From that moment on, it was just Ainsley and me.
And looking back now… I think we were everything to each other.
I started calling her “Bubbles” when she was about four. She was obsessed with The Powerpuff Girls, especially Bubbles—the sweet one. The one who cried when things were sad and laughed the loudest when things were funny.
Every Saturday morning, we’d sit together with a bowl of cereal and whatever fruit I could afford that week, watching cartoons. She’d climb onto the couch beside me, tuck herself under my arm, and just… be happy.
Raising a child alone on a hardware store salary—and later a foreman’s wage—isn’t poetry. It’s math. And most of the time, that math is tight.
I learned how to cook because eating out wasn’t an option. I learned how to braid hair by practicing on a doll at the kitchen table, because Ainsley wanted pigtails for first grade—and there was no way I was going to let her down.
I packed her lunches. I showed up to every school play. I sat through every parent-teacher conference.
I wasn’t a perfect father.
But I was always there.
And I think that mattered.
Ainsley grew up kind. Funny. Quietly determined in a way I never really took credit for—because, truthfully, I still don’t know where she got it.
