She looks down at him as she floats in the air, his eyes bright and that goofy smile on his face as he makes flying noises.  He bends his arms and she starts to fall, her stomach flips from the motion but before she knows it, she is tucked in his arms, warm and safe.  He sits on the couch and kisses her forehead, smelling her head as he always does, then picks up the TV remote.

What he doesn’t know is that the little girl in the crook of his elbow will grow up with him as her baseline for what a man should be.  He doesn’t know that how he treats her will help her determine how she will allow other people to treat her.

He doesn’t know his power.

The little girl grows up, little by little every day and she listens.  She listens when he gets home from work and leans down to kiss her on top of her head and tells her that he missed her while he was away.  She listens when he tells her mom that he loves her and that he loves the way she looks when she wipes her make up off at the end of the day.  When she puts her puzzle together, she listens when he tells her how impressive it was to watch her figure it out all on her own.  When he tucks her in at night, she listens as he tells her stories of what she can be when she grows up.  She pictures herself as an astronaut, or the president, or an inventor.  She believes him when he says she can be anything because she is creative and smart and goes after what she wants.

She’s taller than she used to be.  Sometimes she does things that her dad isn’t proud of, but when it happens she’s not afraid of him.  She doesn’t fear what he’ll do when he finds out – she just doesn’t want to disappoint him.  When her mom tells her dad what she did (because she kept finding ways around it) he looks at her for a long time.  She can tell that he is not proud of her in that moment, but when he speaks it is calm.  He asks her why she did it.  He wants to know what she was thinking about when she made the decision to do what she did.  He wants to understand her.  After she explains herself, he tells her what is expected of her, and that he knows how smart she is and that he hopes that the next time she will make better choices.

She is playing in the yard and hears her dad making noise.  She rides her bike to the edge of the garage and he sees her as he clamps a piece of wood onto his work table. He smiles and beckons her over so she can see what he’s doing.  So he can share it with her.  She learns how to use tools and that she has a knack for woodworking.  He takes her with him when he needs to buy a grill.  She cuddles in next to him on the couch and eats popcorn out of his bowl as he answers her constant questions about the game he’s watching on TV.  He explains it to her and she loves it, they start watching together every weekend.

She waves goodbye from her date’s car, her mom and dad silhouetted in the open front door.  She has had a crush on him for a long time and gazes at him across the table as he talks about his last game and how he scored the winning run.  She smiled at him when he talked about building a shed in the backyard with his uncle.  She tells him how he built a deck with her dad.  He looks at her, surprised.  After the date, he pulls into her driveway and she says thank you, her hand on the door handle.  He reaches over and puts his hand behind her head, pulling her in for a kiss she’s not ready for.  She frowns, put her hand between her face and his and says, “thank you for the date.  I’ll see you at school.” Then she gets out of the car and walks inside her house.

Her dad closes the curtain he was spying through as he watches his baby girl stand up for herself and walk proudly into their home.  He gets tears in his eyes remembering what her head smelled like when she was tucked into his elbow and how she would giggle when he held her high in the air, her little body barely bigger than his hands.

She sneaks up behind him and wraps her arms around her dad’s belly and gives him a tight hug.  “Thanks Dad.”  He hugs her back and asks, “for what?”

“For teaching me how to fly.”