Chapter 34
“I had a great time tonight,” Holly said. “I totally like Ivy, don’t you, Dad? She’s very pretty, too. Do you think she’s pretty?”
Daniel shook his head. He’d anticipated these questions and thought he’d prepared himself, but found he was struggling to answer his daughter.
“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. I did, too. We need to do this more often.”
“Dad, why are you suddenly so cool? I don’t get you. And I know I’ll probably get in trouble for asking this. Did you get hit on the head by something?” Holly asked this in all of her eleven-year-old seriousness.
He laughed. “Probably seems that way, huh? But to answer your question, no, I did not get hit in the head.” Maybe in another sense he had, but he would contemplate that some other time.
“So why the ice cream and stuff?”
“Sit down.” Daniel motioned to a chair in the dining room. “I think I need to explain some things to you.”
“I hope this is not gonna take long, because I still have three pages of math to study,” Holly said as she plopped down onto a chair.
“You can leave the math for tomorrow. I think you have studied enough for one day.” He pulled out the chair opposite hers.
“Cool,” Holly said.
Daniel had noticed her excessive use of the word cool and was amazed that her generation used it, as it had been his generation’s slang word of appreciation for anything and everything as well. What was it about words and styles? Recycling to the next generation, he supposed.
“Dad, are you gonna tell me whatever it is you said you were going to? I’m kind of tired.”
Daniel focused his attention on Holly. “Sorry, I got lost there for a minute. Okay, I was going to explain . . . things.” How did one explain a loss of this magnitude to an eleven-year-old? In terms she would understand, of course. Keep it simple. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “It’s been just you and me for most of your life, as you well know.”
Holly rolled her eyes. Normally, he would have given her his father look, but now was not the time. All kids rolled their eyes when their parents were talking to them. That’s just the way things were. He recalled doing that himself on more than one occasion. And, usually, getting a lecture about it. Again . . . here was another habit passed on from generation to generation.
“I have kept a very important part of your past from you, Holly. I have no excuse other than I wanted to save you from . . . grieving, but I know now you were much too young when your mother’s . . . accident changed our lives. I should have explained the manner of her death to you before, and I should have done so without a stranger as a witness. That was stupid of me, and if I took you by surprise, I really am sorry. I know my timing is off the charts now, but I can’t let tonight’s revelation pass without an explanation.”
He watched his daughter, saw how focused and purposefully she listened while he spoke. Maybe she was just a teeny bit wiser than he’d given her credit for?
“I’m totally cool with it, Dad. I really do not remember much about Mom. I have a picture of her, and sometimes when I look at it, I think she’s smiling at me, but I know that’s just stuff for crazy people and little kids. I really am okay with not having a mom.”
Is she?
“I’m not okay with it, Holly. There isn’t anything I can do to change our family circumstances, but I would if I could, trust me.”
“So date Ivy. That would change our ‘family circumstances. ’” Holly made air quotes when she said the last two words. “It’s not like she’s married or has a boyfriend.”
Daniel wanted to ask how she had gained all this knowledge about Ivy’s personal life, but it was not the time. He let it pass. “I want you to be the best you can be, you know that, right? And I’ll support you . . .” He stopped when he realized he would not support whatever she chose to do with her life. He’d lucked out and caught himself before he had the chance to finish the sentence.
“No matter what?” Holly finished for him. “Because if that’s what you were going to say, then you should let me practice with Miss Carol, so I can be the best I can be in the musical. I will not stop singing, Dad. I cannot stop singing. And you cannot ask me to. You might as well ask me to cut off my arm or my leg.
“Maybe you can stop listening, but I will not stop singing. It’s in my blood. You said Mom was a singer, right?” She placed both hands on the table, then leaned forward. “I want to sing like her, for her memory, or whatever. I think that’s how I could best remember her even though I, like, don’t.”
“Holly, it’s much more complicated than that.”
“How?” she asked. Certainly a reasonable question.
Daniel considered her simple question. Exactly how complicated was it? A nagging thought nudged him in the back of his mind: It’s only as complicated as you choose to make it.
Had he spent the better part of the past eight years making Holly’s and his life more complicated than it needed to be? He had loved Laura dearly. He reserved a special place in his heart for her in life and for his memory of the life they had shared together. Deep down, he knew Laura’s profession was not the cause of her death. He’d always believed that if Laura had not been involved in the theater, and singing, all that went along with her career, that she would be here with them now. Nothing would change the facts, and though it hurt to admit this, even if only to himself, Holly should not be punished for this enormous talent given to her by her mother. In denying his daughter’s natural gift, he realized he was denying his past, Laura’s past, and, quite possibly, Holly’s future.
Holly yawned, stretching her arms out in front of her. “So, are you finished? I am, like, really, really sleepy.”
He stood up and leaned over his daughter, kissing the top of her head. “I think I have said enough. Go on to bed, and we’ll talk more in the morning.”
“Okay. Night, Dad. I really had a good time tonight,” Holly said, then gave him a quick hug. She headed off to her bedroom. “I really like Ivy, too. Just so you know.”
He did, too. And he liked Ivy way more than he wanted to admit to Holly, or even to himself.
“Night,” he said as he pushed both dining-room chairs beneath the table and turned off the lights. As he headed to his den, his thoughts were all over the place. He’d been content to live his life just the way he had been living it for the past eight years; then Holly sneaks off, and he does a complete 180. He sat down at his desk, opened the top drawer, and removed a key to unlock the right-hand drawer. It had been years since he had opened the drawer and actually read through its contents, but it was time.
Stacks of newspaper clippings highlighted the horrid crash that changed his life. Laura’s name had been mentioned in several articles. Had she not been on her way home from auditioning for Paul Larson, he doubted her name would have been mentioned in any other context other than the flight’s manifest, just another unlucky soul to board the doomed flight. The flamboyant Paul Larson told The Charlotte Observer that he had decided to choose Laura to star in the musical she had auditioned for. He never knew if that was true, or if this was just the Broadway producer’s way of garnering publicity for his upcoming musical. It did not matter, not really. It changed nothing. The musical continued to play on Broadway to this very day and had won several Tony Awards. No doubt this would have been the highlight of Laura’s career if Paul Larson’s claims were true. He supposed he would never know.
As he skimmed through the articles, a name caught his eye. More than once he’d briefly passed over the name, but now it seemed significant. He located the article with the flight’s manifest.
Ivy Fine. Mrs. John Fine. Formerly Ivy Macintosh.
He read the piece again, his heart racing so fast, he thought it would explode from his chest. There had to be a mistake; this was merely a coincidence.
Daniel crossed his fingers and unlocked the left-hand drawer, which held his laptop computer. If his daughter knew he possessed the technology she had been asking for since third grade, she would never forgive him. Putting that thought aside, he booted the computer up, logged on to the Internet, and began his search.