I wrote: I don’t know how to do this.

I am scared to death. And then, because it was three in the morning and I was past the point where a man lies to himself, I wrote the truest thing I have ever put on paper. But I promise you three little girls — as long as I have breath in my lungs, you will never be unwanted.

You will never be alone.

I am your family now.

Then I folded it up and put it in a cigar box, and I did not look at it again for twenty-two years.

I did not need to.