I was at the end of the long hallway before the question popped into my head. Never before had I questioned the history of your tiny family. How did a single man end up raising his two young daughters full-time?
I turned, on my heels, and asked you something that I’d never wondered previously. It had never occurred to me to ask you. I asked simply, “did you have to fight for them?”
You answered equally as simply, “no.”
With that, satisfied, I turned back and carried on towards my teenage bedroom.
You called my name. I remember you calling out my name because your voice cracked. “Virginia”, you said. “I would have fought for them.”
I smiled because I believed you. I turned again, headed towards my room and you followed with “I would fight for you, too.”
I don’t know if I turned back towards you to give you the smile that was deserved but I do remember my teenage heart bursting open.
Here. Here is a father who would fight for me. A man, among men, who is not inconvenienced by the raising of children. A constant in a world, that seemed at the time, to be ever changing.
I don’t know if I started calling you dadto my friends then or if that came at a later date but inside, inside, everything changed with that comment.
I’d fight for you too.