One of the officers who was near the door made a small noise that, being generous, I will describe as a cough.
I looked at my daughter and saw someone I hadn’t fully seen before: not my daughter, but a person who had chosen me too.
I looked at my daughter and saw someone I hadn’t fully seen before.
“What if I fail?” I asked. “I’m 35, Bubbles. I’ll be in a class with kids who were born the year I graduated.”
Ainsley smiled, and it was his best smile, his full smile, the one that reminded him of his Saturday morning cartoon character. “Then we’ll work it out,” he said. “Like you always did.”
He squeezed my hands once and then stood up.
The officers said their goodbyes shortly afterwards; the tallest one shook my hand at the door and said, “Good luck, sir,” in a tone that denoted sincerity.
I watched as their patrol car drove away from the sidewalk and stayed in the doorway for a minute after the taillights disappeared.
“What if I fail?”
***
Three weeks later, I drove to the university campus for orientation day. I was nervous.
I was at least a decade older than everyone else in the parking lot. My boots looked completely out of place on a college campus. I stood in front of the main entrance with my folder of documents and felt more out of place than I had in a long time.
Ainsley was beside me. She’d taken the morning off from her part-time job to come with me, something I told her wasn’t necessary and for which I was privately grateful. She already had plans to enroll there on a scholarship.
I was nervous.
I glanced around the building. I watched the students coming through the doors. I gazed at that enormous, unfamiliar, and somewhat frightening thing I was about to enter.
“I don’t know how to do this, Bubbles.”
Ainsley ran his hand along my arm.
“You gave me a life. Now I’m giving you back yours. You can do it, Dad. You can!”
We went in together.
There are people who spend their whole lives waiting for someone to believe in them. I raised one.
“You can do it, Dad! You can!”
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