But it doesn’t seem hard, because all Alexandra wants to do is read.
She tugs on your belt loops, too short to reach any higher, intermittently through the day. “Daddy,” she croons, her words poorly enunciated, but you understand her better than anyone, “daddy, please, can we read the story now?”
You pat her head and tell her no, not right now, grandma is at the house and wants to visit. That you’ll make time later (you’ve told her this before and disappointed her). You tell her to play with Alwyn, her cousin, who is decidedly not interested in reading. He is only a year older than Alex but somehow, he seems far stupider. You don’t tell your sister that – the bristling, proud, pregnant once again PhD student would slap you if you said her child was stupid.
But he is, and the thought makes you smile. He insists on burning ants on the driveway. He insists on pulling out the flowers you planted in the backyard. When Alex asks him about reading a story, he sticks his tongue out, raspberries her, and runs away. Your child, the child of the college drop-out, is bright and contentious and clever.
Alwyn is a fucking idiot, just like his name.
It’s bed time before she manages to ask again. “Daddy,” she murmurs, sleepy and dozy as you haul her up the stairs. The home smells of fresh paint. It’s new, just like single parenthood, and Alex has only spent a handful of evenings in her new bedroom, decorated with lime greens and electrics blues, just as she had picked. “Daddy,” she murmurs again, as you lay her down and tuck her in, “please, please, please can we read now?”
When you consent, it’s as if she’s found new life – Alex hops out of bed and wanders to her bookshelf, and almost looks as if she’s reading the titles herself, before snatching up a book and rushing back. She tucks herself back in, and even swats at your hands as you try to help her, before shoving the book into your palms. “This one!”
It’s Robert Munsch’s “Love You Forever”, admittedly a story you can’t say you’ve read before. She’s attentive, albeit prone to interrupting with little anecdotes or uncontained giggles as you read. She laughs at the story, asks questions about the pictures, cuddles into the crook of your arm.
She’s sleepier, much sleepier, by the time you’re at the end of the story. Without jostling her, you slip away from her and set the book on the night stand, turning the light off in the process. You’re not sure if she notices you get up or if it’s the creak in the door that causes her to stir, but she does.
“Hey, daddy?”
You cringe, guilty for having woken her, but hover on the threshold of her space, hand on the knob of the door. “Yeah, kiddo?”
You can see her perk up in the light from the hall, it spilling in and illuminating only part of the room. From where you’re standing, Alex is barely more than a shadow. “Love you forever.”
The pang of emotion hits you harder than you admit but you smile against it, hearing her nestle back into her previous spot, likely asleep before you respond.
“Love you forever, baby.”
“You promised me you’d be here,” she strains into the phone. What little bit of a speech delay she once had has vanished, never to be spoken of again. She’s very careful for a newly eleven-year-old, very aware of herself and how she’s presented. You’re proud of her, perhaps more proud of her than you are of anything else. You don’t notice that you do it, but she’s the first thing you mention in conversation with new people – “I have this great kid, man. This great fucking kid. She’s so fucking smart, much smarter than I am. And she’s funny and she doesn’t put up with anyone’s bullshit.”
By “anyone”, you mean yourself, but you always leave that part out.
“Kiddo, I know,” you reply, forlorn, her nickname sticking through childhood. ‘Baby’ never fit her – “I am not a baby” was always her protest. She always found a way to fight every nickname you tried to give her. Allie? “That’s where homeless people live.” (You scolded her for being insensitive, but she wasn’t wrong.) Alex? “Maybe when I’m older, that sounds like a grown-up name and I’m just a kid.” But kiddo always stuck, never registered a complaint unless someone else used it. “That’s what my dad calls me,” she’d say stubbornly, even to her mother, and behind lectures of reminding her to be kind to her mom, there’s always the urge to pat her on the back and tell her you love her more, anyway.
“Cut it out. You missed my party. Even auntie Devon’s stupid husband was here, and I don’t even like him.”
You know she’s lying to make you feel worse, but you can’t blame her. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I just got busy.”
“Busy, schmusy.” You can hear her losing interest on the other line. “I didn’t save any cake for you.”
It’s hard not to laugh but you don’t, you know better. She pretends she’s not, but Alex is sensitive, perhaps more sensitive than you, and laughing at her is never the solution to any problem.
“Alexandra, I’ll be there tomorrow. Scout’s honor. I just got busy here today. I promise.”
You hear her exhale on the other end of the line. “Whatever. I don’t care.” The attitude usually isn’t tolerated, but you let is slide. It’s her birthday, after all.
“Kiddo? Love you forever, okay?”
“Whatever. Love you forever.” And she hangs up.
When you don’t show up the next day, one too many lines of cocaine laid out on your table for you to bother going to the airport, you have the same conversation again.
Belongs in the most emotional sense of the word, as you’re sure there’s never been a child more insistent on telling the world that no man, especially her father, owns her. That’s perhaps one of the things you respect most about her.
She’s graduating high school today, cap and gown and staged piece of paper clutched tightly in her hands, and you’re not ashamed of the fact that hearing “Alexandra Larkin-Vanderlaar” announced, that watching her cross the stage with a smile, brings a bit of a tear to your eye. She waves, unceremoniously, at the collection of her family in the crowd. It feels like hours before the rest is finished, but when it is, it’s you she comes to first.
It’s always frustrated her mother, how she’s always clearly preferred you. “You were never around. You weren’t here. She spent so many nights crying, thinking that you didn’t want her, and now she loves you best.” You know better than to pick fights, and even better than to impart wisdom. You’ve never tried to tell her what to do unless she was putting herself at risk. You’d been her friend and confidant, a fellow backyard adventurer, a fishing instructor first, and a father second. So she loves you best because she respects you more, feels more connected to you, feels as if the two of you grew up together, because in a lot of ways, you did.
Twenty-six years separate you, but often times, it feels like less. Sometimes, it feels like she’s done more for you than you’ve done for her.
She hugs you tight and kisses your cheek, laughing as she does, clearly enthusiastic about her accomplishments. “This gown is fucking hot,” she declares, and she tutts when you scold her for swearing – quietly, as to not embarrass her around her peers.
You’re thankful for a private moment, given the collection of your family that’s there – her mother and mother’s sister, your sister and her too-large family, and Evelyn, who you’d insisted on attending. You’re glad she’s there but even more glad that for a moment, it’s just you and Alex.
Alex clings to your side for a moment, likely wanting to escape but kind enough to offer you a moment of her time. She’s tall, but not too tall to sneak under your arm, snuggling in close for only a second.
“Dad, I don’t want to get sentimental because I already saw you getting all misty back here -,” she laughs at your reaction, exaggerated dismay, “but I just wanted to say thank you. You know, for everything. For always being supportive and kind and helping me make all my big decisions.” She paused, smiling weakly, before continuing. “Love you forever, no matter what.”
You echo her sentiment, but she interrupts you before you can finish, pointing towards Evelyn with her chin.
“And her, too. I promise, dad, it’ll just take time. I really do like her.”
You pull her in once more, pressing a kiss to the top of her forehead as you do, murmuring the words, “love you forever, baby” as you do – and for once, she doesn’t argue. She pulls away and grins as you speak again, “now go hug your mother, or she’s likely to disown you and skin me.”
She nods and smiles wider, wandering away in time for you to rub at the bridge of your nose and the corners of your eyes, insisting that “they’re just dry” when anyone asks.