Tami was just about to switch off her reading light when there was a knock on the door. Her father entered after she called, "Come in!" and pulled her chair from the desk and turned it toward her bed. He sat precisely where he had sat that night after she'd broken his heart, her sophomore year, that night she'd promised to mend her ways.

"Are you and Eric…" he swallowed. "Are you having sex?"

His blunt question surprised and flustered her. He'd been more subtle when he feared Mo might start pressuring her for sex, and she thought he was going to stay silent on this issue. Perhaps he hadn't known until Shelley's quip. Or perhaps he had known, but now he could no longer justify to himself remaining silent on the issue. As close as she was to her father, his thought processes were still a mystery to her.

"Daddy, I'm 18. I'm legally an adult. And that's private."

"You're my daughter. You're still in high school for the time being. You're living under my roof. And that's family."

She felt the old, familiar, defensive flare that had so often surfaced in her less mature days. "That doesn't give you authority over me."

"Actually, Tami, yes, it does. It does give me authority over you. How often I choose to exercise that authority, and how I choose to exercise it, and what good that exercise of authority does either of us - well, those are separate matters." He put a hand on his knee and sighed. "Your mother thinks I exercise my authority too little. Your sister thinks I exercise it too much. And me, I'm just desperately trying to be Goldilocks in a house of three bears."

Tami laughed. "We're not bears."

"Well you're aliens then, to me, you girls. Everything I know about the female species could fit in..." He wiggled his pinky. "The tip of this finger." He cleared his throat. "But I do know this. I love you, and I want for you the best things this fallen world of ours has to give you. I don't want you making any mistakes."

"I'm not doing anything with Eric I'm going to regret, Daddy, I promise you that. And that's the honest truth. And that's all I can promise you."

"Well…I hope you're right, Tami. Eric's a good kid. He's the kind of young man who wants to do the right thing. That gives me some peace, at least." He crossed his leg, his ankle resting on his knee, and toyed with the black sock around his ankle. "I don't approve of premarital sex," he said. "I'm sure you must know that by now."

"Yes, Daddy," she said, her stomach sinking a little. "I do know that."

"So…having made that clear…" He studied his sock, as though it was essential that he pull a thread free from it. "Are you being safe?"

"Yes."

He wound the thread around his finger. "You're using condoms?"

Tami was sure her face must look like a blooming rose by now. "I don't want to talk about this."

"I don't want to talk about this either. Now please answer the question."

"We were, but I'm going on the birth control pill."

He broke the string off his sock. "Don't you need parental permission for that?"

"No. I'm 18." She didn't tell him she'd first done it at 17, before starting to have sex with Mo, at a clinic the next town over. Maybe she wasn't really any less talented at lying to her parents than Eric was.

"And you're sure that's sufficient? You've thought about STDs?"

She didn't tell him she'd gotten herself tested for them after Mo cheated, also at the clinic in the next town over. "Yes. Eric's only been in one other relationship, and I trust he's not cheating." Her face felt as hot as a Texas summer. Why did he have to mortify her like this?

He looked at the poster of the Judds on her wall. He blinked at it, several times, and Tami was reminded that her father was a minister, and that he had no doubt hoped his children would believe and honor all of his own values. Perhaps he hadn't known she'd gone all the way with Boone or Mo, even though he seemed to suspect. Maybe he thought Eric had taken her virginity.

"You're disappointed in me," she said, the hurt not masked from her voice.

He shook his head, but he was biting down on his teeth, as if he was biting back tears. "No. I'm just a middle-aged man, Tami, wondering what happened to my own youth, how my babies could have grown up so fast, where this world is taking us at such dizzying speeds, and where that's going to leave me." He coughed, and then with two fingers he pinched away the few tears that had escaped his eyes. Then he sniffed and stood. "Good night, Tami."

When his hand was on the door knob, Tami said, "I love you, Daddy."

He didn't turn around when he replied, "I love you too, princess."

"You're going to make an excellent professor, you know," Tami assured him. "What a blessing you will be to so many young people making their way out into this new world."

She was relieved to see her words made him smile. He even chuckled a little. "This brave, new world," he said, and opened the door.

As he left, she thought he would make a good grandfather also, and prayed that, despite his heart condition, he'd live to see his grandchildren. Then she realized she was also imagining Eric as a father, wondering if he would ever be able to talk to his own children the way her father spoke to her, thinking he would be involved and dependable, but perhaps a little gruff at times. He might be strict and a little demanding as a father, but also as affectionate as he was with her. He would likely mean well and always try to be better than his own father. She thought she might make a good counter balance to his vices as a parent, and that he might make a good counterbalance to hers, that, between the two of them, they might have all their bases covered. And then she realized what she was thinking and thought Eric would be alarmed if he knew how deeply her mind had plumbed the idea.

Tami switched off her light and settled into bed.