Letters to my Daughter: November 24, 2019

Your father shuts himself in the smallest room of the house and sleeps on an air mattress with a throw blanket he bought from Amazon. He spends hours talking to a girl he met on an online game. She's the full package. He’s confessed his love for her in a low, timorous voice lying curled up on his air mattress, it squelches and bumps against the door whenever he moves. He's reassured her we're leaving soon and is trying to convince her to move in with him to see if it would work out. He wants to be respectful to me and show you what it looks like for a man to love a woman of quality. He told her he never loved me, I was just a girl he got pregnant before he left for deployment. He tried to do the right thing by us, but I'm too different and don't listen. He invited us to stay with him to help me get back onto my feet because he wasn't comfortable with the sub par living conditions of our old apartment.

I wasn't supposed to hear that, but I did and it can't be unheard.

Four years robbed of value -- laundry washed and meals cooked without needing to be asked, illnesses catered to, trips to the zoo, movies watched together that made you smile, teaching you how to swim in the pool, going to the library to find books for you, including him in our mundane life that no one else gets to see, giving him the opportunity to become an involved father, sharing the most intimate parts of myself with him, all discounted because he's unable to admit to himself he squandered his time with us lost in depression and alcoholism.

When you were a baby he rarely held you, and when he did, it reminded me of someone looking for an expiration date on a shrink wrapped shank of ham. My postpartum anxiety was annoying and he called me a victim whenever I tried to tell him how lonely I felt during my pregnancy. He made working a full-time job and taking care of you nearly impossible. He purposely didn't do what I asked him to do, intentionally went out of his way to hurt me, because he felt I didn't care enough. When you were learning how to roll over he commented you looked like you had Lou Gerrick Disease and laughed. He was miserable during your baptism and we fought at an Urgent Care after the photo was taken because he felt you weren't sick enough to warrant the visit. He plays with you now because you've learned how to talk more clearly and calls it helping me. He has you repeat I love you Daddy and asks for kisses. You walk up to him sometimes and say it hesitantly, eliciting a smile from him, then he disappears. It could be until the following day or a week, there's no telling with him. You ask me where he went and I tell you to go look for him. I watch you calling out for him as you walk through the kitchen and living room, clearing each space by declaring he isn't there. You make your way to the smallest room, open the door and call to him. He never acknowledges you until you hug him.

We're moving and leaving Daddy behind again.

I went to the house store and chose the nicest one they had. Then I waited with you in your father's house as he withdrew within himself, his game and a girl he’s never met. Before we were allowed to claim our home, we had to be interviewed by a board of adults far older than me in one of their homes in the building we will share with them. They took one look at you and loved you immediately, and they talked with me and knew we were the perfect neighbors for them. We heard from them in the morning after they decided to let us move in and I was happy. I'll paint the walls and have the floors refinished. We'll have new furniture and you'll watch me put each one together over time. Your new room will be a soft pink and your bed will be a tent with stars. You'll have sleepovers with your friends and I'll host small dinner parties, you'll advance to K-3 and I'll become a published author attending graduate school.

For your third birthday, I’ve provided the stability your father was too broken to give us and finally saw my self-worth and walked away.