in the next town a few years back.
Elliott winced. He’d gotten into the bad habit of taking the kids there because it was easier than making a meal they both liked, even though he knew Karen hated them having fast food. It went against his code, as well, but sometimes best intentions got lost to expediency.
“Not tonight, buddy. We’re having spaghetti and salad.”
“But I hate salad,” Mack whined.
“And spaghetti will make me fat,” Daisy said. “Selena said so.”
“Selena doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Elliott said. “And you’ll like this salad, Mack. Your mom made it.”
Mack still didn’t look impressed, but he didn’t argue. And once they were home, he ate both the salad and the spaghetti as if he were starving. Daisy picked at both.
“May I be excused?” she asked eventually. “I have homework.”
“You can be excused, when you’ve finished your dinner,” Elliott said firmly.
“But—”
“You know the rules,” he said. “Mack, do you have homework?”
“Just spelling and math. I did it at Grandma Cruz’s house.”
Elliott had his doubts. “Could I see it, please?”
To his surprise, the math problems were completed and correct. He ran through the spelling words with Mack, who got every one of them right.
“Those were easy,” Daisy said snidely.
“Were not,” Mack said, clearly ready for a fight.
“Enough,” Elliott said, interceding. “Mack, go grab a shower and then you can watch TV for an hour before bed.” He looked at Daisy’s plate, then nodded. “Good job. Finish your homework and then you can take your bath and head for bed.”
“I want to wait up for Mom,” she protested.
“We’ll see,” Elliott told her. “Now, scoot.”
Only after they were both gone did he breathe a sigh of relief. He’d adored Daisy and Mack from the moment he’d gotten involved with Karen, but being a stepfather was still a challenge. Their personalities had already been well-formed when he’d come into their lives, and he still wavered between stern disciplinarian and outsider.
He’d mentioned adopting them early on, but Karen had seemed oddly resistant to the idea, so he’d let it go. He supposed it didn’t really matter, as long as both children knew he loved them as if they were his own. And after some initial hesitation, his mother had welcomed them into her life as full-fledged grandchildren to be enveloped in hugs and fed an endless supply of chocolate chip cookies. His nieces and nephews treated them as cousins. It sometimes seemed he was the only one who felt uncertain about his role in their lives.
Just when he was starting to fret about that yet again, Daisy emerged from her room, walked into the kitchen and threw her arms around him in the kind of impulsive gesture that was increasingly rare now that she was growing up.
“I love you,” she whispered against his chest. “I wish you were my dad.”
Holding her close, Elliott felt his eyes sting with tears. “I am your dad in every way that matters, little one. You can always count on me.”
She gazed up at him with those big eyes of hers. “Will you come to the father-daughter dance at school with me? I wasn’t going to go, because I don’t even know where my dad is, but if you’d come, it would be okay.”
He saw the surprising hint of fear in her eyes and knew she’d wondered if she was overstepping somehow, yet more evidence that even after all this time, their roles weren’t so clearly defined.
“I’d be honored,” he assured her, deeply touched by the invitation.
“Do you think it will be okay with Mom?”
The question gave him pause. He could only assume Karen would be fine with it. Surely she wouldn’t want Daisy to feel left out on such an important occasion.
“I’ll talk it over with her,” he promised. “When is this dance?”
“Next Friday,” Daisy told him. “I have to get a ticket tomorrow.”
“How much do you need?”
“Just ten dollars.”
Elliott gave her the money, then promised, “I’ll speak to your mother tonight.” He studied her expression. “Is that why you wanted to wait up? Did you want to speak to her about this first?”
She nodded. “Sometime she gets sad when I ask about things like this, like she feels bad that she’s disappointed me.” She regarded him earnestly. “But she didn’t. It’s not her fault Daddy went away. And besides, she found you.”
“The next best thing, huh?” he said, a wry note in his voice she probably didn’t understand.
“Not the next best,” she replied, then added adamantly, “The very best.”
And with that, Daisy captured yet another piece of his heart forever.
4
Despite his best intentions, Elliott fell asleep on the sofa before Karen got home from work. In the morning, both he and Karen overslept, and in the ensuing rush to get Daisy and Mack off to school, he never did have a chance to talk to her about Daisy’s school dance. After that, it slipped his mind.
It was two days later, again over a rushed breakfast, when Daisy was the one who mentioned it to her mother.
“I’m going to need a new dress for the dance, Mom,” she said.
Karen regarded her with a perplexed expression. “What dance?”
“The father-daughter dance next Friday.” Daisy turned an accusing look on Elliott. “Didn’t you tell her?”
“Sorry. I forgot,” he admitted, chagrined by the omission. “Your mom and I will talk about it after I drop you and Mack off at school, okay?”
Daisy gave him a panicked look. “But we’re going, right? You promised. I already bought the ticket.”
“We’re going,” he assured her, avoiding Karen’s gaze as he said it.
As soon as he’d driven the kids to school, he returned home to find Karen waiting for him at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in hand and a frown on her face. It was obvious she was ticked off…again.
“Please don’t make too much of this,” he said. “Daisy told me about the dance a couple of nights ago. She was so afraid she wouldn’t be able to go, but I said I’d take her. We both intended to discuss it with you first, but I fell asleep. You didn’t wake me when you came in and I just forgot.”
