The Letter

Stacy is chatting on the phone with her best friend Linda when her father, Stan, comes home from work in a sour mood after fighting traffic. When he overhears Stacy asking her mother's permission for something, he presses her about it, and Stacy explains that her friends are going to the mall and Linda has offered to drive. But when Stan learns that Linda has had her driver's license for only a couple of weeks, he refuses to let Stacy ride with her and offers to drive her himself in his truck. Stacy blurts out that she doesn't want her friends to see her arrive in his truck, especially with him driving. Stung, Stan decides that if she is ashamed of her own family, she shouldn't go anywhere at all. He takes the phone from Stacy over her protests and tells Linda himself that Stacy will be staying home. Humiliated, Stacy runs to her room in tears, and Stan stomps off to the garage, skipping dinner entirely.

Stacy's mother goes back and forth between the two of them, trying to make peace. Stan grumbles that he asked an innocent question and got insulted, and that nothing hurts like hearing your daughter say she's ashamed of you. In Stacy's room, her mother listens to Stacy's side, then gently points out that although the family isn't rich and doesn't have the nicest house or car, her dad works hard, loves them, and takes care of them. She reminds Stacy that the only way to change someone else is to change yourself, and that Stacy isn't always the easiest person to live with either.

Then she shares something Stacy has never known: her father once dreamed of being a writer, and a good one, but he gave up night school and took a second job when a baby was on the way. From Stacy's old baby book, her mother produces a letter Stan wrote to Stacy on her first birthday, meant to be saved until she was grown. Stacy reads it aloud. In it, her father describes standing at the hospital nursery window for hours, the special bond he felt from her first cry, and holding her in his arms all night when she had the flu on Christmas Eve. He confesses that every new skill she masters means she needs him a little less, and wonders, "Will I be outgrown someday like pajamas with feeties and squeaky teddy bears?" He prays that as she grows, their relationship will gain depth, not distance, and that even when she can stand apart from him, she'll choose to keep her heart close by.

Stacy can hardly believe her father wrote something so beautiful. Her mother explains that men like her dad often struggle to say their feelings out loud, and that even grown-ups get insecure. When Stacy asks what the difference is between an insecure child and an insecure adult, her mother deadpans, "The insecure adult can vote." She leaves Stacy to think about what to do next, mentioning on her way out that Dad happens to be working in the garage.

Out in the garage, Stan finds an envelope slipped under the door. It is a letter from Stacy. In it, she remembers how he cut the feeties off her pajamas so she'd feel grown up, their walks in the forest, and the time he took her clothes shopping when Mom was sick, even though he felt silly waiting in the girls' department. She writes that he was always there when it really mattered, that she is sorry she hurt his feelings, and that she is proud to be his daughter. Echoing his own words, she says that though she needs to stand apart from him sometimes, "I want to keep my heart close by."

When Stacy appears in the garage, Stan apologizes for the business with Linda, and Stacy forgives him easily. Both suddenly realize they're starving, having skipped dinner, and Stan teasingly asks whether there's a restaurant where a father and daughter could go in a greasy pickup truck without being noticed. Stacy answers that he'll just have to take her to Taylor's, the new place right near the mall, friends or no friends. As they head off together, Stan can't resist one last joke: maybe they should call Linda to drive them over.