he watched as the cloud lifted from her mouth. it was strange seeing her smoke. she’d been thought of as a good girl, and this turned his view of her into puddles of melted snow. “when had she started?” purity shaken off with each flick. “it’s time to let go. she’s sixteen now.” he accepted the onslaught of boys with a gracious smile, makeup with a laugh. a tear formed on his cheek now seeing his little girl on the corner, waiting for the bus. it hit him harder than most can imagine. a father’s love lasts, his princess doesn’t.

in the weeks to come, walls were built, mostly by him. he could never know when or how much his daughter’s growing up would affect him. now that she has, he can’t look at her the same. “she won’t even talk to me.”

he used to sing to her songs of love written from a daddy to a child. he wrote many of them. he stopped around the time her mother left for a job reporting at a small news paper in the midwest. he forced himself to forget where exactly. until that day, six years ago, music was how he communicated. he kept a scrapbook of magazine and newspaper clippings, advertising and reporting on the shows, pictures his soon-to-be wife took of him with his buddies pouring everything into that beat up old guitar. he had things to live for, to sing about.

looking at an old picture of his wife “i used to write songs for you.” they only dated for three months. maybe more would have stopped the heartache ten years down the road, but then he wouldn’t have lucy.

now he sits across from the only thing his wife left at the small room table, she never looks up from her plate of instant dinner. “why can’t she look at me?” thinking, then aloud “how was you day, Lu?” “okay.” one word can carry so much weight. no communication made meals together grow further apart.

at night she would close herself in her room with her headphones on. he would peek in to watch her lying on the bed. she wouldn’t turn, but knew he was there. growing to hate those headphones made him mad. “the thing that brought us laughter as stopped me from knowing her.”

morning; she’s out the door before he’s out of the shower. he sits alone at the same table he did the night before, this time a bit more comfortable, but a lot more unhappy. he cries into his bowl of luke warm oatmeal, praying to, one day, get her back. he sits down with a pen and paper and writes a note to give her sometime.

dear lu,

we haven’t talked in over three months. we live in the same small apartment, yet i’ve avoided you. it’s not because i don’t love you, i don’t know how to show you that i do love you. we used to share music, new we hardly share a house. lu, i’ll never stop loving you. i will never stop looking in on you. i need help raising you. let me know what i need to do.

dad

folds in the envelope tell her it was written some time ago, and has been kept in many pockets. as she reads the barely legible letter, the same tears that her father cries at night get caught on her lips before they drop onto and smear the ink.

days pass, the letter goes from her pillow, where she found it after school, to her binder, backpack, and back to the bed where she reads it over and over before falling asleep. “how do i respond to this?” it sits on her nightstand where it’s right under her lamp so it’s the last thing she sees before going to sleep.

after many weeks of thinking, she decides her best bet would be to write a letter back, just a few words. she sits at her desk and starts writing, no good, into the trash. starting over, hesitating, continuing. wad, throw, write. wad, throw, write. wad, throw.

too many thoughts built over the years. how can you write about such long times of anguish? days went be, paper everywhere. her school work was failing.

he opened his scrapbook, like he does every monday night. flips through the pictures of him with different big name musicians, to the last few pages dedicated to his ex-wife and daughter. there, next to the last picture taken of him with lucy, is a piece of paper top folded and taped with “dad” delicately written in small letters. careful not to tear, he takes it off, cautiously opens it up, afraid of the words on the inside, and reads;

i love you,

lu

adam.

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Archived source: Wayback Machine capture