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coffee. ing out that I skipped words," he

"Here we are, then," Cindy mumbled.

smiled, placing new clouds of steam Melissa quickly turned her eyes

from their plates in front of them. to his face, but now her father was

They kept their stares, oblivious to the one unwilling to make eye con-

the extra pile of toast she set down tact. "What?" she asked.

with a wink. "I skipped words, and you no-

"So yeah, I'm excited about it," ticed," he said louder. "You were

Melissa said flatly. Neither touched three, and you noticed." A silence

their food, tempting as it had blanketed the table as each fiddled

seemed minutes earlier. with silverware and salt shakers.

"Melissa ... " her father began After a moment, her father mur-

and then stopped. Rolling his straw mured, "I didn't really read to you

paper up into a tiny ball, he tried much after that."

again. "I remember how much you Melissa stared back down at

loved being read to when you were her breakfast. She felt her throat

little." tightening. She longed to ask why

Melissa picked up her fork and he hadn't read with her anyway,

stabbed at her breakfast. She had why he had let his three-year-old

lots of mental images of cuddling daughter intimidate him away from

back into her mother's chest and spending time with her. But noth-

tangling their long brown curls to- ingcame.

gether, ready to devour Goodnight, Her father cleared his throat and

Moon or Where the Wild Things Are. shrugged his shoulders. "Melissa,

Her father was always absent from look, I know what it's like to fight

those pictures, watching COPS in to make a living." She glanced up,

the living room by himself. and the wrinkles around his eyes

As if he had read her thoughts, seemed to deepen as he spoke. "It's

he continued. "Well, I read to you hard. You never know if you're go-

when you were really small. But ing to make enough to cover your ass

- well, then you got older, and you for another week, another month,

started reading on your own. You another year. You don't have to

were barely three, but you were live like that. With your brain, you

reading," he said, shaking his head could really make it. I read in the

as if he was still amazed at such a paper every day about those lady

feat. "And you ... you started point- lawyers winning cases and getting

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