“Daddy?”
“What is it, Baby?” Jonah lowered the Sunday newspaper and focused on his youngest daughter. She was vacillating in the archway, looking timid to enter. He frowned lightly. His Viola was not, by nature, a timid or indecisive girl.
She worried her lip as her fingers fretted and she shifted her weight from side to side. She cleared her throat but didn’t speak.
Jonah sighed, and did his best to brace himself. He loved Viola to absolute pieces, but she was a handful for a parent. He folded the newspaper carefully as he did a quick mental rundown of likely offenses. Because he knew that look. His girl was looking guilty.
He placed the paper on the handsome mahogany side table to his left, and smiled calmly at her.
She smiled shyly back. God, she was a beautiful girl. His smile deepened. She let out a nervous laugh and he chuckled. “C’mon in.” He gestured to the floor at his feet, a favorite spot of hers since early childhood.
She melted into the room and her feet carried her, as if on autopilot, to ‘her’ spot. She folded her legs beneath her and leaned her dark tawny head against his knee.
His hand went to her crown and he gently stroked the thick, soft hair as she sighed out her troubles. He felt a smile dancing about his lips. He took a deep, full breath and sighed as well. She giggled at his aping and he chuckled in response.
“So, what’s the story, Morning Glory?” He asked her, his lighthearted words warring with his very serious dad-like voice.
“What’s the word, Hummingbird.” She responded promptly, not really asking but rather completing her portion of the little ritual.
“What’s the story, Morning Glory?” He repeated, his smile creeping into his stern tone.
“What’s the tale, Nightingale?” She finished, and he bent forward to reward her with a swift kiss to the top of her precious head.
He settled back into the comfy chair and she too took time to get more comfortable in her habitual spot. When her fidgeting and readjusting finally petered off and she sighed again, he understood the role she needed him to play.
He listened for a moment to the rest of the house. It was quiet. Velvet had taken the twins for mani\pedis—a Sunday ritual as sacred to them as any church service could have been. They were alone.
“Alright, Baby.” He said into the warm Sunday quiet of the family den. “Spill it. What’s got that pretty brow all scrunched?” She laughed a tiny little laugh and he felt it like a helium balloon in his chest.
“You love me, right?” She asked. It was a constant affirmation that she needed, and had needed ever since she could talk. Jonah smiled to himself. Even before the girl could speak, the girl found ways of communicating the desperate, the demanding, the ‘do you love me?’
“Naturally.” He replied casually.
“Daa-aad.” She warned.
He chuckled. “I love you more than life” He replied sincerely. “I love you always.” He added, feeling her melt against his leg at the familiar refrain. “I love you no matter what, Viola Faye.” He reiterated in the soothing voice a parent uses to coax their children off to dreamland while reading bedtime stories. “I love you exactly as you are, for who you are, and for who I know you can be.” He finished softly.
He let the quiet following his well-worn prose drag out for several minutes. Let the words weave their magic, wrap around her and comfort her, assure her and coax her to confidence. He waited, because he knew his little girl, and knew she’d tell him what was troubling her when she was certain of his unconditional love, and not a moment before.
“I like someone.” She said at last, in a small, high voice, a voice constricted by nerves and uncertainty.
Jonah felt the balloon in his chest deflate, in part, and pitch sideways. Then he forced a smile for himself. Fifteen. Fifteen years old. He felt a lump forming in his throat and told himself he was overreacting. Sternly reminded himself that this was perfectly natural. Better than natural, actually—Avalon had been boy crazy since she’d turned eleven or so, and the twins started showing real interest in the opposite sex by thirteen at the latest. The fact that he hadn’t yet had to face his baby’s inevitable growing up was something of a blessed anomaly. A quirk, for which he had been humbly grateful.
Fifteen was a perfectly reasonable age. More than reasonable. And for God’s sake, she was coming to him, opening her heart to him, instead of following typical teenage patterns of secrecy, evasion, and deception. He should be happy. He should be grateful.
“Dad?” She ventured, when he’d failed to respond.
He cleared his throat and marshaled his best go-get-um attitude. He wanted to do this right. These years were crucial. The moments, the interactions, they were critical.
“Like, like-like?” He managed to tease her warmly.
She giggled and buried her face against the side of his knee. His hand found her scalp again and her ran his fingers through her hair, playfully, yes, but as a gesture of affection and closeness.
“Yes.” She admitted. “I think—“ She hesitated and pulled her face off his leg and searched the air above his head for the words. “I think I’m in love, actually.” She admitted, her voice skittering with nerves.
