Some days, I was so happy I couldn’t stop smiling. I’d see him on Sundays, and we’d eat lunch at the diner, and he’d tell me stories about my mom, and I’d tell him stories about my mom, and between the two of us, we’d build her back up. A version of her neither of us knew by ourselves.
Other days, I was so angry I couldn’t see straight.
I’d think about all the father-daughter dances at school where I sat in the bleachers. All the times kids asked where my dad was and I said, “He’s gone,” because that’s what Mom said. All the nights Mom cried in the bathroom when she thought I was asleep. All the years Grandpa Walt worked two jobs at sixty-five so we could have a roof.
And this man had been in prison. Because he chose a needle over us. Over and over and over.
