“She Sounds Nice…” — The Finance CEO Froze When Her Silent Daughter Spoke to a Stranger Single Dad-Part 9
========== PART 9 ==========
A girl smaller than Sophie with dark pigtails and a purple coat looking in their direction with dark careful eyes.
Sophie did what Sophie always did when she spotted another child
which was to immediately begin walking toward them with the total unself-consciousness of someone who had never once been met with a closed door and simply assumed all doors were open.
Sophie.
Nathan started, but Sophie was already halfway across the park.
He watched her go
then looked at Victoria
who had seen Sophie coming and was watching her with an expression somewhere between amusement and caution.
The particular vigilance of a parent preparing to intervene if necessary.
Nathan lifted a hand.
Victoria’s expression shifted into something that was close to relief.
He walked over at a normal pace.
Let Sophie have the 30 seconds ahead of him.
By the time he reached the bench
Sophie had already stopped in front of Lily at a distance of approximately 2 feet
which for Sophie was a respectful
thoughtful distance
and said in a slightly more measured version of her normal volume
“Hi
I’m Sophie.
Your coat is purple.
My favorite color is orange
but last week it was silver
so I’m not sure yet.”
Lily looked at her.
Nathan and Victoria both held very still.
Then Lily said, “Mine is Violet.”
“What’s Violet?”
Sophie asked.
Purple but at the beginning.
Lily said of the colors.
Sophie absorbed this.
Looked down at Lily’s coat.
Back at Lily.
Do you want to see Captain?
She asked.
She held up the elephant.
Captain was gray slightly worn at the trunk with one button eye slightly larger than the other because the original had been lost and replaced with what was available.
Lily looked at Captain.
She reached out and touched the trunk very carefully with two fingers.
“His trunk is soft,” she said.
“That’s because I rubbed it,” Sophie said.
“When I was a baby, I rubbed it for good luck.
Now it’s permanent.”
“Permanent,” Lily repeated.
“It means forever,” Sophie said.
“I know what it means,” Lily said.
“Not unkindly, just factual.”
Sophie appeared unbothered.
Do you want to come see the fountain?
There are some really good rocks near it.
Lily looked at her mother.
Victoria looked back at her.
One squeeze.
Lily’s hand in hers.
One squeeze.
Victoria squeezed back.
Lily stood up and she walked away from the bench with Sophie Cole
who was already explaining the specific criteria for a good rock.
And Nathan Cole watched his four-year-old daughter walk beside a six-year-old he had met 10 days ago and felt something loosen in his chest that had been tight for a long time.
He sat down on the bench beside Victoria.
“Well,” he said.
“Well,” she agreed.
They watched the girls at the fountain.
Sophie was pointing at something in the water.
Lily was leaning forward looking.
Sophie said something.
Lily said something back.
Sophie laughed her big uninhibited laugh that Nathan had always thought sounded like a small brass instrument played with great enthusiasm and no particular technique.
And Lily Lily didn’t laugh, but she smiled.
A real smile, the kind that reached the eyes.
She’s incredible, Victoria said quietly.
She meant Sophie.
She is, Nathan agreed.
She’s also exhausting.
I want to be fully transparent about that.
Victoria made that sound again.
The almost laugh.
Lily used to be like that, she said before.
She used to fill every room.
A pause.
I didn’t always appreciate it when she did.
Nobody does.
Nathan said while it’s happening, it’s just noise.
And then when it stops, you’d give anything to have the noise back.
Victoria turned and looked at him.
How do you know all of this?
She said.
You’re 36.
You’ve got a 4-year-old.
You’ve been through things that would have destroyed most people and instead you’re She stopped.
How destroyed me plenty?
Nathan said, “I just didn’t stay that way.
Why not?”
He thought about it.
A real answer, not a managed one.
Because she needed me to get up, he said.
He nodded toward Sophie.
Every morning
no matter what the night before was
no matter what I was carrying
no matter what I dreamed
no matter how loud the quiet got
she needed breakfast.
She needed her shoes tied.
She needed someone to sit across from her at the table and pretend that morning was a normal thing that happened to normal people.
He paused.
And then after a while, I didn’t have to pretend anymore.
Victoria was quiet for a moment.
I was the opposite, she said finally.
I went to work every morning.
I went to work because at work I knew what to do.
I had always known what to do at work.
And coming home, she stopped.
Coming home felt like failing at something I didn’t have the right tools for.
“You’re here now,” Nathan said.
“I’m here now,” she said.
And she said it like it meant something
like she had come a very long distance to be able to say it.
Across the park, Sophie picked up a rock and held it out to Lily.
Lily took it and turned it over in her hands the same way she had turned the relay over with the same careful total attention.
She treats everything like it might be important.
Nathan said Lily like anything might be the thing that matters.
She always did.
Victoria said when she was three
she spent 45 minutes studying a crack in the sidewalk outside our building
just sitting beside it
looking at it.
I almost picked her up and carried her home because I thought something was wrong.
She paused.
Then she looked up at me and said
“Mom
I think the sidewalk is trying to breathe.
” Nathan looked at her.
“And you said?”
he asked.
I said we needed to get upstairs because I had a call in 10 minutes.
Victoria’s voice was even, but the thing behind it wasn’t.
She stopped talking about the sidewalk, never brought it up again.
The bench was quiet.
“You couldn’t have known,” Nathan said.
“I should have been paying a different kind of attention.
You were paying the kind of attention you knew how to pay.”
He looked at her.
“That’s what you’re changing now.
That’s what this is.”
He gestured loosely at the park, at the girls at the fountain.
Victoria looked at her hands for a moment.
“I want to ask you something,” she said.
and I want you to tell me the truth
not the version designed to make me feel better.
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