Not everything," he said. "Not the important things. My kids are safe. You're safe. That's all I really care about. This" - he said motioning - "is just stuff. Most of it can be replaced. It just takes time.

She was everything I wanted. She was beautiful and charming, with a quick sense of humor, and she supported me in everything I did.

Tough toenails, tiger. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.

Why did you say you believed me ?" In profile, he could see both the young woman she was becoming and the little girl he remembered. "Because I trust you.

We're not the same people we were then. We've changed, we've grown.

For a moment, I wondered how different my life would have been had they been my parents, but I shook the thought away. I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I'd turned out. Regrets about the journey, maybe, but not the destination. Because however it had happened, I'd somehow ended up eating shrimp in a dingy downtown shack with a girl that I already knew I'd never forget.

I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you.