But he worries needlessly, because I am mostly a good kid. And the strong backbone he has helped me build for myself stands up to the few jerks at school. And I tell him everything, because he is all the family I really have. And almost all I have.

Him and my best friend, Carissa. We meet in third grade. And she’s the same kind of girl as me, except she has a very different kind of home life from me. She has a good dad like mine, but she also has a step-mom and a mom. So when I spend time at either of her homes, I get a taste of what it’s like to have a mom. She also has two brothers who drive her crazy, so after spending a day there, my envy for her siblings subsides for a while.

I don’t remember my mother or the loss of her. I just know that I was 22 months old when it happened. I know that I look like her, because I have pictures to prove it. My dad says the only things I got from him are his height and his brains. (He likes to quip, “Those are the only traits that matter.”) He has a poor self-image, so he always tells me it’s a good thing I look like my mom, because she was pretty and had a nice smile.

He is an exceedingly patient man. At this point, he never raises his voice at me. He sometimes scolds me, and because he is authoritative, I usually cooperate with him. But even when I rebelliously refuse to do something, he remains patient and understanding. He sets boundaries, and he knows he has to enforce them. But he also understands that it’s my job to test those boundaries.

As a small child, I am enmeshed in “doctor culture,” as I call it now. Being a doctor is Dad’s greatest passion—his calling—and he talks about it often. I want to be a doctor too; I don’t really consider other careers in any serious way. His friends are all doctors, and sometimes they come over for take-out dinner. He is the only one with a child, and they are willing to come over and save him the hassle of a baby sitter. He is not particularly close to any of them, but he is starting to become close to James Wilson, the new oncologist at the hospital. Dr. Wilson understands Dad and his sarcastic jokes and his intellectual curiosity and his unique perspective on everything. I address him as “Uncle James,” but as I grow older I start calling him “Wilson,” because that’s what Dad calls him.

Somewhere along the way, we begin spending Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas with Wilson—at his home during his married years and at our home during his single years. We’re not Jewish, but he is, and we are invited to tag along because he considers us family. He celebrates Christmas in the same non-religious way we do, because he is Jewish by culture and not so much by faith.

I’m happy that we don’t go to Michigan to spend the holidays with Dad’s parents anymore. Grandma is ok, but Grandpa is really mean to Dad all the time. Everything Dad says is met with a comment from Grandpa that tears him down. I hate it, and I feel both love and hate for Grandpa even though he is nice to me. It will be years before Dad will explain this all to me, and even then I will have to coax it out of him.

My dad works a lot of hours, but when he is with me he is with me. He is fully engaged, and he makes everything fun and interesting. He turns most everything into a learning experience often without my realizing.

Our home is filled with antiques and books. Most of the walls in the living room and hallway are covered with bookcases. Most of the books are science-oriented, but there are also books of poetry and classical fiction. I peruse them whenever curiosity strikes, which is often.

On the wall of the hallway leading to our bedrooms are two posters: one displaying a male skeleton, the other displaying a female skeleton. Throughout the apartment are several plastic models of human organs—the kind that come apart so you can look inside the organ and learn the names of all the parts. He never approaches me with these; he simply leaves them somewhere. He patiently lets me find these curious things and examine them for myself.

He has a telescope, but it doesn’t do us much good from our first-floor apartment, with all the tall buildings nearby. In wintertime, when it gets dark outside early in the evening, he often takes the telescope and me to the rooftop of our building or to the rooftop of the hospital. He points out stars and planets by name and explains the significance of each to our night sky.

Most nights I read in bed before going to sleep. Some nights he tells me stories about his travels as a child. His dad was a marine pilot, and as a result they never lived anywhere more than six months or so. He resented all the moving but also loved the excitement of learning first-hand about new places like Egypt and Japan.

My dad has a great sense of humor, always making me laugh with clever jokes. Even when I’m upset about something, he shows me the funny side of the situation and teaches me not to take myself too seriously. He juggles and does magic tricks. But he always explains to me how the tricks work. “Magic is cool,” he says. “But just like there’s no such thing as monsters, there’s also no such thing as actual magic. It’s all trickery and misdirection.”

He is a man of science—extremely so—but he loves films and music. He teaches me to play piano and guitar from a young age. I never get as good as him, especially at piano. But I can strum along on guitar and rock-out with him by the time I’m 14. I usually sing, because he doesn’t like the sound of his own voice. His favorite type of music is blues, and from him I gain an appreciation of blues and jazz (and all forms of music, really). But my heart is with classic rock and alternative rock. He’s ok with that, as his heart lives there as well. Regardless of that, he’ll accept and embrace that whatever I like is whatever I like. He’s very accepting and supportive.

Friday night is always Movie Night, for as long as I remember. Sometimes we go out, sometimes we rent. He likes to rent old movies, because he wants to school me on film history. Before pressing the play button, he might spend a few minutes explaining the political and cultural climate of America and the world when the film was made and when the film’s story takes place. He wants me to understand that art is better understood and appreciated in its contemporary context. Sometimes the subject matter is boring to me on the surface, but he uses metaphors to make it interesting. As a result, I’m probably one of only a few 10-year-olds who knows the significance of lines like “Rosebud” and “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid” and “Tough beans buddy, cuz that’s the way it’s gonna be!”

As a result of all this early exposure to old movies, my first Hollywood crush is Cary Grant. None of the other girls at school know who he is. Later I fall for Paul Newman. Then Clint Eastwood.