That damned balloon was sinking gloomily. But he smiled at her. “Love.” He repeated warmly. She met his eyes and he was struck with how absolutely lovely she was. And how very much she had matured in the last year or so. The girl on the floor at his feet was a young woman. He’d failed to notice it, or willfully ignored it happening, but here she sat—no longer a child. The balloon filled up with maudlin sentimentality until he felt it compressing his poor lungs and cracking his poor heart.
“I’m in love with someone.” She confirmed.
He sighed out and smiled kindly at her. “Love is the most beautiful thing in this world.” He told her, and she grinned at his sappy sentiment. He leaned down and kissed her forehead softly. She smelled clean and sweet and familiar. “Who is the very lucky individual?” He asked, irritated at the emotion in his voice. He thought about his daughter giving her heart and her devotion and her body to some idiot teenaged boy and he felt something twist painfully in his viscera.
She demurred. She would no longer meet his eyes. “No.” She mumbled coyly.
His brows came together as he watched a furious blush crawl over her freckle-dusted cheeks. “Viola, I have always been clear on this:” He said sternly. “Your mother and I will do our best respect your choices, so long as you are open and honest with us.”
She pushed her fingers through her hair, tucking it behind her ears decisively. She shook her head. “I can’t say.”
Jonah licked the inside of his teeth and pleaded with his better angels to help him keep his sudden temper under control and under wraps. The last thing he needed was to alienate the girl at this critical juncture.
“Sweetheart, if you’re seeing someone, baby, please, do me the courtesy—“
“No, no, no, I’m not, I’m not.” She rushed, finding the courage, in her panic, to fix him in her passionate violet gaze. “I would tell you if I were, I swear, of course I would.”
Jonah felt muscles relax that he hadn’t even been aware of clenching. He smiled with relief at her earnest face. “Phew.” He said.
She quirked a brow interrogatively. “Phew?”
“Well, you promised me when you were little that I was the only guy for you.” He joked half-heartedly.
He’d expected her to tisk and roll her eyes. To groan and shake her head as Avalon had done when he’d had to sit her down and have the big ‘safe, healthy, responsible relationship’ talk with her when she’s been Vi’s age.
But Viola didn’t roll her eyes or shake her head or groan or tisk or ‘Daa-aaad!’. She washed over ghost-white before an almost feverish blush chased after it, turning her lovely peaches-and-cream complexion mottled and patchy.
“Hey—“ He said, sitting up straighter and instinctively placing the back of his hand to her forehead. She was warm with high color, but not burning up. “You OK, honey?”
He let his hand move from her forehead to gently cup her delicate cheek and jaw—his hands were overlarge on her small face. For a moment he felt her stiffen, felt her go tense, and wondered if she’d retreat. Acting on pure instinct, he placed a reassuring kiss on her forehead as he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the softness of her cheekbone.
It seemed to do the trick. Instead of pulling away, the next moment found her leaning into his hand, her muscles relaxing, her trust opening. Her breathing Jonah noted, was a little shaky, thin and erratic, but she wasn’t going anywhere. He sat back slowly, keeping his hand on her cheek, wanting to keep the bond.
He smiled at her encouragingly. “I want you to know that you can always tell me anything.” He said. “Everything.” He emphasized. “Always. No matter what.”
She studied him avidly for a moment or two. He looked back at her curiously. What in hell was he scrutinizing her so closely for? He smiled.
“I am in love.” She said very slowly. “And I know he cares about me,” She continued, treading oh-so-carefully. Jonah’s heart was rattling away at an uncomfortable rhythm. “But.” She hesitated.
“Uh-oh.” He said, trying to lighten the mood.
She pushed air through her lips in what might have been a weak approximation of a courtesy laugh.
“But?” He prompted.
“But he isn’t available.” She finished, the words colored with an anguish that startled her father and pulled at his heart.
“I see.” He said simply.
A few things happened inside Jonah’s mind as he digested this. First he noted with some surprise that Viola had said ‘he’. He’d been half convinced that of all his children, Viola would be the most likely to lean toward homosexuality. He felt sort of grim, and the image of his baby girl with some sex-hungry teenage goon reasserted itself for the second time in ten minutes, causing him to form a tight fist with his free hand.
But next, he found unexpected and balming relief at the notion of Viola suffering an unrequited love. ‘Unrequited’ quite suddenly became Jonah’s new favorite word. He vowed to find her all sorts of novels and movies dealing with the tragic nobility of loving from afar.
But that anguish, that raw, desperate, hopeless yearning in her voice, in her now welling eyes, in every vein and sinew of her body, it cried out to him.
“I’m sorry, Love.” He told her with suitable empathy.
She shrugged and pretended to have something n her eye. He removed his hand from her face to better allow her charade, and folded his fingers before him, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair. “How ‘unavailable’ is this fellow, exactly?” He asked despite himself. He wanted to gauge how long he might have before this fleeting High School relationship dissolved and the object of Viola’s affection was free to wreak havoc on Jonah’s nerves.
