It felt a lot harder in a crowded school hallway.
He never rushed my hurt. He listened with his elbows on the table and his hands folded, and then he'd say, "Don't let people turn your heart hard just because theirs is still learning."
One night, I looked at Dad across the table and asked, "What if one day I get tired of being the bigger person, Dad?"
He leaned back, watching me carefully. "Then that just means your heart's been working hard, baby girl. And that's nothing to be ashamed of."
I swallowed and shook my head a little. "But what if I don't always want to be that strong?"
Dad smiled, but his answer followed me all the way to that stage years later.
"Don't let people turn your heart hard just because theirs is still learning."
***
Graduation was three weeks away when the principal asked me to give the student speech. I said yes before my nerves could catch up, then spent the whole walk home wondering why I'd agreed.
Dad met me at the door before I had even set my bag down.
"Good news or panic?" he asked.
"Both. I have to give the graduation speech."
Dad grinned so wide that the lines around his eyes deepened. "Claire, that's wonderful."
"It is not wonderful, Dad. It is terrifying."
He opened his arms. "Same thing sometimes."
"Good news or panic?"
For the next two weeks, I wrote and rewrote that speech until the pages looked worn at the corners. Dad listened to me practice from the couch, from the doorway, and from the hall while pretending to tend to a plant he'd somehow kept alive for six years.
When I finished one run-through without checking the page, he clapped as though I'd won a trophy. Dad made ordinary milestones feel significant, and maybe that's why I wanted so badly not to let him down.
A few days before graduation, he took me to a dress shop in town. We couldn't afford anything wild, and I knew it. I picked a soft blue dress with a fitted waist and a skirt that moved when I turned.
