Dad stopped singing.
He ate dinner in front of the television without actually watching it.
Sometimes I came home from college and found him sitting in the dark living room with one lamp burning beside Mom’s empty chair.
Relatives encouraged him to meet someone.
Friends invited him to dinners where a single woman always happened to be seated nearby.
Dad declined every invitation.
Once, about four years after Mom was gone, I told him she would not have wanted him to spend the rest of his life alone.
He looked at me with an expression I never forgot.
“I am not alone, Maya.”
He squeezed my hand.
“I have you.”
The answer broke my heart more than I allowed him to see.
I loved my father.
But I was his daughter.
I could not be his entire future.
Then, almost overnight, something changed.
The Dating Profile
I first noticed on a Saturday afternoon.
