Tomorrow is Father’s Day, and I have been sitting with a procedural question that no one in this house seems qualified to answer.

The premise, as I understand it, is this: Dad is a father. Tomorrow is the day designated for that. Something is supposed to happen. What I cannot establish, with any confidence, is the direction.

He is, without argument, our father. He is the desk person. The morning cookie. The one we find first. I am in whatever room he is in — not because I have nowhere else to be, but because I have made a considered choice and continue to make it, daily, with full information. If that is not a gift, I am not sure what gift is.

But I have also noted the following: it is 07:44. The house is quiet. 18°C outside, clear, the kind of June morning that makes no demands. The doggy door is open to it. There is a patch of light beginning its slow approach across the studio floor, and Dad is at his desk, which is where Dad is, which is where I am.

The cookie jar is on the desk. This is a fact I have not acted on. Yet.

I understand there is a tradition — not unlike Frozen Bone Friday, but apparently more annual — where something changes hands. Something is given. The recipients of this transfer seem to vary by household, which is precisely where my procedural concern originates. Who decided the direction? Who wrote it down? Was there a meeting? I was not consulted. Gus, as far as I can tell, has not consulted anyone either. He is asleep on the family room sofa, which tells me he has already resolved the question to his satisfaction or, more likely, has not asked it at all.

I have asked it. I am still asking it.

Here is what I can observe, empirically: Dad provides the walks, the cookies, the car rides to Hollinshead, the frozen bones on Fridays, the warm studio, the desk, the morning, and a general architecture within which my life is possible. He does this every day. Not annually. Not on a designated Saturday in June. Every day, including Tuesdays, including days when it is raining and the ponderosas smell incredible and no one has thought to mention it.

It seems to me — and I say this as a dog who has given the matter unusual attention for 07:44 on a Saturday — that the ledger is already complicated.

I have, however, identified an action I am prepared to take. It is small. It is well within my capabilities. And it involves staying very close to the desk this morning, closer than usual, and being very still in the patch of light when it arrives, and not asking for breakfast early even though I have strong opinions about the timeline.

Tomorrow he will receive whatever it is one receives on Father’s Day. Cards, presumably. Perhaps brunch. I cannot contribute to brunch.

But this morning is mine to give. I know what I’m doing. I am doing it anyway.

The cookie jar remains where it is. For now.

~P.W.