“I did not want to spend the rest of my life introducing myself through the worst thing that had happened to me.”

Glen rubbed his thumb against his palm.

“I drew a lighthouse because it stands in bad weather without pretending the weather isn’t there.”

Ariel leaned against him.

“And the sun?”

He smiled faintly.

“I put that sun on everything back then too, sweetheart.”

Clara examined the tattoo as though she had not truly seen it in years.

“Underneath, he wrote two words.”

She lowered the towel slightly.

Below the lighthouse, nearly hidden beneath the swimsuit seam, faded lettering curved along the scar.

Still Standing.

My father lowered himself back into his chair.

No one was laughing anymore.

The suspicion inside me did not disappear immediately. It slowly began to loosen.

Glen had been 21.

Clara had been using her maiden name.

Years afterward, she married my father.

By then, Glen had moved away, changed his hair, and become the man I met at a friend’s barbecue.