Page 6 of Mountain Daddy
After dinner, while Elsie colors, Celia and I stand at the sink washing dishes side by side. The cabin is quiet except for the storm howling against the windows and faint giggles from the living room.
“This feels…” Celia starts, then stops, shaking her head.
“Feels what?” I ask quietly.
She glances at me, eyes shining with some emotion I don’t want to name. “Nice. Easy. Like we’ve been doing this for longer than a week.”
Yeah.
It feels that way to me too.
“Maybe blizzards have a way of making things feel smaller,” I say gruffly. “Like the rest of the world doesn’t exist.”
She hands me a plate, fingers brushing mine. Warm. Soft. Delicate.
The contact shoots straight through me.
“That’s poetic for you,” she teases.
I huff. “Don’t tell anybody.”
She smiles at me again — that slow, gentle smile that lights something in me I buried years ago.
“You know,” she says quietly, “Elsie really loves you.”
My throat tightens. “I hope so.”
“I mean… shereallyloves you. She talks about you all day.”
I freeze, the rinse cloth dangling from my hand. “Yeah?”
Celia nods. “She feels safe with you.”
Safe.
My entire body pulls tight at the word.
It’s the one thing I’ve tried to give my daughter every day of her life.
“It matters,” I say. “That you’re here. That she has you too.”
Celia swallows. Hard.
I see her chest rise and fall, her lips part slightly, her eyes flick to mine again and?—
It happens without warning.
We lean in at the same time.
Slow. Gentle. Like gravity.
Her breath mixes with mine. Her lips are inches from mine. My hand rises of its own accord, ready to touch her cheek?—
“DADDY LOOK!”
We jerk apart so fast I nearly drop the plate.
Elsie stands in the doorway holding a picture. “It’s us! I drew us! See?”
