She was sixteen, with her mother’s laugh and her own fierce tenderness. They lived together in a narrow house with a garden that grew more weeds than roses, yet every morning, he woke before the sun to make her tea, setting the cup exactly where her left hand would find it. He never said, I am doing this because I love you. He simply did it.
“Papa,” she whispered once, half-asleep, “you are my home.” She was sixteen, with her mother’s laugh and
So they lived, father and daughter, in the ordinary radiance of togetherness. And it was enough. It was everything. She was sixteen