The officers said their goodbyes shortly after, the taller one shaking my hand at the door and saying, “Good luck, sir,” in a tone that meant it.
I watched their cruiser pull away from the curb and stood in the doorway for a minute after the taillights disappeared.
“What if I fail?”
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***
Three weeks later, I drove to the university campus for orientation. I was nervous.
I was older than everyone in the parking lot by at least a decade. My boots didn’t belong on a college campus. I stood outside the main entrance with my folder of documents and felt more out of place than I had in a long time.
Ainsley was beside me. She’d taken the morning off her part-time job to drive over with me, which I’d told her was unnecessary and for which I was privately grateful. She was already set to enroll there on a scholarship.
I was nervous.
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I glanced at the building. At the students were moving through the doors. I looked at the whole, large, unfamiliar, slightly terrifying thing I was about to walk into.
“I don’t know how to do this, Bubbles.”
Ainsley tucked her hand through my arm.
“You gave me a life. This is me giving yours back. You can do this, Dad. You can!”
We walked in together.
Some people spend their whole lives waiting for someone to believe in them. I raised one.
“You can do this, Dad. You can!”
