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His dad snorted. “I’d rather meet the Fairy Godmother.” He jutted his chin at one of the benches lining the street. “Want to sit down for a few?”

Leo followed him to the bench and sat. You know, it was true. The park was incredibly clean, something he hadn’t appreciated during visits as a kid. “If Emily is this impressed by the cleanliness, wait till she meets the moving, talking garbage cans,” he said. That had been his favorite part of his Disney World trip with the Boy Scouts in elementary school. He and his friends had followed one around for half the day, rides be damned.

His dad snorted again. “I still can’t believe I paid for you to go on that trip and the one thing you couldn’t stop talking about was the garbage can.”

Leo smirked, and then his dad’s words from before caught up to him. “Wait, why would you want to meet the Fairy Godmother? Have some wishes you want to make?”

His dad cracked a smile, but he didn’t laugh. “Who doesn’t?”

“Huh,” Leo said. Honestly, he’d never really thought about it. Life was just life. You got what you got. The thought of making a wish and your life changing was a little disconcerting somehow, like it was too easy. He supposed this explained why he never bought lottery tickets, something Emily did every time the jackpot rose over a billion dollars. It was worth the few bucks to see the pink in her cheeks as she romanticized over the places they’d buy homes and the palaces they’d stay in overseas. “What wishes would you make?”

His dad scuffed the bricks below with one toe. Leo half expected some maniacally frowning Disney peon to pop up from an underground trapdoor and reprimand him or, more realistically, for some maniacally grinning Disney peon to pop up with a mop and polish any evidence of a mark away. “I think I’d ask to go back in time,” he said, a little moodily. “I’ve told you I don’t regret the divorce.”

Leo’s stomach clenched, and he swallowed hard, but he didn’t follow his instinct to change the subject to something airy and light. His mom (currently staying in one of those ice hotels in the Arctic North and dancing beneath the northern lights, hopefully clothed) would have approved.

“But I do regret how it happened,” his dad continued. “I wish I could take the opportunity to go back and be honest before I got caught. Tell your mother I wasn’t happy and hopefully make things less difficult for you. Keep you in my life.”

There was no sense in wishing things were different. No point. But Leo understood that wish at least. His dad had spent a lot of years being lonely and sad, and yeah, it had been his own fault, but he was only human. He wasn’t perfect. None of them were. And he’d done the work to change and grow and become a better man. “I’m really proud of you,” Leo said. He kept his eyes trained on the ground because, again, eye contact while sharing feelings was not his strong suit. “You’ve come a long way. And I’m happy you did. I’m glad we’re…” He trailed off because he didn’t know what to say. Friends? That didn’t really capture the relationship. “Close again.”

“I’m not the only one who’s come a long way.” His dad’s voice was gruff. “Look at you. I couldn’t be prouder.”

Leo might choke on the lump in his throat. Okay, now he had to change the subject because no way was Mickey Mouse going to catch him crying. “I was thinking of proposing. To Emily.”

This time he looked up because he didn’t want to miss his dad’s reaction. The older man’s eyebrows raised. His jaw didn’t quite drop, but it did fall slowly. “Here? At Disney World?”

“No, no, no,” Leo hastened to say. “I don’t even have a ring yet. It’s just something we’ve started talking about.”

His dad blinked at him for a moment. “I suppose it makes sense,” he said finally. “You’ve been together for a while now. You live together. It’s the natural next step.”

Leo waited for his dad to tell him how great he and Emily were together, how he was definitely making the right decision, but nope. Silence. “I love her,” he said, and it was true.

“I know you do,” his dad said. “I love her, too. As a daughter-in-law. I just…” He laughed a little, shaking his head. “I don’t know, Emily is wonderful. I have no doubt that you love her. Just, the way you light up around Shira…I guess I always thought…”

It hit Leo like the Fairy Godmother’s wand thumping him right on the head. When his dad had said that thing about how he’d always thought Leo would end up with someone Jewish—an incongruous enough statement that it had stuck in Leo’s mind for a year, like a burr on his pant leg—he hadn’t been thinking of any random Jewish woman. He’d been thinking specifically of one Jewish woman.

Leo cleared his throat. It almost felt blocked, for some reason. “I had a crush on her for years, but I never told you.”

“You didn’t have to,” said his dad. “It was obvious.”

It wasn’t like Leo could argue with that. He had been in love with Shira. A long time ago. Not anymore. And it probably hadn’t even been love, just a crush. He wondered how Hanukkah party prep was going. If she was insane enough to try to make latkes from scratch again for everyone. He smiled at the thought, then banished the smile just as quickly. “Well, me and Shira are clearly not happening,” he said. “Because I’m with Emily. I love Emily.” He paused for a moment, the curiosity nagging at him. “You know, I was also in love with Gal Gadot as a kid. But you weren’t convinced I’d end up with her. Why did you think I’d end up with Shira?”

His dad was quiet for a moment. “If you’re going to marry Emily, I don’t want it to come off like I’m trying to convince you otherwise. Like I said, she’s wonderful, and if she makes you happy, then I’m happy.”

“I promise I won’t take it like that.”

“Okay,” said his dad. “Are you familiar with the Yiddish word bashert?”

“I’m familiar with zero Yiddish words,” said Leo.

“Not true,” said his dad, his face lighting up, which—groan—meant he was probably about to lecture Leo about something nerdy. “Don’t you know how many Yiddish words have made their way into the English lexicon? Klutz. Schlep. Chutzpah. Kvetch. Bagel, Leo, bagel.”

“Point taken,” Leo said before his dad could really get started. “Turns out I know at least several Yiddish words. But bashert is not one of them.”

His dad looked away, as if ensuring Emily was nowhere in hearing distance—she wasn’t; Leo could see her and Aunt Ellen in the distance still waiting in line to meet Cinderella—then turned back. “It’s not an exact translation, but it means something like soulmate,” he said. “The two of you always just…balanced each other out. Your attributes balanced her flaws, and vice versa. The two of you together…I don’t know, it seemed like you could do anything. Maybe it’s silly. You were just kids.”

Leo was at a loss for words. Deep inside him, he felt something like a spark. Old feelings coming back to life.

No. Stop it. You love Emily, and talking about another woman like this isn’t fair to her. You’re only feeling this way because your dad brought up your old crush. Leo shook his head and stood, then extended a hand to his dad. “I think I’d like to meet Cinderella after all. Want to come?”