I hope you don’t mind too much me unloading about all of this. I know one of your best friends was gay. Didn’t he move to Atlanta? I hope you are making sure Jessie is getting enough exercise.

Say hello to Amy. Dad, is she even thirty?

Love, Sarah, Your Squishy-soft Daughter I lean back in my chair and stare out my window.

Sarah, a carbon copy of her mother, stays on high boil. But no wonder she can’t go into that guy’s room without her eyes watering: My mother used to say sarcastically that I wouldn’t even drink after myself.

Since I never washed a dish until I was married, it wasn’t always said in good humor. I reread the letter. What a kid. Last semester she was a

raging feminist; now, she’s visiting the sick. A work in progress if there ever was one.

I pick up the phone and call her room. Amazingly, she is there.

“Why aren’t you in class?” I ask when she answers the phone.

“I’m just leaving,” she says in the same breathless tone I’d hear when she was scurrying around at the last minute about to be late for high school. How did we cope in those years after her mother died? Between us, we had a hard time figuring out how to use the electric can opener.

We managed, though. Despite some craziness on my part, those years forged a bond between us that will never be broken.

“I got your letter, babe,” I say, knowing it won’t do any good to preach.

“I’m proud of you for doing this, but be careful. You’re not around his blood or anything, are you?” I ask, wanting reassurance she is safe.

“Dad,” she says, her voice impatient, “we’re not nurses. Besides, I can’t even thread a needle, much less give anyone a shot.”

I laugh. Poor kid. What did I teach her? Not much. But I didn’t ruin her either.