Page 156 of Diamond Fortress

“Gray,” my daughter says, the word hanging in the air between us.

“You don’t have to decide now. But I figured . . . I figured it was time. To talk to you about it. I didn’t have a mom when I was your age, and I wish I had someone to help me understand what I could be, if I wanted it.”

Another few minutes pass, and I watch a flock of geese fly over the lake, squawking as they go.

“If I . . . If I wanted to do what you’re talking about, what you do. It would be me? Not Turo? He’s . . . He’s the boy.”

I smile at her.

I smile wide because she might look like Dante, but god, is she all me.

“Baby, you’ll learn eventually that men only think they rule the world. Women? Women are the ones who really make it turn.”

She smiles at me, and I swear, it's the first genuine thing I’ve seen from her other than annoyance in months.

The teenage years have been painful.

“I got you this. It’s become . . . kind of a tradition,” I say, handing her the thin velvet box. “You don’t have to wear it, not now. And I don’t want you to think that if you do wear it, you’re committing to something. I just . . . I wanted you to have it.”

I watch her hands—not tiny, but not fully grown—with the chipped purple polish move to open the box. When she does, she keeps staring at it.

“Is this Daddy’s?”

In the box is a St. Christopher on a delicate gold chain.

“It’s yours.”

“Is it yours?” she asks, looking at my neck where the old gold medal still sits warm against my skin.

“It’s yours, Liza. St. Christopher. It’s for protection. Your grandmother gave one to Daddy when he was young, then he gave his to me. We bought a new one for you father when we came here right after we got married at the same jewelry store we just got yours.”

She keeps staring.

“Protection because . . .”

“Because if you do one day end up choosing the family, it’s good to have. And if you don’t, well, a little more protection doesn’t hurt.” I watch her fingers graze the chain gently, like she’s afraid to touch it.

Like if she does, she’s accepting some kind of fate she isn’t sure she wants.

“It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t want it to, L—” I start, but then I stop again.

Her hands move to the box, taking the chain out. I watch those little hands move, holding the thin chain to me then turning away when I accept it. Her back to me, Liza lifts her long blonde hair out of the way before looking over her shoulder at me.

“Can you put it on me?” she asks, her own voice low and soft.

Nervous.

“Of course,” I say through the lump in my throat, and then I put the St Christopher medal on my daughter's neck.

* * *

When we get home, Liza skips ahead of me, turning at the front door.

“I’m gonna go call Jeremy, okay?” she asks. Jeremy is the real reason she is annoyed to be here for a full week, a week away from her first real boyfriend. Her father absolutely despises the boy because he knows as well as I do that he’s going to break her heart into a million little pieces one day. It took weeks of promises and sweet words and quiet discussions just to get him to approve her first date.

It kills him, watching her grow up.

His little principessa.

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