet, then at Erin. "Man, did you ever just try to frame the wrong kid in the wrong way." And then he beat the crap out of her.
My relationship with Erin remains unchanged to this day.
So anyway, five years later, we're speeding along on Dad's boat, and Erin is reclined on its stern, lying just above the props. Her mother screamed at her. "Erin! Get down! If you fall off you'll hit the propellers!"
Erin rolled her eyes. "Duh. If I fall off, the boat will just move away and I'll miss the propellers."
My stepmother turned to my aeronautical engineer father. "Is that true?"
My dad took a beat longer than I'd expected. "Yes. Yes, that's right. The boat will move away."
And then he squinted at me, subtley shaking his head in the international sign for Don't you dare say a word.
I just told that story to Allie. "That's the first story about your father where I see any of you in him," she said, not particularly meaning it as a compliment.