“… But I believe that here and now with all of you is more important than who I was when I was 30,” I said. “Having said that, in recognition of Babs’ speech, here’s the truth. For over 20 years before I met your mom I was married. She died in a traffic accident when I was in my mid-40s.”
Their eyes all got wide.
“What happened?” Steph asked in a hushed voice.
“A drunk driver hit our car. Babs may recall that I used to walk with a cane when she was young. There were some medical advances, and I could repair most of the damage. But my wife, Beth, wasn’t as fortunate in the accident.
“And it was hard for me, for a lot of years. I struggled. I was very angry and very depressed. But then I met your mom and she changed my world again, for the better this time,” I said.
“Before he puts me on a high pedestal, I was a bit of a mess myself. I’m not sure I would graduate from LaSalle if he weren’t there to help me along the way,” Kit added.
“Dad, why are you telling us this now? It can’t be just the speech,” Cassie asked.
“Good question. Babs knows the answer, right?”
She lowered her head and nodded.
“I think I would have gotten obsessed about it when I was younger, wanting to know more about her and…. if Dad wishes the accident never happened,” she said.
“Which means he would never have met mom,” Steph said, figuring it out.
“And that means we’d never have been born,” Cassie said, wrapping it up in a bow.
“And I would have dragged the two of you along for the ride. I’d have gotten obsessed with wondering what if the accident never happened,” Babs said. She looked more than a little miserable right now, and I felt a bit bad about bringing this up now, but it was always going to be a little awkward.
“You get that from me, by the way. Sorry about that,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. “I spent more than a little time wondering what my life would have been if your mom hadn’t knocked me over at a comic con.”
“He did. It was very annoying until I got him to stop,” Kitten said.
“Are you ok, dad? I mean, I know it was a long time ago, but are you ok,” Steph asked.
I smiled. I had such good kids.
“I am. How can I not be? I have three amazing daughters and the most beautiful woman in the world as my wife. I still miss Beth sometimes; that’s just how grief works. It comes at you sideways, years later, when you least expect to because you saw, or heard or even smelled something that triggered a memory. But I count myself lucky every day I spend with the four of you,” I said.
The three of them processed that information dump for a moment.
“And you thought he’d spent time in jail for murder,” Cassie said to Steph out of the blue.
“Cassie!” Steph yelled. “You didn’t have to say that!”
“What?” I asked, puzzled.
“Come on, dad. Just because you weren’t telling us anything didn’t mean we didn’t sit around and imagine who you were and what you did before you met mom,” Cassie said. “Babs thought you were military.”
“Made sense. You had a limp. If you went in at 18, you could have retired right around the time you met mom,” she said. “Besides, you have infinite patience with… all of us,” Babs said, waving her hand in a big gesture. “Military was a solid guess.”
“I thought you were a spy like James Bond,” Cassie said, obviously proud that she’d had the best imaginary scenario.
“Sorry girls. I was a slightly overweight, married policy analyst,” I said.
“Weird,” Steph said, as if being a murderer was somehow not a weird guess.
“The point of all of this is that wishing something was different doesn’t change a thing. Beth has been gone for a very long time. It’s not fair that some asshole ended her life because she deserved better than that. But the life I thought I would live after she was taken – one of misery and being alone – never materialized. Instead, I’ve had decades of love and joy. You three girls and your mom are responsible for that. That’s all I will ever choose to focus on.
“I love you and that’s all that will ever matter to me,” I said.
I leaned back against the tree, closed my eyes and suddenly felt my age. Seventy is the new 50, my doctor joked to me once. Maybe, but I felt every ounce my age right now. Perhaps this was stupid timing and too much to dump on them all at once.
That’s when I felt Cassie slam into me. She inherited her mother’s habit of running tackle hugs. I wrapped my arms around to hug her back when the other two pounced on me as well. It had been a while since the three of them gang tackled me for a hug. They were all a lot smaller then, but it’s one of the things I missed as they got older.
“We love you too, Dad,” Cassie said.
“Me too.”
“And me three,” Babs said. Then she looked up at me. “I promise only to get a tiny bit obsessed with this new information.”
I laughed. “Fair enough.”
I could see the light reflecting off Babs eyes from her glasses. I knew she was getting a message.
“Dad…” she started.
“Go,” I said. “We’ve taken up enough of your time. Go and have fun. You’re still crashing at Megan’s tonight?”
She nodded.
“Ok. Touch base later. Your mom worries.”
“Mom worries. Right,” she said, running off towards her friends. Then she turned and called back, “Love you guys.”
“I should get going too. I’ve got soccer practice,” Steph said.
“You should invite ‘soccer practice’ over for supper some evening. We’d love to meet her,” Kit said.
“Mom!” Steph yelled, shooting daggers at Cassie, who tried her best to look innocent.
“Oh please. Like I don’t have your practice schedule memorized at this point. I’ve driven you to enough of them,” Kit said. “So don’t blame your sister for your inability to come up with a good excuse to hide your girlfriend from us.”
Steph sighed, knowing she was beaten.
“Are Aunt Soo and Aunt Gillian sticking around for the weekend? It’d be cool if, um, Gabby could meet them too,” Steph asked, looking nervous for the first time in ages. “She kinda loved Aunt Soo’s music when I played it for her.”
“I think I can persuade them to stay a little longer,” Kit said.
“Cool,” she said, beginning to head off. “I can get a ride home. I’ll be home at midnight.”
