“But my daughter has never had a father,” I said. “That’s… not something I can fix with a phone call. She’s eight. All her friends are going. Isn’t there any way—”
Connie sighed.
“Then perhaps this event isn’t appropriate for her,” she said. “There will be other school activities she can participate in.”
It was the kind of sentence that lands softly and crushes you anyway.
I thanked her because I didn’t know what else to do and hung up.
Then I slid down the laundry room wall and cried on a pile of clean towels.
Telling Sita was worse.
She came into my room that night in her pajamas, hair in two lopsided braids she’d insisted on doing herself.
“Did you call?” she asked, eyes hopeful.
I sat on the bed and pulled her into my lap.
“I did,” I said. “And… they said the dance is only for girls who have their dads to take them.”
Her face crumpled.
“Oh,” she whispered.
I’d never wanted to punch an abstract concept like “tradition” more in my life.
“Some schools let moms go too,” I added quickly. “But this one doesn’t. So we… we’re not going this year, bug.”
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Is it because I don’t have a daddy?” she asked. “Did I… do something wrong?”
“No,” I said, too quickly. “No, no, no. You didn’t do anything wrong. This is their rule, not your fault.”
“Then why don’t I have one?” she asked, voice breaking. “Am I not good enough for a daddy?”
There it was.
The question I had been dreading since the stick turned pink.
My mind scrambled for a perfect answer. A speech about grown-ups and their flaws. About how some people leave, not because of who we are, but because of the holes in themselves.
What came out was clumsy and human.
“Your dad leaving had everything to do with him,” I said, wiping her tears with shaky hands. “And absolutely nothing to do with you. You are more than enough. You are… the most enough person I have ever met.”
She sniffed.
“Then why doesn’t he want me?” she whispered.
I didn’t say, Because he’s a coward.
I didn’t say, Because the minute responsibility knocked, he dove out the bathroom window.
I just pulled her closer.
“Sometimes people don’t know how to love the way they should,” I said. “It’s sad. And unfair. But it doesn’t mean you aren’t lovable.”
She cried into my shirt until she fell asleep.
I lay awake staring at the ceiling, hating a stupid dance in a stupid gym more than I’d hated anything in a long time.
My sister, Leila, came over the next day.