Potboiler

He wrote to his daughter. He wrote about the unreal spectacle of her arrival into the world. The change that took place within him felt physical. He felt it: felt his heart ripen. Like anything ripe it was swollen and delicate and prone to split. In one instant the world went from a place of no consequence to an endless series of life-and-death decisions. Everything mattered. Her face was slightly smushed and he worried. The nurses gave her supplementary oxygen and he worried. He put her in the car seat and worried. The worry burned underneath him and distilled him to his essence. Joy was real joy and fear was real fear and anger was real anger and happiness was the real thing. He revisited the coffee-colored sofa, the one that had springs exploding out of it before they finally got rid of it, and he told her that once upon a time it hadn’t been a wreck but a nice new piece of furniture that he liked to sit on with her in his arms, the sun coming up blue, her warm little head squirreled against his bare chest, her lips pursing and sucking in her sleep. Those hours had seemed endless then, but now he cherished them as the last moments he had had her all to himself. He wrote about the first time he accidentally pricked her foot while pinning on her diaper. She had barely bled and she hadn’t made a peep but it destroyed him to see what he could do to her if he wasn’t careful. He wrote that he was sorry. He wrote that it was silly of him to have insisted on cloth diapers. He wrote about how he had studied her as a child, collecting her every gesture and feature. He wished he had taken the time to write more of them down. He remembered her first day of school. She had thrown up from anxiety. He’d made her go anyway. At the time he had wondered if he was making a mistake but in retrospect it seemed like the right thing to do. He wrote that he was glad he hadn’t gotten everything wrong. He wrote of the triumph he felt at her triumphs, the agony of her disappointments. He remembered soccer practice and dance practice. He remembered father-daughter dances. He apologized that he had never danced at these dances, and that they’d always ended up standing on the side of the gym. He remembered the first time a boy broke her heart. He wrote that it was the first time in his life that he had honestly wanted to hit someone. He apologized that he had sometimes been angry at her for no reason other than that she made him acutely aware of his own shortcomings. He remembered the look on her face during those few months, long ago, when he was making progress on his lame attempt at a mystery novel. He had seen that she was happy, and he knew that her happiness came from thinking that he was happy. That kind of generosity made her special. She could be as smart and as beautiful as anybody in the world—she was that smart, she was that beautiful—but nothing made him prouder than her decency. He couldn’t take too much credit for that. She had always been that way, even as a baby. Some people were born pure, and somehow, in defiance of all the odds, she was one of them. He wrote that he was glad she had found someone who could take care of her. She deserved the best. She always had. Her wedding was the best investment he had ever made. He apologized that he had not articulated his feelings more clearly and more often. He had never had the right words. He still wasn’t sure he did, but it was better to try than to remain silent. In all his years, he wrote, he had produced nothing of value save her. She was his life’s work. He considered himself a successful man. He wrote that he loved her, and he signed it your father.

98.