The First Time She Called Me Dad
The first time Willa called me Dad, she was standing in our kitchen with a cup of water.
She’d lived with us for three weeks.
“Dad, can I put this here?”
She was asking permission to set down a cup.
On our counter.
In her own home.
Twelve years later, someone showed up at our door, threatening the sense of security we’d spent years helping her find.
By the time Reid and I decided to adopt, we’d already lost people simply because we loved each other.
My father stopped inviting me to Thanksgiving after our wedding.
The first year, I thought he’d come around.
By the third, I’d stopped checking my phone.
Reid’s mother still introduced me as his “friend,” our wedding rings apparently decorative.
Once, when Reid corrected her, she said, “You know what I mean. Don’t make a scene.”
As though acknowledging our marriage was somehow more embarrassing than pretending it didn’t exist.
But we wanted a family.
Then we met Willa.
She was four, blind since birth, and had moved through several foster homes.
At our first visit, she sat beside me with a stuffed rabbit, rubbing its worn ear.
I got up for water.
Her hand shot out and caught my sleeve.
“Are you leaving?”
“Just going to the sink, sweetheart.”
She held on until I sat again.
I looked at Reid.
He was already crying.
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We hadn’t said a word to each other, but we both knew.
She was ours.
