June eighteenth and Father's Day: I could count on one hand the number of times people have asked me what I remember most about my father, but I won't, because no matter how infrequently it happens, the question still exists and comes up. And the limelight burns.

If you saw me you would know, I swear you would. You can hear it in my voice, can't you: the paranoia of my childhood or the wrongness behind every single breath...

Unstable? Maybe, or maybe just yours. Not the yours which belongs to you; the yours of my father.

Max.

His yours.

I remember watching you, Max, whenever you let me or whenever you didn't and I rebelled. The way you would take my tiny child's belt and bind it as tight as you could around an arm, not always the same one, but usually whichever had less scars.

They warned me about this, Max, I'm sorry for lying. You might've hurt me, had I told. It wasn't our secret, like you said it was. It was all theirs and all yours, and not the least bit mine.

Admittedly, I didn't know much. I saw you and heard you, but what I saw and heard I never knew. I still don't know. I mean, in a way, the premature mind of a child can tell, understand what's going on, what will happen. I guess I really did know that one day when I'd be watching you, you'd lay there with your glassy eyes and open mouth, and I'd wonder if you'd ever move again. And you wouldn't. I knew that I'd lay there with you, feel your cold skin and kiss your white forehead, and hug you and all by myself, like a big girl, I'd make you better.

Then I would take it. Every time I took it, Max, you never knew. Or maybe you did and knew better than to stop me -- you're so smart. I remember seeing my own hands, a pair of five pale, tiny fingers wrap around the syringe, then pull it gently out and push it into my own body. I was cold and happy and it felt so good... I knew you'd like me for it, me, your daughter the copycat, untaught and still perfect at these complex grown-up games.

That's what they were, what you said they were, Max. I heard it and so did you, from your own lips and lungs. I was special, talented, beautiful, just like you said I was, Max. I was yours, but you never belonged to me. I was yours but you never acknowledged so. I was yours, and all that I claimed to be my own was really yours too, even these tears, Max, that stain this page, that mark the confusion I've never grown out of. Even these tears, Max. But I'm a big girl, Max. And I'm sorry if you don't want to hear it, but every once in awhile, big girls cry too. Max.

Max.

I love you, daddy.