He leaned back, watching me carefully. “Then that just means your heart’s been working hard, baby girl. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
I swallowed. “But what if I don’t always want to be that strong?”
Dad smiled, and his answer followed me all the way to that internship years later: “Don’t let people turn your heart hard just because theirs is still learning.”
Three weeks before graduation, the principal asked me to give the student speech. I said yes before my nerves caught up, then spent the walk home wondering why I’d agreed.
Dad puts me at the door. “Good news or panic?”
“Both. I have to give the graduation speech.”
He grinned so wide the lines around his eyes deepened. “Claire, that’s wonderful.”
“It is not wonderful, Dad. It is terrifying.”
He opened his arms. “Same thing sometimes.”
For the next two weeks, I wrote and rewrote that speech until the pages looked worn at the corners. Dad listened to me practice from the couch, the doorway, and the hall while pretending to tend to a plant he’d somehow kept alive for six years.
When I finished one run-through without checking the page, he clapped as though I’d won a trophy. Dad made ordinary milestones feel significant, and maybe that’s why I wanted so badly not to let him down.
A few days before graduation, he took me to a dress shop in town. We couldn’t afford anything extravagant, and I knew it. I picked a soft blue dress with a fitted waist and a skirt that moved when I turned.
When I stepped out of the dressing room, Dad pressed a hand over his mouth. “Oh, baby girl,” he said, eyes glistening. “You are the most beautiful girl in the world.”
I. smiled “You always say that, Dad.”
He held my gauze. “Because it’s always true, sweetheart.”
I twirled once, and the skirt flared out around my knees. Dad wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“Stop doing that,” I said. “You’re making me emotional in a retail setting.”
Dad laughed, but the look on his face made me want graduation to be perfect—for him, more than for me.
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