Daddy Issues

By Ava Gladdin

She stared at the letter in her hand, the paper soft and worn from all the times she’d unfolded it, reread it, tracing his words like they still meant something. Sometimes she needed to remind herself that, once, he had loved her. Or at least he pretended to, and maybe that was close enough. It felt real back then.

My beloved daughter,

I would give anything to see you as a little girl—all smiles and curls—just one more time. No matter where I go, I think of you and love you.

I hope you know how proud I am of you. Not just today—but always. Physically speaking, we may be apart; however, I have carried you in my heart and mind all over the globe. No matter where either of us go, you will always be my baby girl.

When you were a baby, I walked you up and down the street when you cried. I realized then that I’d never be rich, never be the brightest, and probably never win many medals, but I could at least tell you how big the world was someday. Since you were tiny, I dreamed of you on adventures as an adult, exploring all the places I never got the chance to reach. The time has come where you are able to go—without constraints.

I’ll grow old, body broken, but joy would find me if one day I saw your name in a byline. In my heart of hearts, I believe you will change others with pen and paper. Your soul is too special to not to share it with the world.

Today and always, I am proud to say that I am the dad of a special young woman. Happy college graduation, my little girl. Never doubt that I love you.

Forever,

Dad

There were two small pills on his counter. One, his Vraylar, which he was supposed to take every single morning helped with his mood swings and kept the bipolar disorder at bay. The other, the one he wasn’t supposed to take, was different. It was a bitter, almost tasteless thing that seemed like poison but wasn’t. It was magic, though. When he took it, he saw himself—really saw himself—the real him, which was unsettling in a way he couldn’t quite explain, but there was something addictive about it. He glanced between the two—choosing his fate.

There was something he couldn’t let go of. Or maybe someone? He wasn’t quite sure in this state. He blinked, hard. The walls were breathing now, slow and rhythmic, like a sleeping dog. That is how he knew it was coming. His eyes drifted shut and everything around him swirled into a black void.

When he opened them again, he was staring at his hands. His palms were sweating, slick, and clammy, and the lines—the ones he’d never really bothered to look at—deepened, snaked, and bled into one another.

He thought of his daughter for some reason, the way she’d held his hand when she was little, her bubblegum nail polish chipped, and his own nails stained yellow from the constant cigarette use. He could smell her now. Something sweet and sugar-coated, singeing the edges of his mind. Seeing her face was like looking into a broken mirror—there were fragments of himself cracked and separated by deep gashes. Her face reminded him of every mistake he ever made, every drink he ever drank, and every woman he had ever slept with. She disgusted him in a way that made him miss her.

That next morning, the sun hit his eyes in the way that the waves crashed against the rocks along the shore: relentless and unforgiving. The cigarette smoke danced idly in the air. Flakes of eye crust rimmed his eyes as he stared blankly at his computer screen. Hours had passed and he was still on the couch. His cursor blinked on the screen, waiting to be told what to do. The idea that he had exhausted all his options began to weigh upon him. Surely, he knew the day would come when there would be nothing new for him to read. The lack of her words on his screen was akin to the feeling of taking the last sip of his drink. It always left him hungry for more.

She struggled to light her cigarette. Her hand shook and the lighter would not stay lit. She knew smoking was a bad habit, but who is a person without their vices? She had grown nervous, perpetually overcome by her own anxieties. This was her only reprieve. 

The laptop cast a blueish light in the darkened room. It was 2 a.m., her typical hour of self-doubt and loathing. Her fingernails hover over the keyboard, bubblegum pink polish chipped, trembling from the sheer weight of the publish button before her. She has lurked in the writing forum for months, taunting her to hit post. The cursor blinks at the end of her title: In the Dark, We See Them All. She hates the title. It sounds pretentious, like something her father would write. But per usual, she can’t come up with anything better. 

Writing used to be her solace and only escape. The fact that it was her career was a miracle. She never had to worry about him reaching her there. But lately, she wrote about her father, mostly about his unforgivable alcohol and drug addictions. She never seemed to stray from him, no matter how hard she tried. Every word she wrote—even her title—drowned in him. 

She rubs her thumb over the scar on her left wrist, a nervous habit she’s had since childhood. It was a tiny accident, nothing serious, but her father used to joke about it—A writer’s mark, just like me. The thought makes her nauseous. Not like him. Never like him.

The story she wrote isn’t about him, she tells herself. It’s about a woman searching for a lost man after a boating accident. But she knows that is a lie. It’s always about him.

She hit publish and closed her laptop.

