“And don’t forget, Mandy has to be picked up at the junior high school at 4:30. She’s staying late for play practice.”

Vincent O’Donoghue dodged the corner of his secretary Vicki’s desk and mumbled, “I’m on it. 4:30.” His phone was ringing in his office, and he wanted to catch it before the ringing stopped.

Vicki said, “It’s that woman from Fresh Prairie again talking about tomatoes. I thought I would just switch it right through.”

Grabbing for the phone with one hand, Vincent stuck his face out of the office for a moment to say, “Please try holding the call for once until you know that I can get here.”

Vicki was lost in a new internet search as she mumbled, “Next time, yes. Sorry, Mr. O’Donoghue.”

“Vincent!” exclaimed the voice on the phone. “These heirloom tomatoes are amazing, and your stores are just the right place for customers to find them. We have Black Cherry, Brandywine, Amana Orange…”

“Competitive price is what I’m looking for, Sheila. I can’t move something my customers can’t afford.” Professionally, Vincent appreciated the rise of organic and natural products. The higher prices meant somewhat higher margins, and his stores were sited perfectly to take advantage of gentrifying neighborhoods. The health-conscious residents that came with repurposed warehouses and updated tenement homes were a potential goldmine for appropriately priced and displayed organic goods.

However, another part of Vincent wished he could go back to the days in which a tomato was a round red globe and potatoes came in two varieties, white and red. Things were simpler then and didn’t change quite so fast. Sheila was talking about the beautiful colors of the tomatoes that would sell them to customers for whom “appearance is everything.” Then she asked, “Did I tell you about this cauliflower in orange and purple?”

Vincent said, “Sheila, I’ve got a jam-packed afternoon. I have a new manager at one of the stores, and I’m trying to get him up to speed. My daughter is staying late at school, and I need to take flowers out to the cemetery. I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Vincent. That does sound hectic. How about if I send you email with some luscious photos of our newest products? I’m sure you’ll want to see them.”

“That sounds perfect, Sheila. Then I’ll get back to you after I’ve talked to my managers.” Vincent winced when he realized he’d hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Sales agents were frustrating, but they played a crucial role in the entire grocery network, and he couldn’t afford to be making the mistakes that turned loyal professional friends into skeptical enemies.

As he hung up the phone, Vincent’s hand brushed against a pen on his desk. He watched in silence as it slowly rolled forward and then tumbled off the desk on to the floor. He whispered to himself, “Nothing is easy.” Then he contorted his body to the side of the desk chair to pick it up.

A small grunt escaped Vincent’s mouth when his back complained about the bodily contortions. He gripped the pen in his hand and slowly returned to a sitting position. On his way back up, his gaze landed on the photo taken with Dana in Greece just a year before she was gone. The progress of the cancer was slow until near the end. The doctors thought a cure was possible, but then, after two years in remission, it reappeared with sudden fury. Eighteen months had passed, but Dana’s losing war with the disease felt like it ended just yesterday.

She smiled bravely in the photo, but her thin face was evidence of the long fight she waged with little complaint. The long blonde hair that fell over her shoulders was gone within three months, and it never completely grew back again.

Vincent missed her, some days much more than others. Waking up alone in bed at 2:00 a.m. sometimes felt like parachuting from a plane into a vast wilderness. The king-sized bed they had both loved for all of the space to share, now was territory that proved three times too big for one slim, 45-year-old man.

When Dana was still alive, Vincent was proud of his full head of wiry, thick black hair. Now, in less than two years, it was liberally streaked with gray, and his forehead seemed to grow larger by the day. Even with a series of efforts at reducing stress — meditation, massage, and grief counseling — the impact of stress was sorely apparent.

Vincent turned his attention to his desktop computer. Open tabs littered the screen. Much of it was work-related, and then the rest was an odd mixture of wishful travel destinations, restaurants suggested by his friend Michael, and sites about being a single male parent of a teenage girl. Vincent clicked around the screen to close the tabs. He stopped the clicking for a moment when he saw the image of a muscular, bare-chested actor left open on purpose. After a ten second pause, the finger came down again on the mouse and closed that tab as well.

Vincent pushed himself away from the desk and stepped outside of his office to Vicki’s desk. He asked, “Did you remember to order the flowers?”

“For Mrs. O’Donoghue?”

He sighed and said, “Please don’t call her that anymore. Just say, Dana. That’s uncomplicated and direct. It’s just Dana. Something hurts right in here when you say Mrs.” Vincent pounded his fist into his chest.

Vicki’s wan, simple face blushed red. “Oh, I’m sorry Mr. O’Donoghue, I forgot, but yes, I ordered the flowers you requested for Dana. You can pick them up at the florist just around the corner. He said that he would have them ready by…” She leaned forward to read the time off her computer screen. “About now, actually.”

While Vicki spoke, Vincent let his eyes roam around the various stacks of paper on her desk, and then they fixed on what looked like a pile of chocolate bars. “What are those?” he asked pointing at the mound.

Vicki grinned. “Oh, those are from Benny. He’s the guy that works for Summerside Dairy. You know, the place with the happy cow commercials. He works up in St. Cloud, but he comes down here about once a month to share information about their butter, milk, and cottage cheese. All of that kind of stuff. I’m sure his latest brochure is in that pile on your desk, Mr. O’Donoghue.”

Leaning one hand on the only empty corner of Vicki’s desk, Vincent asked, “And what does all that have to do with chocolate bars?”

