Leni tried to see past his anger to the man Mama claimed he used to be, before Vietnam had changed him and Alaska’s winters had revealed his own darkness. She tried to remember being Red, his girl, the one who’d ridden his shoulders on The Strand in Hermosa Beach. “Please, Dad. Please. I want to celebrate graduating from high school in my town. The town you brought me to.” When Dad looked at her, Leni saw what she saw so rarely in his eyes: love. Tattered, tired, shaved small by bad choices, but love just the same. And regret. “Sorry, Red. I can’t do it. Not even for you.”
