By Rebecca Klassen

When Kelsie was born, Mike had held her waxy cheek against his bare chest by his heart, just like the woman running the antenatal class had shown him with a plastic doll. He likes instructions. Without the classes, he was sure he’d have held Kelsie at arm’s length while they both screamed.

As the midwife had repaired Lana, he’d said to her, ‘Good job, love,’ like Kelsie was a midweek lasagne Lana had thrown together with jarred sauces. He’d wanted to shed a tear, say something meaningful like vloggers did about their firstborn, but he was preoccupied with Kelsie’s tiny face, already imagining her grown up, wearing a mortarboard, posing for graduation photos, his arm around her cloaked shoulders, puffing out his chest. The camera would also snap the moment he surprised her with a post-study trip to Canada, the three of them delighted at the prospect of sea kayaking off Vancouver Island amongst orcas. He’d seen a Sunday night programme where a team of scientists had watched the great mammals glide between their kayaks. He envisaged himself, Lana and Kelsie rowing, spotting the great beasts, talking about shared memories and Kelsie’s career plans. He couldn’t wait.   

That image had changed when Lana had filed for divorce when Kelsie was five. Just he and Kelsie now skimmed across mountain-mirrored water in his daydream, the orcas spraying vapour beside them. Mike hadn’t wanted a divorce. He’d googled how to fix your marriage, but the advice to communicate effectively seemed impractical. How could he communicate if he didn’t know what to say? He’d wished there were marriage classes he could take. Counselling had been an option, but something about that felt invasive, like he’d have to search inside himself. 

Now Kelsie was fourteen, and she hadn’t stayed at Mike’s flat in nearly a year. Her edging away had been gradual, missing a few weekends here and there until her visits had petered out. They’d been to the cinema a few times, but they’d sat silently in the dark, the movie blaring, Kelsie texting. She was getting more and more busy with friends, dance classes, and homework. She cancelled meetups with him, didn’t answer his calls, rarely lol-ed at the memes he sent her. It wouldn’t last though. Google had told Mike that this estrangement was temporary, that it was all part of her growing up, being a teenager, and he said so to Lana when she called him to help out more. 

‘It’s a phase, Lana.’

‘Adolescence is hundreds of different phases, Mike. Either way, she’s relying on me all the time for lifts, money, and support. It can’t all come from me. She has a father.’

‘A lot of girls pull away from their dads at this age.’ This was a line from the top article he’d read. ‘They want their mums for shopping and girl talk.’ That little nugget he’d improvised. 

Lana sighed in that way that told him she was massaging her temple. 

‘Look, Lana, you can get impatient with me all you like, but I can’t force Kelsie to come over and hang out with me!’ The image of him kayaking among the orcas alone was feeling too close. ‘Tell me what to do. Please.’

That sigh again. ‘You could update her room for a start. She told me she still has a Frozen bedspread. That desk is old, too. We bought it when you and I were still together. She can’t get her legs under it.’ 

When he texted Kelsie about the trip to Ikea, she replied with, What’s my budget? He floundered, then she messaged again about doing an online order instead, avoiding the crowds. Mike had to sell the trip if they were going to spend time together. He texted back, Nah, let’s go to the shop together. You can try things out. We can get meatballs. It’ll be an adventure!

She replied with a thumbs up, and when he sent her the pickup details, she didn’t reply at all. 

Mike thought the drive to Ikea would call for the radio to fill the silence between them, and even though Kelsie constantly tapped at her phone, she spoke without pause about celebrities, influencers, her friends, the dance world, her schoolmates, all as though he knew who these people were. One name he recognised instantly though: Skye. The girls had been friends since starting school, and Skye had provided playdates and normality for Kelsie during the divorce year. 

‘How is Skye? Does she still rollerblade?’

‘Of course fucking not.’ 

‘What did you say?’ He was sure he’d never heard Kelsie swear before. It sounded awful, like metal being violently crushed.    

‘No one rollerblades anymore, Dad.’

Mike swallowed what he wanted to say, remembering his own prude father, sneering from his armchair at foul language, and how distant the two of them had been. The orcas are so fucking cool wasn’t in his vision, but it was better than Kelsie not being there. 

‘Course she doesn’t rollerblade,’ he replied. ‘What the fuck does Skye do these days?’

They went past the restaurant and the scent of gravy and gravadlax, Kelsie deciding they’d get meatballs afterwards. She grabbed a trolley, which she passed him to push. He watched her enter the busy fake living rooms adorned with plastic plants. 

A stooped, spectacled woman elbowed Mike’s arm and grinned like he was her tiny grandson caught with chocolate smudged around his lips. 