“Nice try,” I said. “Your usual curfew will do just fine.”
She huffed, but didn’t argue.
“Fine,” she said, heading off. Then she turned around. “Love you guys.”
That just left Cassie. She was wearing a pale pink dress that stopped at her knees and had put a temporary pink streak in her long blonde hair. She was also wearing three-inch heels. This was her idea of restraint and not stealing attention from her sister.
I knew Erin was nearby. The two of them had been inseparable since they were five. Erin lost her dad to cancer. Cassie knew she was different but couldn’t articulate why. They were both turning 13 in the fall and weird things happened to childhood friendships at that age. Maybe that would drift apart, but I couldn’t see it.
“Mom. Dad, can Erin and I come along with you guys for supper?” she asked. She was at the age where she wanted to be on her own, but a chance to hang out with her aunties was still a treat to be cherished.
“Could be lots of boring adult talk. You sure?” Kit asked. Cassie nodded.
“Yeah, ok then.”
Cassie smiled and was about to go off and tell Erin, but then stopped and looked at me.
“Dad, you said change is good, but you have to work hard at it to make it good. That means me too, doesn’t it? When I transition, it’s going to take a lot, right?” she said.
Talk about coming out of left field on a question. I walked over to her. She was already getting tall and I wondered if she wouldn’t outgrow Steph.
“Cassie, I think you’re one of the bravest people I’ve met in my life. So yeah, I think there are times when this will be hard for you. I wish for all the world that wasn’t the case. But you’re already a beautiful young woman. The adult you is going to be something else.
“But I’ll tell you the other part; the part I didn’t tell Babs and Steph,” I said. Her eyes got wide for a moment. “You never have to go through it alone. You’ve got a horde of smart, terrifying women who will set the world on fire for you. And I’m here doing whatever it is I do. We all love you, so you’ll be fine. We’ll make sure of it.”
“You do lots, dad,” she said and hugged me, with a little extra squeeze. Then Cassie stepped back and it looked like she wanted to cry, but that would have ruined her makeup
“Thanks dad,” she said. “I’m going to hang out with Erin for a bit. Let me know when we’re ready to go, ok?”
I nodded and she ran off. I sat down on a bench under the tree to try and find some physical and emotional reserves to tap into. It had been quite a day so far. Kitten sat next to me and put her head on my shoulder.
“That girl is going to age me 20 years before she finishes her adolescence,” Kitten said.
“She’ll be fine,” I said. I believed that. There would be challenges, but she would be fine in the long run.
“Ever the optimist. She reminds me way too much of what I was like when I was that age. Babs had her books and Steph had sports. She’s going to be all about looks and popularity. Cassie’s going to want to be a model and I can’t even think about what she will be like when she wants to start dating. She’s going to be so much trouble,” Kitten said.
I laughed, gently so as not to upset Kitten.
“Well, it’s not like she’s going to get pregnant,” I said.
“Daddy!” Kitten said, looking shocked that I could say such a thing.
I took Kitten’s hand. While there were drawbacks to my age, I discovered that no one exactly expected you to sprint places. Besides, while we’d talked about Cassie, this seemed a bit more of a serious freakout.
“Then she’ll get into trouble, as teenagers have for many, many years. And unlike you, she’ll have loving and supportive parents who will guide her through the mess as best we can.
“And if she wants to be a model, then she only has a mom who has designed clothing for movie stars, and aunts,” I said, gently waving towards Meg, Soo, Gillian and Michelle “who have expertise in law, business, photography and celebrity. And who would all cheerfully murder anyone who tried to harm her.
“She’s going to be fine. It’ll work out in the end,” I said.
Kitten gave me one of her “God, I love this naive idiot” looks. It probably was hopelessly naive. I tended to think the best of my daughters and put them on pedestals; Kitten was much more practical. So she probably did have a better sense of what the next seven to 10 years would be like. Still, I’d bet money I’d end up right.
“You really do believe that. That things work out in the end,” she said.
“Well, I’m hopefully far from my end, but it’s worked out pretty well since the day I met you,” I said, taking her hand and bringing it to my lips. She blushed and giggled a bit. To her colleagues, she was a kind but determined costume designer. To our friends she was a bit of a flake, but had a good heart. To our daughters, she was mom. But she was always going to be my little girl.
“It’s been a long day. Are you going to have anything in the tank for when we get home?” she said, giving me a look.
My Kitten. If the kids knew half of what we got up to, they’d have a stroke. But there are some things you never need to know about your parents. Even at my age we still have a fun and playful sex life. God bless medical technology for that too.
“I haven’t let you down yet,” I said, meaning for it to be playful. Then Kitten looked up at me. God, those green eyes. I could drown in them.
“No, you never have. Not once,” Kitten said, reaching up and touching my face.
I glanced over at the godmothers and Cassie, who were patiently waiting for us. I squeezed Kitten’s hand and we slowly made our way over.
“Are you ever going to tell Meg you paid off that guy in Ottawa to card you in front of her?” I asked out of the blue. Kitten stopped as if she suddenly discovered her feet were nailed to the ground.
“You knew?” she said in a whisper.
“Old, not senile, Kitten.”
“Do you think Meg knows?”
“I think she suspects, but will never admit it because that would mean you got the better of her,” I said. We started moving again.
“Well, let’s keep the peace. I’d hate to ruin Babs graduation by being murdered.”
I laughed.
“I love you, Kitten,” I said
“I love you too, Daddy.”