Chap­ter 1 begins with me wak­ing up at three-thir­ty in the morn­ing on a qui­et Thurs­day, the weight of past par­ent­ing mis­takes press­ing heav­i­ly on my mind. My thoughts were flood­ed with mem­o­ries of my fall­out with Mag­gie, and as I lay there, the regrets seemed to pile up. It’s dur­ing these still, sleep­less hours that I often think about the times when I could have been a bet­ter par­ent. One such mem­o­ry that lingers is from Maggie’s sev­enth birth­day, when we had planned a trip to Busch Gar­dens. Dur­ing the dri­ve, two hours into the jour­ney, Mag­gie real­ized she had left her beloved Mr. Pan­da Pal at a high­way rest stop. She was fran­tic, beg­ging me to turn around and retrieve it. But I, think­ing I could eas­i­ly replace it once we arrived at our des­ti­na­tion, insist­ed that we keep going. Instead of enjoy­ing the trip, Mag­gie spent the entire week­end con­sumed by wor­ry over her stuffed ani­mal, and I watched as this moment, meant to be spe­cial, slipped away. That deci­sion, which seemed small at the time, has haunt­ed me since, and I can’t help but won­der how dif­fer­ent things might have been if I had just turned around.

Despite the pain of these fail­ures, I try to hold on to the pos­i­tive moments that I’ve shared with Mag­gie. There are times, though few, when I feel proud of the father I’ve been. I recall how we spent after­noons paint­ing Maggie’s bed­room, choos­ing col­ors togeth­er and trans­form­ing her space. Each coat of paint marked a step in her growth, as her tastes evolved, and she made deci­sions on her own. These moments were sim­ple, but they were filled with mean­ing. Anoth­er time, I took it upon myself to teach her self-defense tech­niques, hop­ing to equip her with the con­fi­dence and knowl­edge she would need as she grew old­er. I want­ed her to feel empow­ered, espe­cial­ly as she faced the chal­lenges of becom­ing more inde­pen­dent, and I hoped that these lessons would stay with her. I’ll nev­er for­get the day she got her driver’s license on the first try. When she passed, I was filled with pride, not just for her achieve­ment, but for the role I had played in nur­tur­ing her con­fi­dence. These moments of con­nec­tion, though not as fre­quent as I would have liked, have been some of the bright­est points of my par­ent­ing.

As my thoughts linger on these mem­o­ries, I can’t help but think of the times when Mag­gie has con­fid­ed in me, when she was vul­ner­a­ble and open about her life. One morn­ing, Mag­gie had been unusu­al­ly with­drawn, and I knew some­thing was both­er­ing her. In an attempt to con­nect with her, I took her to Waf­fle House, a place rich with mem­o­ries since her moth­er had worked there in the past. We sat togeth­er, and despite my attempts to engage her in con­ver­sa­tion, she was hes­i­tant to open up. She brushed off my ques­tions ini­tial­ly, but I didn’t push her. After some time, she final­ly shared that she had got­ten her peri­od, and I was caught off guard, though in a strange way, proud. Mag­gie had nav­i­gat­ed this mile­stone on her own, learn­ing about it from her friends and han­dling it with­out ask­ing for my help. I felt a sense of pride mixed with sur­prise, real­iz­ing how much she had grown and how much she was able to man­age with­out me. The moment high­light­ed her inde­pen­dence, and I had to acknowl­edge that, in some ways, she no longer need­ed me to guide her through every chal­lenge.

Try­ing to be sup­port­ive, I offered to pay for the sup­plies she need­ed, so she wouldn’t have to spend her allowance. How­ev­er, when I stum­bled over how to dis­cuss “the equip­ment” involved, I felt awk­ward. The con­ver­sa­tion quick­ly shift­ed to dis­cussing the cost of din­ing out, where I noticed her grow­ing aware­ness of mon­ey, espe­cial­ly when we talked about tip­ping. I explained that I always made a point to tip gen­er­ous­ly because it was some­thing her moth­er val­ued, hop­ing she would under­stand that such small acts of kind­ness could make a big dif­fer­ence. I men­tioned how I believed that these ges­tures were not just about mon­ey but about hon­or­ing the val­ues her moth­er held dear. The con­ver­sa­tion turned lighter as we spoke, and soon we were laugh­ing togeth­er, with Mag­gie’s pride in her new­found inde­pen­dence shin­ing through. That morn­ing at Waf­fle House marked a piv­otal moment in our relationship—a qui­et yet sig­nif­i­cant reminder of how far Mag­gie had come and how much she had grown. As I sat across from her, I real­ized that I didn’t just have to guide her; I had to learn how to let go, to let her step into adult­hood with the con­fi­dence she had earned.