I learned to be a father through letters.

When Clara was six months old, Hannah sent a photograph of her sitting upright between two pillows, grinning as though she had invented the idea herself.

At nine months, there was a picture of her gripping a wooden spoon and beating it against a saucepan.

On her first birthday, I received a drawing of an enormous yellow cake that Hannah said Clara had helped color with her fingers.

I answered every message.