“Well, Mr. O’Donoghue, I don’t know if I believe it or not, but Benny claims that they supply the milk for the milk chocolate in these chocolate bars. They are made over in St. Paul by an artisan candy maker, and Benny says the candy maker is an outstanding customer for his cows. It is high quality chocolate. Would you like a bar?”

Vincent held out his hand. “I’ll take one, but it’s not for me. I think Mandy would enjoy it.” He paused as Vicki reached for a bar. Then he said, “Oh, damn, Mandy! When was I supposed to go pick her up?”

Vicki handed off the chocolate and stared at the screen again. “About five minutes ago.”

“Please, do me a favor, Vicki. Lock up my office when you leave, and I’ll be here by 9:00 a.m. The Realtor is stopping for a meeting. She says she has a house she knows I would like. I’ve gotta run.”

Vicki tore open the wrapper of one of the chocolate bars for herself and smiled. She said, “Sure thing, Mr. O’Donoghue, and drive safely. I’m sure Mandy won’t mind waiting for five minutes.”

Like her father, Mandy had grown more impatient since Dana passed away. She would be frustrated by her dad being five minutes late. She kept her grades up, but she was more moody and irritable than in the past. Dr. Green, her counselor, reassured Vincent that much of the moodiness was the expected byproduct of hormonal changes in a young girl’s body, and the pressure of developing a new identity at a new school was another contributing factor. He was certain there was truth in those observations, but it was also like Mandy had lost a piece of her life puzzle a year and a half back, and she was still searching under her bed and in dark corners, desperately hoping to find it once again.

If there was one silver lining, it was the introduction of Cathy Riggs, formerly a distant friend of Dana’s. Before the cancer, they were little more than casual acquaintances. Over time, they grew closer as Cathy checked in weekly with Dana and accompanied her on treatment appointments. When Dana passed away, Cathy volunteered to help make arrangements for visiting relatives and the reception after the funeral. Vincent expected his connections with Cathy to disintegrate as months passed. Instead, she became the go-to babysitter for Mandy. She told Vincent, “Please, I love Mandy, and I loved Dana, too. I promised Dana that I would do everything I could to make sure Mandy grew up to be a fine young woman.”

Fortunately, Vicki accounted for the minutes necessary to pick up flowers for the cemetery in her time calculations. Vincent urged Eddie, the wrinkled old man who ran the flower shop, to speed things up.

Eddie obliged, but his higher gear came at the expense of being forced to listen to comments about the world moving too fast and careening out of control. On most days Vincent would be sympathetic to Eddie’s point of view, but he was in a hurry, and it wasn’t one of those days.

The flowers were beautiful. A bright blue spray of delphiniums, combined with white irises. Pure white irises with just a splash of yellow on the falls were Dana’s favorite flowers.

As he gently laid the box of flowers along with a metal vase and bottle of water in the rear of the car, Vincent glanced at his digital watch. He was only running three minutes late. He had picked up two minutes by encouraging Eddie to work faster. Mandy might not notice, but at least Vincent had the satisfaction that he made progress on her behalf.

He exhaled when he pulled his car up into the line of other parents snaking around the front entrance to the junior high school. Mandy wasn’t waiting outside, and few of the parents were gone. Vincent was close enough to on time to have it count as a favorable effort.

A broad smile spread across Vincent’s face, and he pushed open the car door to climb out as Mandy came running along the sidewalk. Her long, dark hair trailed out behind as she ran. It bounced along in the stream of air generated by her movement. She had a backpack slung over one shoulder and a huge smile that only grew broader as she approached.

Mandy’s sneakers pounded the cement sidewalk, and she shouted, “Dad! I’m the lead part! I’ve got the lead part!”

Vincent threw his arms open wide and lifted his daughter off the ground. He roared, “That’s fantastic! I’m sure that you had little competition!”

As he gently placed her back down on the ground, Mandy said, “Well, Cindy Salton isn’t pleased. After Mrs. Muirhead announced the parts, she just pouted the whole rest of the time.”

Vincent held the passenger side door of the car for Mandy. She tossed the backpack into the back seat and then tugged out her cell phone. As he climbed into the driver’s seat, Vincent asked, “Did Cindy get a part?”

Cindy was a growing rival in the junior high popularity circles, and Mandy gleefully reported, “She’s the grandma. It’s not a very big part, and she’ll have to wear gray hair.”

Vincent reached up and tugged at his own silver locks. He said, “That’s not so bad.”

Mandy laughed, “Not if you’re somebody’s Dad.” In what seemed like lightning speed, Mandy punched up a song to play through the car’s radio. For Vincent, the new pop hits all blended into an indistinct mass. Somewhere in the mid-90s, he lost track of the key artists of the moment. The new song sounded like a skeletal electronic background with an anonymous female voice warbling words that were difficult to understand. “I love this new song, Dad!” said Mandy. “You really should listen.”

He backed the car up and then pulled past the other parents still waiting by the curb for their children. At a loss for anything else to say, Vincent said, “I like the beat.”

Mandy giggled. The lilt of her laughter was one of Vincent’s favorite sounds in the world. She asked, “Are we going to the cemetery today?”

“Yes, and I have fresh flowers.”

“Oh good,” said Mandy as she bounced in her seat.

“You are in an upbeat mood for going out there. Normally you’re very quiet. What gives?”

Mandy said, “I can’t wait to tell Mom about the school play. She told me I would get the lead someday.”