Even at sixteen, Cindy, you prefer bunnies. All these years of watching, keeping you safe from whatever dangers lurk beyond the walls of our home, and it didn’t occur to me to warn you about yourself. But it certainly should have. I’ve come too close to being the father failure, the non-protector. No one could call me anything but lucky. Here’s your laptop, green light steady. No point in wasting power, but if I turn the thing off, you’ll go at me in the morning, accuse me of snooping. Could be you have a desktop folder entitled “Ten Reasons Why I Hate My Life” and another one called “Why My Dad’s an Asshole.”Not too likely you’d stop at ten. Even when you’re not upset, Cindy, you tend to gush. You hate it when I kid you about it. There have been times I tuned you out. But look at me now: thinking before I talk, then speaking like someone reading from a teleprompter. Of course, I’m a bad father. A bad father is someone who leaves out the important details, recounts only the good.
