Zero Points Left for Daddy

My throat was closing, but my seven-year-old daughter’s first instinct was to pull out her red felt-tip marker and slash an aggressive X across the grid of my notebook.

"Leaving your own kid's birthday party for 'personal reasons'?" Piper announced, her small face pinched into an eerie imitation of corporate authority. "Dad performance: unacceptable."

She capped the marker with a sharp snap. "Penalty: you don't get to be my dad for two whole weeks!"

Before the ink had even dried, she spun around on her Mary Janes, rushing over to yank the hem of my wife’s cashmere sweater. "Mom!