Tea With Dad: Finding Myself in My Father’s Life

Tea with Dad maps the rough terrain of the author’s life and experiences after moving in with her 82-year-old father and living with him consistently and longer on a day-to-day basis than she ever had as a child. She is surprised by the distance between them and the obvious discomfort the two of them feel. Nancie, the twice-divorced mother of three daughters who no longer live at home, still reeling from the last ten years–during which, among other things, her second husband disclosed that he was gay and her mother unexpectedly died–leaves a well-paying job in online media and rents a house from her father on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her plan is to regroup, write, and live closer to her dad so that she is there to care for him when the time comes. But her own personal circumstances force her to move in with her father far sooner than expected, and not on her own terms. In order to be with and care for her father until the end of his life, she must confront long term and unresolved issues that threaten their getting along. As she finds ways they can reconnect and revise their relationship–specifically through afternoon tea and long car rides–she grows to know him better, she learns more about her mother, and rediscovers herself.