The most important photo in our house hangs right above the couch. The glass has a thin crack in one corner from when I knocked it off the wall with a foam soccer ball when I was eight.
Dad stared at it for a second and said, “Well… I survived that day. I can survive this.”
In the picture, a skinny teenage boy stands on a football field wearing a crooked graduation cap. He looks terrified. In his arms, he holds a baby wrapped in a blanket. Me.
“Well… I survived that day. I can survive this.”
I used to joke that Dad looked like I might shatter if he breathed wrong.
“Seriously,” I told him once, pointing at the photo. “You look like you would’ve dropped me out of pure panic if I sneezed.”
“I would not have dropped you. I was just… nervous. I thought I was going to break you.” Then he gave that little shrug he does when he wants to dodge being emotional. “But apparently I did okay.”
Dad did more than okay.
He did everything.
He looked like I might shatter if he breathed wrong.
My dad was 17 the night I showed up.
He came home exhausted after a late shift delivering pizzas and spotted his old bike leaning against the fence outside the house.
Then he saw the blanket bundled into the basket on the front.
He thought somebody had dumped trash there.
Then the blanket moved.
My dad was 17 the night I showed up.
Under it was a baby girl, about three months old, red-faced and furious at the world. There was a note tucked into the folds. She’s yours. I can’t do this.
My father barred me from entering my own medical school graduation ceremony because my stepmother wanted her daughter to use my ticket.
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