David had been meaning to write the letter for six years.
He knew this precisely because his daughter was six years old and the letter had been waiting since the day she was born — the letter to his own father, who had not been told he had a grandchild, who did not know because of something that had happened before the birth and had never been repaired.
Six years of meaning to start.
He sat down on a Tuesday evening, no particular reason, no catalyst beyond the fact that his daughter had looked at him at dinner with his father's eyes and he had felt the time, suddenly and completely, as a weight.
He opened a notebook. He wrote: *Dear Dad.*
Then he sat there for twenty minutes, looking at two words.
Then he wrote: *I don't know how to do this.*
Then, because that was true, he kept going.
The letter took three hours. It was not the letter he'd planned for six years — it was messier, more honest, less organised. It said things he hadn't known he was going to say. It was not polished.
He read it back. He sealed it. He found the address from his sister. He walked to the post box at eleven at night in his coat over his pyjamas and he stood there for one more minute and then he posted it.
He walked home feeling hollowed out and, underneath that, something else. Something that might, eventually, be relief.
The beginning doesn't have to be good. It just has to exist.
