ADVERTISEMENT
“Okay,” I replied.
She blinked. “That’s it?”
“You said no lectures.”
For the first time in weeks, she cracked a reluctant smile. “You’re weird.”
“Occupational hazard,” I said, and she laughed—until her face crumpled again.
“Everyone wants me to be perfect. Perfect grades. Perfect daughter. I don’t even know who I am half the time.” Her voice softened. “My dad barely calls. When he does, he just asks about school. Like I’m a report card, not a person.”
“You’re not a report card,” I told her. “You’re a whole person. I’m sorry if I haven’t shown you I see that.”
“You’re not the problem,” she whispered.
“Maybe not. But I haven’t always known how to show you that I’m here for more than a role.”
She looked me in the eye. “You’re not my dad,” she said again.
I braced for the sting.
“But you’ve been more of one than he ever was.”
The words didn’t erase the hurt, but they stitched something back together.
After that, little things shifted. She slid her chemistry book across the table one night with a grunt that meant help. We roasted my pathetic TikTok attempt on movie night. She asked—casually, like it wasn’t a big deal—if I’d come to her art sho
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said.
At the show, she scanned the crowd and landed on Claire and me. A real smile broke across her face, unforced and full of light. Her painting was of a tree with two trunks twisted at the base—one sturdy, one growing beside it. The caption read: Not all roots are visible.
“What’s it mean?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Just something I thought about. Some people grow because of someone who’s always been there, even if nobody notices.”
I didn’t press. I just said, “It’s beautiful.”
A few days later, she handed me a Father’s Day card. Inside, in her looping handwriting: You may not be my dad. But you’re my Mike. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
I folded it carefully and tucked it into my wallet. It’s still there.
Years rolled on. She graduated, and I hauled boxes up three flights of dorm stairs, set up a wobbly lamp, and tightened loose screws on her desk. At the door, she said, “I know I was hard on you.”
“It’s in the teen manual,” I teased.
Continued on next page:
ADVERTISEMENT
