The first pancake.

Dear you,

Every Sunday, my father ate the first pancake. It was usually pale on one side and burned on the other. He claimed to prefer it.

I believed him until I started making breakfast for my own children. Then I found myself eating over the stove, giving them the round ones.

Last week my oldest daughter put the first pancake on her own plate. “This is the good one,” she said. I called my father after breakfast. We talked about the weather for a while before I told him why I had called.