‘She’s got her daddy wrapped round her finger.’

Mike stood a little taller, chuckling. ‘Always has.’ 

The heat from the lie gathered in his cheeks. He scurried away, looking for Kelsie, unsure he’d recognise her from the back. He spotted her in front of cube units, the kind shaped like window frames, ready for storage boxes to be slid into the square gaps. She chattered into her phone, holding it in front of her face, a smile switched on. 

‘I’m getting one of these Kallax units for my room. What frame should I get: white stained oak or grey wood? I’ll be back soon with storage box choices.’ Her smile fell as her thumbs drummed the screen. 

Mike parked the trolley next to her. ‘Who were you talking to?’

‘My followers.’

‘Like a live stream?’ 

She didn’t look up. ‘No, Dad. Follow me. I need cushions for my bed.’

He’d missed hearing her call him dad.

Kelsie led him past book nooks and bold-coloured sofas to a large crate filled with an assortment of cushions. The geometric patterns of fuchsia and orange gave Mike a headache. She plucked five different styles, snapping photos of them and loading them into the trolley.

‘You need five?’ Mike asked.

‘Yeah. Can I get them?’

‘Okay.’  

For a single bed, he couldn’t see why she’d need more than three, but for the sake of twenty-five quid, it didn’t matter. He just wanted her to be happy, to want to visit him. 

Kelsie’s phone rang. She answered, holding the phone in front of her face for a video call, talking loudly. Heads turned towards them, and Mike felt conscious of the couple sitting on a corner sofa, watching them, like he’d interrupted them in their own living room. 

‘Kelse,’ said Mike, putting his mouth to her ear, ‘maybe just do a normal call.’

‘Oh my god, who is that man?’ blared a voice from the phone. 

Mike looked at the girl on Kelsie’s phone. Instead of pigtails, Skye now had a slicked-back top knot. Mike waved. 

‘Skye, it’s me. Kelsie’s dad.’ 

Kelsie and Skye laughed, and Mike laughed too, though it felt like they weren’t laughing with him. He used to make Skye spaghetti hoops on toast, play ludo with her and Kelsie, and give her a lift home from school sometimes, so he couldn’t understand why she didn’t recognise him. It hadn’t all been that long ago, surely? Mike did some calendar maths.

Seven years ago. It was hard to comprehend, like a tricky maths problem. How had seven years felt like one? When he realised it was only another seven years until Kelsie might graduate and they’d be planning their Canada trip, he let the trolley support him as he made his way to a turquoise sofa, slumping onto it. Kelsie was still by the storage boxes, pointing out different ones to Skye, the spectacled woman edging past her, startling when Kelsie laughed loudly. Mike looked in the trolley at the cushions. He knew they were a flimsy start to rebuilding their relationship. He needed to start parenting properly if they were going to ever paddle on the Pacific together. 

Taking out his phone, he googled how to parent a fourteen-year-old girl. Bullet points headed the search, and he mentally ticked off the ones he felt he was achieving today, like spend time together, and make time for listening. Give them space he knew he’d taken too far this past year. The one at the top, make clear guidelines felt doable, like something he could tick off. The subheading said to set clear boundaries to show you care. Mike took the trolley to Kelsie. He knew exactly where to start.

‘Kelsie, off the phone now.’ He kept his voice firm and measured. ‘We came here to shop, not talk to friends.’

‘But I’m talking to Skye about choosing boxes.’

‘I can help you choose boxes.’ He needed to be clear again like the article said. ‘Put the phone away, please.’

‘In a minute.’

He waited for a few seconds, hoping she’d put the phone in her pocket, but she carried on talking to Skye, the conversation starting to tangent to make up. This was exhausting. 

‘Kelsie, phone away. And you need to put two of these cushions back.’

She stared at him like he’d got on all fours and started meowing. 

‘You said I could get five cushions.’

‘Five is too many. Put two back.’ His voice was louder, and he knew he was getting angry, but didn’t know why. 

Kelsie looked at Skye in her phone and eye rolled.

‘Hang up the phone, Kelsie!’ He’d lost it. 

‘Why can’t Skye help me?’ 

‘I’m here to help you?’

‘What are you going to do? Show me Disney shit?’ 

Skye piped up from the phone. ‘He’s still treating you like you’re seven then.’ 

Mike snatched the phone from Kelsie. ‘That’s because you both still act like you’re seven.’ He hung up.

