I was sixteen the day report cards came home and I'd failed algebra for the second time.
My father was already up, getting ready for the double shift. I couldn't hand him the envelope.
So I went outside at six in the morning and wrote SORRY across the snow on his windshield with my bare finger. My hands were red and shaking by the time I finished.
Inside, the coin jar sat half full of pesos and centavos from the life he'd left behind. I used to think it was treasure when I was little. Now I understood it was just what was left over.
He must have seen it when he came out. He didn't come back inside. He didn't honk. He just drove away with the word still mostly there, smearing as the wipers caught it.
That night he sat on my bed and said, 'You don't apologize to a windshield. You talk to me.'
I'd been so afraid of disappointing him that I forgot he was already on my side.