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He pulled his truck carefully into the garage, noting that the light over the door that led to the house was out.

When he got out of his truck, he took his step stool down from its hook on the wall, arranged it under the light, and then went to the bin he kept bulbs in, every kind for the house, and found the eighty-watt yellow anti-bug one he liked for this fixture.

He was screwing it in, the old bulb in his jacket pocket, when Shelly opened the door. She wiped her hands on a dish towel, her dark, curly hair the mess it usually was this time of day.

It was as good to see her as it always was.

“.” She smiled when she said his name.

“Shelly,” he said, stepping off the stool and folding it up. “What do you need?”

She rolled her eyes, but she also stepped down from the kitchen and kissed him, smelling like green dish soap and her perfume. He took a minute to kiss her back like he meant it, and when he pulled away, it was because she had started to smile at him.

“More of that later,” she said, “but right now you need to go talk to your daughter.”

He picked up the step stool, hung it up, and chucked the dead bulb into the garbage under his shop bench. “What’d she get up to?”

“God, . Nothing. You know she’s a good kid, right?”

“I know she’s failing algebra” was what he said. But he did know. He’d never say it to Tressa Fay, but he didn’t really think there was anything she could do wrong. He didn’t want her to get prideful.

“And what did you tell her?” Shelly took his hand and pulled him into the kitchen. “You told her that algebra wasn’t the work God had put in front of her to do. And even though the last time Tressa Fay went to mass—or me, for that matter—was long enough ago that I think the priest wouldn’t recognize us, it meant something to her. It made her feel better. And she’s at the age when her mom isn’t always going to make her feel better.”

He wasn’t sure about that, but he didn’t like to think Tressa Fay was hurting. She’d been too quiet lately, all drawn up. Her friends hadn’t been around as much. It made him worry, but he didn’t see where he could ask her about it outright, either. He didn’t like to say what was bothering him until he was ready. Even in confession.

He hung up his jacket and started through the living room to go up the stairs. The house was already dark. He’d been working the seven a.m. to seven p.m. shift, eating the dinner plate Shelly had kept warm for him while he sat next to her on the sofa and listened to her talk about her day. It meant he’d been passing Tressa Fay like a ship in the night recently.

“Hey, ?”

He turned around. “Yeah?”

“Don’t forget to be grateful she’s asking to talk to you at all, no matter what. A lot of parents haven’t laid that kind of ground.”

This was Shelly telling him that what Tressa Fay wanted to talk to him about was serious. Not good for his heart, but he nodded and winked at Shelly so she knew he wasn’t going to lose hold of his composure at this stage in his life, if he hadn’t yet.

He found his daughter on her bed, no lights on but Christmas lights she’d hung over her desk. He flipped the overhead switch. He couldn’t talk serious in the dark.

“Gah!” Tressa Fay threw her arm over her eyes. “Come on!”

“You’ll need glasses if you creep around in the dark like this. Your mom said you wanted to talk to me.”

He sat on the end of her bed. She was on top of the covers, not in pajamas yet. Her hair was a bigger mess than Shelly’s, probably because it was so long, and she had on a sweater and jeans with more holes in both than he was comfortable thinking about her being seen in public wearing. Like her father couldn’t provide nice clothes. He knew it was supposed to be fashion, and he’d gone through his own phase of beat-up Levi’s and flannels when he and Shelly went to concerts back in the day, but it was still a bit much.

“I do want to talk to you,” Tressa Fay said. “But also I don’t.”

“All right. Should I go down and get the paper to bring up and read while you think about it?”

His daughter sighed, long and beleaguered. She sounded like his dad, which meant she sounded like him. He’d have to watch that. “I don’t want you to be mad.”

“Did you talk to your mom about it, or is it only me that has the honor?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“Well, was she mad?”

“No.” Tressa Fay studied him, and his heart clenched to see how scared she looked around the eyes.

“Come on, now. Go ahead. Get it out all at once, like at confession. If you went.”

She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut, really, looking so much like she had when she was little, his heart clenched. “I’m gay. I like girls.” She sucked in a breath and held it, not opening her eyes.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

That was what he thought. That was the first thing in his head, a prayer of gratitude, which meant he could tell Shelly he was a faithful husband for following her advice to be grateful, especially given that he was. Grateful.

Grateful it wasn’t anything that would bring Tressa Fay harm, grateful she wasn’t hurt, grateful that what she’d told him wouldn’t change anything that hadn’t already been true, and grateful she had told him, though he was a bit worried she’d told him only because she wanted to date a girl in particular, and he’d already made it clear she had to wait until she was sixteen. She was still fifteen. He didn’t relish having that conversation again.

“Good to know,” said. He hesitated for a minute, a little afraid of rejection, until he remembered he was a grown man and he could take it. “Would you like a hug?”

She finally opened her eyes, and he was glad to see some of the fear gone. She sat up and threw herself in his arms, and he choked out an “oof.”

He held her until she let go. Thanked God again.