My stepdaughter gave me a diary for Christmas. I worked the double that day, flipping burgers while families ate together.
The paper crown from her kids' meal sat on my dashboard for months. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
I wrote the first entry in February, after a cold snap. I taught her to clean a redfish on the back porch.
The second entry was a year later. She got her first job, bussing tables at the shrimp shack. I wrote that I was proud of her.
The third entry came two years after that. She moved in with her mom full-time. I didn't know what else to say.
That diary sits on my nightstand. Only three entries in five years.
I never showed it to her. But maybe she knows. The crown is still on my dashboard.