Crossword-Solution: AWKWARDLY 9 letters, 36 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 23

Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby- awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.

Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other’s bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love — think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them!

If I've got a Dad, and his name is Wormwood Rot, and he's in some heavy metal rock band called Grave Dirt . . . then I'm definitely meeting him! She stares at me awkwardly, and I'm about to ask again — maybe even insist — when she says, "Honey, why do you think he's on the news? Wormwood, I mean . . . your father? Becca, he's . . . dead.