My dad used to take me walking during the summer. We would explore a different trail every weekend. We didn’t mind getting lost so much because that meant a few more hours together. One time, we found a wall that was covered in alluring blooming honeysuckle. Dad plucked a couple of blossoms and showed me how to carefully disassemble the flower and suck out the sweetness inside. My mom was helpful when it came to most things, but my dad was fun.

Dad and I don’t talk much anymore. We don’t walk anymore. We don’t eat honeysuckle anymore. After the divorce, I didn’t want to see him. The whole thing felt like his fault. I lived with my mom during the week and went to visit him on the weekends. He would suggest going on walks like the ones we used to take, but I didn’t want to.

My mom told me maybe my dad was trying to save any type of sweetness our relationship still had. She said he wanted to connect with me, but how could he? He was the one who had torn our family apart. He was the reason we were living in separate houses. He was my hand suffocating the delicate flower, causing it to lose any sugar it had left between its petals.

Dad got a new girlfriend. Her name is Linda. Such a bland name. Linda doesn’t like honeysuckle. She says the taste is too sweet for her. Linda hates walking. She doesn’t like to get dirty. Linda would “prefer to stay in and watch a movie. Wouldn’t that be fun?” I don’t think dad likes Linda very much. She has a sharp face and long, looming lashes. I think that’s why he dates her. I think she looks mean.

Sometimes Linda tries to relate to me. She told me once that she could relate to me because her dog died when she was a child. Linda likes to pretend that my mom’s dead. I think she likes to think that my dad never loved anyone enough to marry them before her.

Dad brought me honeysuckle one Friday night when he came to pick me up from school. I gripped them between my warm palms on the ride home. Once I had shut the door to my room, I delicately placed them on the bed and tried to revive them, searching for any drop of syrup my tongue could find.