The Saving Grace of a Late Night Fall

 

Think about how long it took her to find this card.

Somehow I missed Monica’s last birthday card. But it surfaced last night in the wreckage of my flailing fall. I did what I could in those days. While I was writing Shuteye Town 1999 and the Zeezer Bible and The Lounge Conversations. She laughed when I read her the part about Ugly Shoes. 


We’re still in touch. Most recently, she sent me condolences about my continuing sense of loss about Patrick Prentice. 


No, she’s not my daughter. But at an important time in her life I was the one who was reliably there. I cooked dinner and sat with her while we ate it. We talked. Every day. When she got her driver’s license and crashed on the first day I was the one who took her in hand and told her what driving was and meant and what the rules were. When she got her first fast car (inevitably!) I taught her how to drive a stick shift. How to drive fast safely. She still knows all those rules and she’s had speeding tickets but she’s still alive. My girl.


No, she’s not my daughter. I wasn’t there for her high school and college graduations. I wasn’t a guest at her wedding or her PopPop’s funeral. But she’s as close as a guy like me gets to having a daughter. I have two more step-step-daughters now. (Call it a hung jury.) And a bunch of step-step grandchildren. I can’t get off the couch to go visit any of them. I can’t even show you a picture of the youngest one. Because I live in dread of Internet predators. How Old Am I?

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