This ritual of his was performed upwards of four times per day, his obsessiveness deepening as the years passed. The black coffee on his side table had gone cold, but it did not bother him. He drank it and let the taste linger on his lips, contemplating what had led to this point.

There was no gathering place for men addicted to the internet like there is for men addicted to their booze. He had no twelve-step plan, no idea how to move past this inner grieving of someone who was still alive.

Yet.

One final refresh led him to where he was now. He promised himself that he would stop checking, stop holding his breath each time that he opened his laptop, and stop obsessing over the possibility of seeing her name.

It was useless.

The SubStack journal by-line jumped out at him, glowing like a beacon. He let his cursor hover over her name as if it was his hand, reaching for her through the screen. It was important for him to take joy in seeing her name. After all, it was all he ever wanted for her.

“You have to do it.” Her publisher said, exasperated.

“Michelle, I haven’t spoken to him in years. I simply cannot call him and just ask him to sign this for me. I can’t. It’s too much.”

“We won’t publish you if you don’t get his written consent. I’m sorry.”

She looked around her apartment, phone cradled between her ear and shoulder. The place was a mess. Dirty dishes piled up everywhere and dust crowded every corner. Cigarette butts lined the coffee table, leaving ashes behind in their wake. 

There was no use in reaching out. She had played the game before, and it always ended up with her losing.

“Go see him,” she said, nervously

“What?”

“Go see him. That will probably guarantee a signature. He hasn’t seen you in years, right I’m sure he misses you. And anyway, he doesn’t have to know what the story is about, he just needs to sign off.”

“You don’t know my dad,” She replied, heaving a sigh.

The highway was deserted. Not in the literal definition. Sure, there were cars, but there was no sign of real life. Different makes and models passed by, the drivers’ faces blurring together. Music never played in the background, and her car window never fully defrosted during the winter months. Cups of gas station coffee sat stagnate in the cupholders—almost full.

On the drive to his house, the girl contemplated her life. She truly felt as if she was a shell of herself. Or more likely, a shell of the person she was created to be. She had been created, after all, stitched together from a young age. Built by cruel words and harsh punishments. It was at this time each day that she tried desperately to shut out the thoughts of him that plagued her. It was perfectly timed with her joining the exit ramp into the city before her.

Rows of trees spotted her periphery as she sat on the interstate. The cars were packed together like sardines roasting in the sun. It was interesting, unsettling even, that the sun was out during these months, insisting on hanging in the winter sky. Its bright light sat there as if mocking the cold that gnawed at everything else. She despised being alone with her thoughts. Memories that were lost to time crept up on her as each car inched forward. She hated driving. All she did was think about what she had lost that day. More than that, why she had to leave.

That day was the worst of her life. She was fairly certain something in her had shriveled up and died that day. She knew, watching him walk out of rehab, that she’d never see him again. He was barely holding himself together. His body was there, but his mind? Already crawling back to the drugs and the booze, already lost.

He had handed her a letter. It was perfectly folded up, the envelope taped shut with his awful cursive scrawled on the outside, spelling out her name.

“I missed your graduation,” was all he said.

“I know, Dad. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t. And they both knew that.

Reading her SubStack was like looking into her soul. He couldn’t quite remember how he’d found it, only that when he did, his life had changed. There was no more wishing or hoping for a piece of her. He had her now—as fully as he could. The entries began years before he had found it. The first one reading:

Dad is drunk again, and I don’t know what to do. Maybe writing about it will help.

She had been 14 when she wrote that.

He was using again. He had started a few months after graduating from the program. There was no use in staying sober—who was he doing it for? Not for himself and surely not for her. His wife had left him years prior, something he always blamed on her lack of judgment rather than his alcoholism and barely tolerable personality. Besides, the drugs were fun in the beginning.

She remembered him yelling most of all. He yelled at everything—football games, video games, his least favorite actors on the screen. The first time that he yelled at her, really yelled at her, it was like something shattered inside of her. It wasn’t even over anything important, just a stupid game. A ref giving a bad call, maybe. She couldn’t remember. But his voice, that’s what stuck with her—the way it tore through the room, crashing against the walls, pulsing in the air like something alive, something that hated her. It was suffocating. The world shrank down to just that sound, his voice, and there was nowhere for her to go, no space left for her in the room, in the house. It felt like the ground had given way beneath her, and she was gone.

Surely there was another way. Maybe she could email him. Or maybe the phone was the better option. Anything was better than being on the highway heading straight for him. Anything. 

This time, when her name jumped at him, he clicked on it in utter shock. There was no longer that fleeting curiosity or piqued interest. It wasn’t a faint itch to check in on her life, like looking through a window. Reading her work was his last supper, the meal that he needed to consume to remain living.

