“What about sardines?”

Amy crunched up her face and shook her head vigorously. “No way, those are disgusting!”

I laughed. “You know your dad absolutely loves them. He even eats them out of a can.”

“I know, and they stink up the entire house. He has to take out the trash or I can still smell them everywhere.”

“Boys. They never grow out of being gross. Remember that,” I said playfully.

The waiter brought over two small pizzas, slightly bigger than the size of a Lunchables one but freshly baked with different toppings. It was our third serving, and the combinations were endless. I would run out of stomach space before noon. It was amazing to spend time with Amy. She was so much like her father it continued to stun me. The same cheerful personality and easygoing nature were inside her. It felt good to know that she’d landed his outgoing nature and not my own reclusiveness.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, honey, anything you want,” I said absentmindedly. It felt so natural to be talking with her.

“What kind of stuff did you really do while you were gone? I know that you weren’t doing the doctor thing like Dad says.”

“What makes you think that?”

She shrugged. “You’re too interesting for that. I think you’re a spy.”

“Oh? So a spy would be more interesting?”

“At least that story makes you the hero, right? I mean, you would never work for the bad guy.”

I smiled at her, the words carrying more weight than she knew. “Do you want to hear a story? You might be too old.”

“Is it about your job?”

I nodded. “In a way. What do you think?”

“Sure,” she said with a shrug.

“Years ago, there was a young queen who loved her king and their princess very much.”

Amy stopped at the prospect of a child and turned her full attention back to me. I continued with a smile. “The princess only ever wanted to be with her family. Her daughter was one of the people she loved most in the world. But the queen had a dark secret. There was an evil witch in her past, one that she tried very hard to keep hidden away from her little princess and the king.”

“Yuck. What did the bad witch want with them?” Amy asked, engaged.

“She wanted to lock them away so they could never see each other anymore. It wasn’t the first time that the evil witch had gotten ahold of someone. She’d done the same thing to the queen’s father years before.”

“Why didn’t the king stop the evil witch? Isn’t that what they’re supposed to do?”

I laughed a little. “Well, the queen never told the king just how evil the witch really was. She wanted to keep him and their daughter safe. But the evil witch had her ways, and before long, the queen was running to see her.”

“Didn’t she know that it was a trap though?” asked Amy.

The smiled faded away as I thought about seeing my mother for the first time after being gone for so long. I couldn’t suppress the shudder that rocked my shoulders. She was nothing but darkness. Her fake smile and lies now seemed so obvious. Like a good daughter, though, I’d let myself be blind to her evilness.

“She had no idea it was a trap. The evil witch made herself appear helpless, like she needed the kindhearted queen’s help. By the time the queen realized it was a trap, she was already locked away from everyone else.”

Amy was enchanted. “What happened to her? The story can’t end there. It has to have a happy ending. Did she get away from the evil witch?”

I nodded. “She did! She called on the magical powers she kept hidden within and was able to defeat the witch.”

“Wow,” Amy whispered. “She had powers too? How come she didn’t use them at the very beginning?”

“Because she didn’t know that she had the power. It came from the love she had for her daughter. And even though it took the queen a long time to realize it, when she did, she defeated the evil witch and found her daughter and the king again.”

“And they lived happily ever after?” asked Amy, her voice barely a whisper. “Together like a family again.”

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. It was stunning to see just how smart Amy really was. She knew the story wasn’t all fiction, but she didn’t ask me about it. Instead, she wanted to know the same thing as her father—what happens at the end of the story? I plastered a smile on my face and took her hands in mine as I nodded my head.

“Of course they lived happily ever after, honey,” I whispered. “She never left her daughter again.”

“Good, I like that ending,” she whispered as another round of pizzas was delivered.

“I have an idea. Let’s go see if we can find your dad and maybe talk him into camping out on the beach later. What do you think of that?”

“Really?” she asked in wonderment. “I didn’t even know that we could do that.”

“Neither did I until last night, but apparently, you can rent tents and camp out all night. We can roast marshmallows too.”

“I would love that,” she whispered.

I felt like there was more that she wanted to ask me and talk about, but I saw Aaron walk into the café and smiled at him. I could wait until later to tell him what Amy knew. For the moment, the only thing I felt like doing was enjoying our time together as a family.

* * *

“I can’t believe she fell asleep after all the marshmallows she ate,” I said. “I thought she was going to go into a sugar coma.”

