He laughed. A broken sound.
“And your articles,” he said. “Every one.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I whispered.
My father looked at me.
“Because I was wrong,” he said. “At Thanksgiving. And I didn’t know how to say I was wrong. My father never said it. Not once. Not to me. Not to anybody.”
He shook his head.
“So I just never said anything,” he said. “And I let you think I didn’t care.”
He looked at Melissa.
“And I gave Melissa everything,” he said. “Every time she asked. Because she asked. Because it was easy. Because she never made me feel like I’d been wrong.”
Melissa started crying again.
“And I gave you nothing,” my father said to me. “Because you never asked. And I told myself that meant you didn’t need it.”
He looked down.
“You were the one who needed it most,” he said. “And I gave it to the one who asked loudest.”
