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envelope with a letter opener.
    "Spying," said Michael with his version of an evil chuckle.
    "Michael!" I exclaimed. "This is astonishing! I do believe I had
better sit down." I sat in the chair at the desk and read the
telegram again.
    "May I inquire who it is that has so astonished you?" Michael
leaned against a corner of the desk, crossing his ankles.
    "My father! First of all, he has addressed the telegram not to
Caroline but to Fremont, and he's never done that before!"
In fact, my use of my middle name rather than my first name had
been a sore spot between us ever since I began the practice on my
move to California three, going on four, years ago. "Let me read it
to you:
    " 'DEAREST DAUGHTER STOP AM COMING TO SAN FRANCISCO TO CELEBRATE
YOUR BIRTHDAY WITH YOU STOP HAVE MADE RESERVATIONS AT HOTEL SAINT
FRANCIS STOP ARRIVING NEXT MONTH ON THE NINTH AT FOUR PM STOP
COMING ALONE STOP YOUR LOVING FATHER.'
    "I must say, I'm stunned."
    "So I gather. But why? Other than speaking of the devil, of
course."
    I frowned up at my partner, my friend, my lover, about whom my
father knew absolutely nothing. Yet. "I beg your pardon?"
    "Speak of the devil and he sends you a telegram. I mentioned
your father not long ago, when we were in the kitchen. I said he
must be an unusual man. Surely, Fremont, you will be glad to see
him. Especially as he says he's coming alone. As I recall, it is
your stepmother you're not too fond of."
    "Don't call her that! Eeuw! I prefer not to hear the word
'mother,' in any form, in the same sentence with that woman. Just
call her by her name, which is Augusta. Anyway, you are quite
right, I'm not at all fond of her, but Father is besotted. He
positively adores Augusta. How odd that he would come alone!" I
jiggled my foot and tapped the telegram against my lip,
thinking.
    "If he's coming to celebrate your birthday, and he knows how you
feel about Augusta, then I should say he's being considerate of
your feelings."
    "Yes, I suppose so, but still, it's most peculiar."
    "You don't look very happy about it. You haven't seen your
father in, let's see, how long?"
    "Since January of 1905. As it is now mid-March of 1908, it has
been three years and three months." As I toted up the months and
years in my head, I felt a pang, a deepening ache that told me I
had indeed missed my father more than I wanted to allow myself to
know, or to feel.
    "And how old will you be on this birthday, which, as well as I
remember, will take place on the tenth of next month?"
    "I will be twenty-five." I looked up at my lover. "So old."
    "No, my darling," he said, bending to kiss my lips, "so
young."
    I had a job to do, I could not hang around the office fretting
over Father-or rather, fretting over what I suspected Father would
think about my chosen style of life when he saw it with his own
eyes. It was one thing to persuade myself I did not care, with
Father a whole continent away; quite another thing entirely, now I
knew he was coming. But I mustn't think about that now.
    I went upstairs to my abode, which was quite spacious, lacking
only a kitchen; this was not inconvenient in the least because I
generally joined Michael for meals, in his side of the house. If
for some strange reason I felt inclined to prepare a meal, I could
always do it in the kitchen downstairs on the first floor. I had
turned my second-floor rooms into a parlor, a bedroom, and the
beginnings of a library. As I was furnishing them myself out of my
meager means, everything looked rather sparse still.
    Father will be shocked, I thought as I opened my shabby
little wardrobe cabinet and retrieved the garment that constitutes
my disguise.
    I was dismayed by my inability to put his visit out of my head,
and to stop caring what he would think. It is so hard to bear the
disapproval of a parent, especially so for me with Father. I was
only fourteen when my mother died, and he did not marry again until
after my twenty-first birthday, so the bond between us had grown
especially