Aaron collapsed on the air mattress next to me, the curtain separating Amy’s room from our own tightly drawn for the night. The sand felt cool on my bare feet as I tugged off the shift I was wearing and climbed under the cool sheet. There was a peace to sleeping on the beach that I hadn’t expected.

“She’s always tolerated sugar really well. I have to watch giving it to her, though. It’s terrible for the teeth.”

I grinned at him as he climbed onto the mattress. “You know so much about her. How is she doing in school? Is she social like you?”

He nodded. “She tries to make friends, and I know she has a few on the softball team but it’s hard for her. Kids can be mean sometimes, and they don’t understand why she doesn’t live with you. Most of the single parents in the area are all moms.”

“So they know we’re divorced then?” I asked, surprised at how guilty I felt.

“No,” he replied quickly. “Not really. I kept the divorce quiet. You didn’t want anything to do with us, so I didn’t want to drag that into the public light. I just told the school the same thing that I told Amy, that you were gone but came back for brief periods of time.”

“I’m so sorry I left you alone to deal with all of this. I knew that I was missing out on so much by not being with the two of you, but I never could have imagined what an amazing little girl we created. You’ve done a great job.”

“Does this mean you’re planning on sticking around to see what happens next?”

I sighed and lay back on the mattress. “Aaron.”

He shook his head quickly. “No. Never mind. I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t something that I wanted to get into again. “How did the hunt for your mom’s new boyfriend go? Are you going to have a stepfather half your age?”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “I didn’t get to meet the guy but I was wasting my time anyway. Mom was already planning on inviting him to dinner. Apparently, they made last-minute plans for tonight, but everyone should meet him tomorrow.”

“Are you really worried that it’s another conman? I don’t mean to second-guess you, but I thought that kind of thing only happened in the movies or maybe in some upscale area where rich women are everywhere. It seems like a long shot to meet a woman on a cruise. Plus, your mother isn’t really the kind of woman who will let a man in a second time. I’m sure that she is being careful.”

“I don’t know what to think anymore.” He grinned. “You know, I accused her of hooking up with the bartender?”

“You didn’t!” I giggled. “Wow, I bet she was flattered. I think she likes the attention. Plus, it’s good for her. I looked through a catalogue that she brought with us, and I have to say, she has a great eye for art, which is something I never would have expected.”

“It was shocking, but it’s a problem too. She’s never had this kind of money before so she doesn’t know how to be careful with it.”

“And what about you? I know that I was never around to offer financial help. I just assumed that if you needed it, you would come to me.” I swallowed hard. “That call never came.”

“No, and it never would have. My father set up a small trust for me that I didn’t know about. It didn’t kick in until I was thirty. My mother said he set it at that age to make sure I wouldn’t just ‘piss it all away’, in his words.”

“You never should have dealt with that on your own though.” I shifted uneasily. It wasn’t something that I wanted to ask, but it needed to be addressed. “What about now? How will this work if I come back to Arizona with you? I don’t want to step in, but I want to be with Amy. I’ve lost too much time with her already.”

Aaron paused and cleared his throat. I could tell that he was struggling with what to say. “I don’t know, Julia. I wish that things could go back to normal, but you and I both know that’s a small chance. She is a person in her own right. I think a big part of who makes that decision needs to be her. Julia, she isn’t the little girl you left behind. Amy has been with me for the past five years. Are you suggesting I give that up?”

“Never!” I said in shock. “I was just wondering if she could stay with me every once in a while.”

“Julia,” he said, his tone warm and loving. “You’re her mother. I would never keep you away from her. I don’t know what our relationship is going to do, but that fact will never change. I never wanted for her to be without you.” He paused again. “Does this mean that you’re thinking that you will come back with us?”

I shot him another cold glance for bringing it up again, but before I could say something to him, he interrupted. “I know that you need time. I just hate walking on eggshells right now. So much has happened in such a short span of time. It’s still a little tricky to navigate around everything. Please, continue.”

Shrugging, I smiled at him. “I don’t really have anything else to say.”

“You can go back to telling me just how amazing I am as a parent,” he joked.

I pulled him down on top of me. “I have a better idea. Why don’t I show you just how hot I think it is that you’re a good dad?”

He glanced at the thin but impenetrable fabric separating us from Amy. “We’ll have to be quiet. I swear that kid either sleeps like the dead or wakes up at a raindrop. I can never tell which it’s going to be.”

“I can be quiet if you can go slowly. Last night, you nearly snapped me in half,” I whispered.

Aaron’s finger ran up my leg. “I can’t be held responsible for that. It’s been too long.”