I tried to speak.
Nothing came.
Then Melissa took one careful step toward me.
“Dad,” she whispered again.
That was when I started crying.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
The tears simply came, seven years too late and all at once.
Melissa stopped several feet away.
She seemed uncertain whether she should touch me.
That hurt almost more than anything.
My daughter had once walked into my house without knocking, opened my refrigerator without asking and complained whenever I forgot her favorite coffee.
Now she looked at me as though she needed permission to come closer.
I opened my arms.
She crossed the distance slowly.
When she hugged me, I felt how small she had become.
“You’re alive,” I kept saying.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re alive.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
I closed my eyes.
For that moment, I did not ask where she had been.
I did not ask what Calvin had done.
