Page 1 of Daddy's for December

One

WINTER

The sways and bumps of the sleeper car put me at ease, like when my mother would rock me as a child. It makes me miss her soothing hushes. A late November rain sprays across the wide windows of the car as I lounge back in the stiff seat. It’s too early to put the bunk bed down. The sun is fading fast, despite us traveling west.

My eyes take a glance at my laptop screen. A cleansing breath helps my mind calm the overwhelming worries threatening to ruin my mood. Should I do this?

Barely audible over my headphones, a small tap comes on the thin door to my cabin. Not even having to move, I slide it partially open and find the car attendant smiling. “Need anything, miss? Just making my rounds.”

“No, thank you. When is my dinner time?”

“Let’s see…” He pulls out a piece of paper from his uniformed coat pocket. “Yours is at six, and it’s in the dining car on the second floor, but you can also have it in your room if you prefer.”

“I’ll go to the car.”

With a nod, he shuts my door, and I clutch my seat arm rests and refocus on the computer.

A jostle on the tracks makes my purse slide out from its cubby and I catch it, my Magic 8-ball keychain landing in my hand. Let’s ask the expert. After a shake, I wait for the little triangle to appear.

It is decidedly so.

Well… if it’sdecided, then I have all the answers.

Okay, Winter. How do you feel about that?

The entire trajectory of my life is about to change. But I guess I was already on that path when I bought this train ticket. No, before then.

When I saw Ben in the office. That’s when my life became instantly better.

Sliding my finger over the slick keys, I hit “Submit” and sit back. A slow smile forms on my lips.

“I feel it isdecidedlyso.”

My mother would kill me if she were alive. Her eighteen-year-old daughter, submitting college withdrawal forms in her first semester in order to pursue a dream. She wanted things to turn out differently for me.

“I just want you to have it easier than I did at your age,” she would say.

Despite nodding along with her mantra, I’d grit my teeth. She never even realized how hurtful it was to hear. “But you had me at eighteen.”

Her shoulders would slump as she would give me a hug. “And that, I don’t regret.”

When she died two years ago and left me with her husband, I had to figure something out. Adulthood was approaching, and college seemed to be whatshewanted.

Not me.

So I enrolled for her.

Rowan Kernberg didn’t really want me around. He’s a nice man, but he’d never had children and was much older than my mother. He took good care of us and even hired a housekeeper to be some sort of surrogate, but it didn’t work. Susan was just the woman who cooked and cleaned. She wasn’t my mom.

Most of the time, I stayed at my all-girls boarding school, away from the stuffy townhouse in Verona. Except the summer before I was a senior. My mom had passed the year before, and I was still in my rebellious stage. Well, as unruly as I could get by dying my blonde hair black and wearing a ton of makeup. I didn’t really know the sort of kids to do drugs. And Rowan didn’t have booze in his house. So, really, the worst I did was get a belly button ring.

Rowan thought it would be good for me to get out of my bedroom and said I should work at his architectural office serving coffee and answering phones that summer. It was a decent distraction. But most of the time, I felt hollow, then would hurry back to my room at night and hide.

Until one day,theday. The one in which my memories would spark like a firework, shooting off in all directions in my mind. Excitement flared into my soul, bringing with it a zest for life. Plans played out like movies before my eyes as my breath caught in my chest whenhewalked into the office. In slow-mo.

Ben Stone.

When he came up to me at the desk, I froze and panicked, not knowing what to say. At first, I hadn’t recognized him. He was older, but so was I. And his muscles were more formed. Like, bigger and more rugged. There was a sprinkling of gray at the temples of his dark hair. His kind blue eyes scanned me as I beheld his structured jaw. Warm memories flooded my mind.

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