Mike and Kelsie journeyed through the store in silence without selecting anything else, letting the flow of customers guide them. As they wandered past beds and wardrobes, Mike seethed about the awful advice Google had given him. They marched past an ideal teenage bedroom display, containing a loft bed, Hollywood-style vanity mirror, desk and egg chair. He envisaged snapping each bulb away from the mirror and throwing them to the floor to watch them smash. When they got to the desks and lamps, he was in disbelief at how difficult Kelsie had been. In the market hall, he squeezed the trolley handle in frustration: since when had parenting been so hard? By the time they got to the queues, he realised he was most angry with himself. The state of his relationship with Kelsie was all his fault, and he knew it, but it all felt unnecessarily difficult. 

He thought back to the delivery room when Kelsie was born. Instead of Lana screaming in pain in a nightgown, he imagined them sitting together on a loveseat, the midwife handing them a box. Inside, Kelsie was deconstructed, her torso wrapped loosely in cotton, her limbs packs together with rubber bands, her head inside a smaller box, held still with cardboard flaps like an easter egg. In a Ziploc bag were her fingernails, toenails, blue eyes, ears, eyelashes and hair. Following the instruction booklet from the box, they pieced her together, chuckling when they put one of her ears on upside down. Once she was finished, they kept following the instructions day-by-day, simple steps on how to stop her from crying, and as she grew, how to answer her questions, ensure she was safe, happy, loved them. The booklet was failsafe. Every instruction worked simply.

 The spectacled woman caught his eye in the queue opposite and smiled. When he didn’t smile back, she turned away. He looked at the three cushions in the trolley. He didn’t want them in his house, not because of their garish pattern, but because they reminded him of how he’d failed his daughter. Once they were through the checkout, he said to Kelsie, ‘You can keep these at your mum’s if you like.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’ She didn’t look at him.

They were back at the start by the restaurant. 

‘Want to get some meatballs?’

Kelsie shook her head. 

Mike took her phone from his pocket and held it out to her. ‘Please? I’m sorry. Please, let’s get some lunch.’ 

Kelsie scrolled on her phone, picking at the bowl of fries. Mike cut up his meatballs with the side of his fork, looking about the restaurant. So many other people were on their devices. He considered doing the same, but he knew that once they’d eaten, Kelsie would have the choice of going back to his flat or to Lana. He had to try. 

‘Kelse.’

‘Yeah.’ She didn’t look up. 

‘I’m really sorry about today. In fact, I’m sorry for a lot of things. About your room, about not putting more effort in. I’m sorry for…’ She still stared at her phone. ‘I’m sorry for being a shit dad.’

She looked up. ‘You’re not a shit dad.’

‘I’m not a great dad.’ 

‘Don’t say that.’

He loved this glimpse of the compassionate little girl he remembered. ‘You’ve always been kind,’ he said. 

‘Shut up.’ She smirked and plucked a meatball from his plate, chewing it thoughtfully. ‘You were pretty mental today. What’s up?’

He looked at the beige gravy before him. ‘Would you ever want to go kayaking with orcas?’

Kelsie swallowed. ‘Why would anyone want to do that? They’re massive. Aren’t they also called killer whales? Their name isn’t exactly an advert to hang out with them.’

‘I don’t think they’ve killed anyone in the wild. Anyway, I just thought it would be a fun thing to do together one day. You know, when you’re grown up.’

She huffed and picked up her phone. He put his fork down.

‘Skye’s right, isn’t she? I still treat you like you’re seven.’

‘Yup!’ She looked up at him. ‘But I get it. My mates’ parents are all the same. What I also think it weird though is planning stuff for way in the future. If you still think of me as like seven years old now, will you ever see me as grown up? What about an adventure we can do now?’

He sighed. ‘If I’m honest, I don’t know what we could do.’ His self-loathing swirled with the grease in his stomach. Asking his teenage daughter for instructions on how they could bond felt pathetic, like he was making her be the parent. ‘Any ideas?’

She shrugged. ‘Would you be willing to learn some dance routines?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s this TikTok challenge where dads and their daughters do these little dance routines. If they’re somewhere cool then even better, like in front of waterfalls or landmarks and stuff.’

‘You saw me dance at your Auntie Heather’s wedding, right?’

Kelsie laughed, covering her mouth. ‘You were so shit! But you’ve got rhythm. You could definitely do these dances.’

He pushed the meatballs aside, beaming at the compliment, tapping her phone. ‘Show me. I’ve already got some location ideas. How about in kayaks in front of orcas?’

She rolled her eyes and grinned as she clicked on the video. ‘I wish I’d known sooner that you’d be up for this.’

‘Me too,’ he said. 

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Rebecca Klassen is co-editor of The Phare and a Best of the Net 2025 nominee. She has won the London Independent Story Prize and had stories published in Fictive Dream, Mslexia, Toronto Journal, Brussels Review, and Flash Frontier. She writes and teaches in Gloucestershire, UK.