I lay under my blanket for a minute. The similarity
of her living-room to my own felt nostalgic. It was full
of familiar things that signified not so much class or
taste (although both), but the essence of Dadness.

I pretended to be asleep when John Riley padded by.
With eyes closed, he sounded exactly like my
Dad. I opened my eyes in time to see him escape the
room.

As per their taste in objects, our dads are pretty similar.
They have middle-height forms and good standards
of grooming. Their creative hobbies steer clear of
the un-Dadly avant-garde: one man's darkroom looks
a lot like the other man's painting studio. They were
good-looking as youth, but not excessively so.

Whether it is because Kate and I are daughters (not
sons) or despite this, we reserve a particular
tenderness for our Dads, and connect them with
an ideal of domesticity. Their regard of us is
unarticulated, and our regard for them is
uncomplicated.


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