When preparing me to watch The Philadelphia Story—a 1940 film about a misunderstood woman—Dad says, “Pay close attention to the female lead. That’s a young Katharine Hepburn.” As usual, he pauses the movie several times to ask me what I think a certain line or plot point means. If I’m not sure, he explains it to me. When it’s over, he asks, “What do you think of her?”

“She’s funny, smart. She doesn’t let men push her around. She knows who she is. And that’s really cool because it’s the 1940s. She’s a freak. And even though she didn’t know what she wanted, by the end of the movie she figured it out.”

He smiles and says, “Katharine Hepburn was a strong-willed woman, and she was always playing roles like that.  You were named after her. That’s why you have the same unusual spelling.”

“What?” I say in disbelief. As if they named me for an actress.

“Mommy loved old movies; that’s one of the first things we connected over. I was in line at this movie theater in Baltimore that shows old films every night. Your mom got in line behind me. We knew each other from the hospital, and I asked her which movie she was going to see. She said, ‘Casablanca.’ I said, ‘Interesting coincidence. I’m going to see Casablanca.’”

“Was that true or did you just say that as an excuse to sit with her?” I ask suspiciously.

He has trained me well in the art of detecting the truth of a matter. He has trained me to be suspicious of people’s motives. I know that people use words to lie, but their actions tell the truth.

But in this case, he assures me that he really was intending to see Casablanca, one of his favorite old movies of all time. Then he adds, “But if she had said she was going to see Mary Poppins, then I would have said I was going to see Mary Poppins.”

I giggle. “So you already liked her before you saw her at the movies.”

“Yes,” he replies. “So I would have gone into any theater with her so I could sit next to her. We shared popcorn, and after the movie we went out for coffee and dessert.”

“And she fell in love that night?” I ask romantically.

He smiles. “Not quite. We started dating—went to that movie theater a lot actually. Spent a lot of time together. Then we fell in love.”

I smile, thinking about them—young and in love—frequenting an old movie house.

He continues. “We argued about names for you. She insisted on ‘Katharine.’ I thought it sounded uptight and stuck-up. She insisted it’s a classic, and finally I got her to admit the real reason: She said Katharine Hepburn is one of the greatest female role models of all time. I thought it was a silly reason to name a baby. But, your mom was good at arguing, and eventually I gave in, as long as she didn’t mind if I called you ‘Kate.’ But when I saw your face, you just became ‘Katie.’”

“And she didn’t mind,” I say.

He shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “I also insisted that your middle name be Margaret, after your mom. She didn’t want to do that; she thought it was arrogant. But I told her she’s also a great female role model and that our baby deserved to be named for her too.”

“Daddy?” I ask.

“Yea?”

“Mommy was like Katharine Hepburn?”

He smiles, and I can see his eyes are a little watery, but I don’t mention it. “She was even tougher,” he says. “She finished her residency right before you were born, and she put her fellowship on hold so she could stay home and take care of you. Her parents and her brothers gave her all kinds of grief because of that. They said she was ‘wasting’ her education.”

“What did she say to them?” I ask.

“She told them her baby was more important to her than anything else, and that she would go back to her career when you were older. It wasn’t fashionable for women to stay home with their babies. Still isn’t. She made a tough choice; most people criticized her.”

“Did you?”

“Nope. I was doing my fellowship, not making much money. So we could have used another salary, but we did ok. The important thing is, she made the choice that she knew was right for you, for her. She didn’t care what other people thought about her decision.”

He uses this conversation to segue into why I don’t know anyone in my mother’s family. He explains that her parents didn’t like him, they blamed him for her “giving up” her career, and they were angry about the lack of a marriage between them. I learn that they never visited after I was born, they never called to see how we were all doing. He tells me they live in California, and the last time he saw them was when Mommy died. They didn’t acknowledge me. He told them they were stupid to deny their granddaughter and that they would regret it someday.

He doesn’t sugar-coat much of anything. He wants me to understand that the world is not a soft and fuzzy place, and that I need to arm myself with a sharp mind, sharp tongue, and strong backbone.

In my teen years, he will introduce me to different kinds of films. He digs Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood, so I see a lot of their work. He waits until I’m 18 to introduce me to the films of Woody Allen and Stanley Kubrick, even though I’ve heard of them by now and have asked about them. He explains the Woody Allen films and lets me watch without him, because there’s too much sexual content for us to view together. “That would just be weird,” he says. And after viewing the first one, I agree.

On a living room bookcase, there are always age-appropriate books on the human body, puberty, reproduction, etc. From an early age, he casually discusses the human body with me. Always age-appropriate, but probably more straightforward, scientific, and accurate than most parents’ approaches. He never seems uncomfortable during these talks, so I am never uncomfortable. Medicine is his calling, so he is in his element. It is just a matter-of-fact topic to him, and when I think of new questions, I always ask him without feeling I have to “prepare” him for my awkward question. He always answers honestly. By the age of seven, I know that I’ll menstruate someday. But it won’t be a surprise, because I’ll start growing breasts and pubic hair first. I accept this as a mundane part of life, not as something to fear and loathe.

As a small child, he lets me stay up late most weekend nights watching tv, as long as I change into my pajamas and brush my teeth first. I usually fall asleep on the couch about half an hour past my usual bedtime. He picks me up, and in my sleep I lay my head on his shoulder, slump my arms around him. I feel the familiar stubble on his neck and jaw; he’s a rebel at heart and keeps himself looking scruffy. I feel tiny and weightless against his strong six-foot-two-inch frame. He places me gently on my bed, and I roll onto my side. He pulls the blankets over me, and I manage to mutter, “’Night Daddy.” He says “Goodnight Katie” or “Goodnight Filia” and kisses my forehead.