“Very.” She asserted heavily.
Jonah resisted the urge to laugh. It wasn’t like the guy was married, for god’s sake. Teenagers were so deliciously, exhaustingly dramatic. “I see.” He adjusted his glasses. “And have you made your feelings known to this person?” He ventured.
“Dad, he’s not available.” She reiterated. “It would be inappropriate.” He smiled at her lecturing tone.
“I suppose…” Jonah said thoughtfully.
Viola looked at him askance. “You suppose?” She threw back at him, sounding irritated but hopeful.
He wanted to make her smile. He wanted her to feel ambitious and positive about this love of hers, not downtrodden and dejected. “Haven’t you heard that ‘All’s fair in love and war’?” He asked with a sly grin.
Her perfect little mouth fell open with a scandalized pop, and he couldn’t help chuckling.
“Dad!”
He shrugged. “What?”
“Dad.” She repeated, admonishing him.
“Technically your mother was ‘unavailable’ when we fell in love, you know.” He reminded her.
A funny look crossed her features for a moment before she grinned at him. “Yeah, Dad, and you were a homewrecker.”
He pursed his lips. “No,” he corrected, “I most certainly was not a ‘homewrecker’.” It was a charge that had been leveled before, but he hadn’t heard it in so long…”Your mother and I fell in love. It was meant to be.” Who was he trying to convince? His daughter? The Town? The Divine? Himself? “True love transcends all things.” He asserted doggedly.
“Even if other people get hurt?” She challenged.
“Well,” He said, and huffed. This was one of the reasons he likes her so much. She challenged him. She made him a better thinker. A better parent. “As long as the intention isn’t one of malice—“ He began.
She laughed loudly. “So what if the intention isn’t malicious?” She pressed. “The other person still gets hurt for no good reason.”
“True love will out.” He answered her, splaying his fingers, his palms open to the ceiling.
“That sounds like bull.” She said tartly.
He laughed before he could help it. Then he raised an imperious eyebrow. “Word choice?”
“It sounds like a rationalization.” She amended obediently.
“Perhaps.” He admitted ruefully. “But it’s a rationalization that I happen to believe with my whole heart.”
“So are you telling me to go for it?” She laughed incredulously.
Jonah’s jaw fell. Shit. Is that what he’d said?
“No, no, no.” He back-pedaled. “Well, not exactly.” He was scrambling, and the impish gleam in her eye told him that she knew it. “I mean to say only that: if it’s meant to be, it will be.” He reasoned, pleased with how perfectly reasonable that sounded.
Now he got the signature teenager eye-roll. “’All’s fair in love and war’ doesn’t sound like passive resistance to me, Dad.” Her tone was playful and teasing.
Sophomore year. Gandhi. He nodded in appreciation. “Well, Love, there’s a fine line between following your destiny and making your own fate.” He posited. “Some philosophers argue that there is no line at all, in fact, and that pro-active and re-active amount to the same results, when all is said and done.”
“What do you think?” She asked, her voice a charged hush now.
He studied her lovely face with mounting curiosity. “I think the fella who’s got you after him doesn’t stand a chance at resistance.” He said, with a measure of pride tempered by resignation. “Passive or otherwise.” He teased.
She pushed her lips into a sour pucker, but her violet eyes danced and sparkled.
“Que sera, sera, then, I guess.” She said, and got gracefully to her feet.
“Oh dear, what have I done?” He mused with sardonic remorse. “I’ve created a monster!”
She laughed gaily, and it was his turn to receive a reassuring kiss on the head. “I love you, Dad.” She told him levelly, when once again she stood before him.
“I love you, Vi.” He responded meaningfully. “And remember what I’ve always told you; Be yourself, follow your gut—“
“Don’t give in to peer pressure—“ She mocked lightly.
“Hey, I’m serious.” He said, but he retained a smile.
“I know.” She said indulgently. “I will.”
“If this guy doesn’t love you for exactly who you are, Baby, then he isn’t the right one—got it?”
She blinked at him, and there was a loaded beat between them, before she smiled a warm, fuzzy sort of smile at him. “Got it.” She confirmed.
Jonah pulled himself to standing and wrapped her in a crushing bear hug that made her squeal and giggle. “This guy better be worthy of you.” He warned.
“He is.” She answered into his chest. “He’s wonderful.”
Jonah grumbled indistinctly and patted her back firmly. “Keep me posted?” He felt her nod against him. “Promise?” He pressed.
“Promise, Daddy.” She murmured.
“I love you so much.” He whispered, and kissed her temple.
Her slim arms wrapped around him and squeezed with all her might. “I love you with all my heart.” She gushed back.
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