And I had spent those years, on some level, believing that if I could only achieve enough, become impressive enough, prove myself enough, the weather might finally break, and warmth might come.

What I had never understood, until I watched it switch on in real time in that ballroom, was that the warmth had been available the whole time.

It was not that my father was incapable of speaking to me kindly; he demonstrated, in the space of thirty seconds, that he could produce paternal warmth on command, effortlessly, the moment he had a reason to.

The coldness had never been a limitation.