Happy Father's Day, Part II

Dear Bryan,
The other night I asked you who you would save if you could only save one of us: me or Zoey.
It was a macabre question, I know that. But by now I imagine you're used to that, to me, to the pickled leopard shark in the glass jar on our mantel.

You answered my question correctly, by the way, if there is such a thing as correct in such a Solomonian dilemma. You are a fabulous husband but an even better father, and this is the way it should be, a slice of something I can't ever ever have or touch or feel because it is yours and hers alone, a father-daughter dance and I cannot cut in. And so I watch from the edge of the music, smiling as you spin her around and around until she cannot stop giggling, and it's true: it kills me a little bit. Every time. The pink sole of her foot in your broad palm, the way you love her and oh how she loves you. Thank you for it--all of it. For her and you and me, for this vastness of feeling, for being a father. For being you.

Happy Day.

I love you,

Susannah