With trembling fingers, he slipped it off.
He placed it in my palm and closed my hand around it.
“They share your blood, Maya,” he whispered, “but you are my real daughter.”
That broke whatever composure I still had.
I bent down beside him and cried against his arm.
Victor had never tried to replace my biological father, who died when I was little.
He never demanded that I call him Dad.
He simply stayed.
He taught me how to drive.
Sat through every one of my track meets.
Waited outside for four hours in the cold when I took my Navy commission exam.
Whenever Mom complained that joining the military was “unbecoming for a young woman,” Victor always interrupted with the same answer:
“Leave her be, Evelyn. If she wants to fly high, let her fly.”
I squeezed his hand.
“I love you, Dad.”
It was the first time I had ever called him that.
