A few days later, I get an email from Mr. Faraway. He send a picture of The Child and his son, singing together in a mock recording studio at the EMP.

Sorry for the bad camera phone picture, he says. We had a great time – thanks for tagging along.

I am the tagalong, the unwanted guest. I remind myself that it doesn’t really matter.

It’s okay not to be perfect, especially when times are tough.

We get to the EMP and I am delighted to discover that it is attached to another museum, which I’ve not yet seen and which is far more interesting to me than Jimi Hendrix’ guitar.  The SciFi museum opened recently, and apparently the admission ticket I receive is good for that, too.

I’m going to the SciFi museum, I say.

Mr. Faraway and his children think this is a good idea, so along with several other people from the bus, we head in that direction. We wander around looking at set sketches and props from Avatar; I take pictures of The Child with a genuine, apparently wood Dalek from the original Tom-Baker-era Doctor Who that I grew up on. We all wait on line together for the kids to have their own Avatar videos made and uploaded to YouTube.

When the downstairs has been exhausted, we head up to see what else there is.

The Child and the boy want to go check out the music section now and begin racing off in that direction, past the giant guitar tornado sculpture. Mr. Faraway says, I’ve got them, and races off too. It happens quickly – suddenly, The Child is just gone, doing what she wants to do, and I’ve lost control of her, the situation.

She can’t even supervise her child properly, he must be thinking.

I wander around for a bit, but then return to the main hall and wait for them. As I stand there, trying not to look as awkward as I feel, I watch concert footage of Freddy Mercury, and idly remember how much The Foreigner loved his music. He played it all the time.

Mr. Faraway returns with two children in tow, and they all tell me what a great time they had. He took pictures, and promises to email them to me. He doesn’t seem annoyed that he had to manage an extra child for a bit, and it dawns on me: This is what fathers do.

I have to think about this for a moment, and I play through my mind all the fathers of The Child’s friends. They do things like this too. Perform in talent shows with little girls, spin them around on ice skating rinks, laugh at their jokes. In some world I have never lived in, this is completely normal and routine. I want to live there too, I think – but I never seem to meet the likes of Mr. Faraway. Actually, I sometimes do meet them, but someone else has almost always met them first.

I’m completely lost in thoughts and stumped for conversation now, but the problem is solved when more of the group starts to gather in the same area. I focus on the music, since it’s hard to hear much else anyway.

We board the bus back, and I get on first, and head toward the back of the bus. Mr. Faraway takes a seat toward the front and begins chatting with another father.

I sit in the back and listen to the chattering of teenagers around me, and wish I had not been so hopelessly needy that I drove away the only conversation I felt safe enough to have.

Early last summer, right about the time The Lawyer was sending subpoenas for supposedly nonexistent pension accounts, I spent a weekend at a conference for the children’s group associated with my lineage society. I didn’t really want to go: The Child wasn’t especially interested and I was struggling, socially. The divorce that would not end was the only thing on my mind, which makes conversation difficult, particularly when dealing with a room full of complete strangers.

I’m not great in these types of large gatherings, in general, though I seem to have mastered an approach that works for me. I stand in one place for the duration of the event. I find by the end that although I’ve not moved a bit, I’ve talked to quite a few people – but not actually approached anyone or said anything overly stupid in an effort to break the ice.

I’m not an Eskimo, I’m a fish – the Eskimos seem to find me, and they have their own ice-breaking equipment.

The conference is mostly fine, and mostly boring, and mostly doesn’t require a lot of conversation on my part. I sit through presentations, and there is plenty of reading material that I can pretend to read intently when I find myself needing to avoid the interactions that I find so difficult.

This strategy works well, too, until The Child and I find ourselves on a school bus for a field trip. We’re headed to the EMP – Paul Allen’s interactive Seattle music museum – with a busload of total strangers. I can’t pretend to read, and the few people I do know at the conference mostly aren’t there.

Except one family, who live quite far away from me, out on the peninsula. I only sort-of know the father, who serves on the state Board with me  and I am pretty sure – but not positive – that I was on a bylaws committee he chaired and did all the work for. I know his teenage daughter better, because I’ve seen her at other events, and she’s a very personable, social girl. She’s also on crutches, which The Child finds fascinating, so it’s easy to join this group: father, teenage girl, and a boy about The Child’s age.

We board the bus together, and I sit with Mr. Faraway. The conversation is easy – at least, it’s easier than the other ones I’ve had that weekend. We chat about kids, and The Teenager’s foot injury, and I am surprised to discover that Mr. Faraway himself does not qualify to be a member of the group: His kids do, but through their mother, so he signed them up and serves on the board and takes them to all sorts of activities and just generally helps out.

I make no effort to conceal my surprise, and wonder for a moment where his wife is. The one who is eligible to be a member is not in attendance.