Jennifer was crying silently in the doorway. I looked at her and she mouthed, “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
But what was I going to do? Tell this dying little girl no? Walk out because this wasn’t what I signed up for? I’m a lot of things, but I’m not that kind of man.
Lily’s whole face lit up despite the obvious pain she was in. “Can you read me a story? And then can we watch a movie? And then can you tell me I’m pretty and smart like daddies do?”
That’s when I started crying. Right there, sitting on that couch next to a six-year-old girl I’d known for five minutes.
Because what kind of world lets a child go through life without ever having someone read her a bedtime story or tell her she’s pretty and smart?
I spent the next eight hours being Lily’s daddy. I read her every book on her shelf—twice. We watched her favorite movie about a princess who saves herself.
I made her lunch, cutting her sandwich into triangles because she said that’s how daddies do it. I helped her draw pictures, and when she got tired, I carried her to the couch and let her fall asleep against my shoulder.
Jennifer told me the story while Lily slept. She’d gotten pregnant at nineteen. The father left the day she told him. She’d raised Lily alone, working two jobs, barely scraping by.
They’d had good years despite the struggles. And then six months ago, Lily started getting headaches. By the time they caught the tumor, it was inoperable. Too deep, too aggressive, growing too fast.
“She asked me a month ago why she never had a daddy,” Jennifer said, wiping her eyes. “All her friends at school do. She wanted to know what was wrong with her that her daddy didn’t want her.”Continue reading…