“Like Father, Like Daughter—to be published later this year” The headline stared back at him. Not a short story, not some cryptic post on a blog he barely understood—a book. A whole goddamn book.

He picked up the phone. He put it down. He picked it up again.

Three knocks. Three, ominous knocks that she’d never forget. She felt the wood of the deck railing under her hands as she waited for an answer at the door. She’d known he still lived here, didn’t even have to check. He was a creature of habit and one that never strayed from his routine once established. 

When the door opened, she stood there, frozen. His once neat, brown hair was now a mess of wiry gray. His beard was longer than she’d ever seen it. His clothes, wrinkled, slept-in, hung around his frame in a way that made her stomach curl with disgust. And his eyes sunk into his face, lines carved so deep around them like he’d been wandering around lost for years.

The door opened wider and she silently stepped into the house. Immediately, she noticed the smell. The air was thick with the smell of stale food and beer. Dirty dishes were piled up in the sink, crusted with dried food, and the counter was littered with coffee-stained mugs, cigarette butts, and crumpled receipts. 

It’s not just messy; it’s steeped in the kind of filth that comes when someone gives up; when cleaning feels like a foreign, almost cruel concept. The place isn’t just neglected—it mirrors the person inside, who long ago stopped pretending to care about the rituals of living. The house wasn’t just a backdrop for him, it was a reflection of his slow and deliberate withdrawal from the world. 

“I’m sorry the place is a wreck,” he says, eyes flicking around the room.

“It’s fine, Dad.”

He hovers awkwardly, hands fidgeting. “So… what brings you by? You just passing through, or—?”

“I need something from you.”

His brow creases. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“A signature.”

His face tightens, hands already shaking as he reaches for a cigarette. He struggles with the lighter, muttering under his breath. “A signature, huh? For what? You trying to put me away again? I’m not going back there.”

“It’s not that. I wrote a book. My publisher won’t publish me unless you sign off on it.”

He stares at her, the fake confusion hanging in the air like the stillness before a storm. “Why do you need me for that?”

“I— It’s just that the story is about you. About us.”

“What about us?”

“Just life, y’know. The good. The bad. Mostly the bad.”

Her honesty cut through him like a dull knife, she could tell. He was biting his lip, clearly unsure how to respond to the situation. She hands him the paper, praying silently he will sign it and she can leave. 

“Can I read it?”

A wave of nausea swept over her. There was no way she could let him read her work; let him into the depths of her soul where she kept her grieving buried. 

“Please,” he whispers, glancing down to make eye contact with her for the first time. Looking into his eyes, she knew she had to. Maybe, in some twisted way, she wanted him to read her writing. She wanted him to see the damage he did to her. She wanted him to feel the way she felt when writing.

He leafed through the manuscript, landing on a random page. Page 213. He read the page, face scrunching and contorting the further he read. A singular tear sat in his waterline, threatening to spill over the edge. 

Dad is drunk again, and I don’t know what to do. Maybe writing about it will help.

I don’t know what to do with my hands when he drinks—when he gets violent and yells at me. I want to shield my face and hide, but I can’t. I don’t know why.

Recently, mom has started taking medicine to help with her pain from her car accident. I’ve noticed that sometimes he takes it too when she’s not looking. I haven’t said anything about it yet because I’m too scared. 

“Why would you put this in writing?” he said, obviously nervous. His hands begin to shake, and he reaches for an unmarked pill bottle.

“Dad. Are you ser—”

 “So this is how you see me? After all these years, you only see me as a mess? You want to write about us and this is what you choose? My darkest moments?”

“You are lucky anyone is writing anything about you. Just sign it, Dad.”

He glances up at her, cigarette smoke drifting through the air in front of his face. His eyes betrayed him, hurt beyond belief.  They soften as he looks down at the page before him. Handing the manuscript back to her, she sees his eyes catch on the byline.

“I’m proud of you,” he whispers, eyes darting around the room looking for a place to safely land. 

“I wish I could’ve been better for you.”

“Yeah, me too.” 

He handed her the signed piece of paper, his signature matching the scrawl on the letter from so long ago. A pang hit her heart, and she gripped the pen tighter.

She turned to go, leaving him in his recliner. 

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I don’t know,” She says almost to herself.

She closes the door, the weight of the paper feeling heavier than it did when she first arrived. 

Ava Gladdin is currently a student at Kennesaw State University studying Journalism with a minor in Professional Writing. She loves to write, play with her cat, and listen to music. Her favorite author is Ottessa Moshfegh, and she hopes one day to publish a full-length piece.