“She wants a relationship with him, Simon. Why else would she have contacted him? Why would she send pictures of his grandchildren to him?”
“I’m not suggesting she doesn’t have good intentions.” Simon’s words, delivered in his smooth, Hugh Grant–esque British lilt, sound distant on the speakerphone as he putters around the kitchen. The clang of metal against porcelain tells me he’s fixing himself a chamomile tea to help him sleep. The man is as predictable as Bandit around an unattended plate of food. “Roy may be a curiosity to her more than anything else. Or maybe there’s a need for closure that’s been lingering all these years. Losing a parent tends to prod us into actions we might not have planned on taking.”
I sped-read through two pages of floral handwriting, afraid to get caught invading Roy’s privacy. I quickly confirmed that Roy’s ex-wife, Nicole, passed away from breast cancer four months ago; Delyla found her father’s address while cleaning out her mother’s filing cabinet and this is the first time she’s ever reached out to him.
The letter seemed cordial enough—an introductory note between two strangers, a “Dear Roy”—and yet between the lines, I sensed hours, if not days, of personal toil in choosing her words as she updated her father on the past thirty-three years of her life.
Delyla divorced
three years ago after almost ten years of marriage to her high school sweetheart. Her mother, a widow after thirty happy years with a man named Jim, was complaining about being lonely, so Delyla and her children—outgoing, football-loving, seven-year-old Gavin and reserved nine-year-old artist Lauren—moved back into Delyla’s childhood home. They’re still there, in the same town outside Dallas where Roy and Nicole once lived together.
The kids don’t see much of their father, who has already remarried, with one child and another on the way. All that in just three years? That makes me think that relationship started long before the ink dried on the divorce papers, but there’s no hint of animosity hidden in Delyla’s explanation to suggest an affair.
Delyla didn’t ask any questions of Roy. No “Why?” or “Do you ever think about me?” No “What have you been doing for the past three decades?”
She didn’t demand answers.
She didn’t make accusations.
She simply ended the note with her home address, phone number, and email. An unspoken invitation for Roy to reach out, should he so choose, I gather. But she never came right out and asked him to.
Roy was rattled this afternoon. I can’t tell if it’s Nicole’s death or receiving a letter from his long-lost daughter that caused that. Likely both.
“I wouldn’t get too hopeful about this if I were you, Calla, especially given the kind of man Roy is. There’s a lot of bad history to unpack. Who knows what she’s grown up hearing about her father?”
“I’m not. I don’t even know what Roy’s going to do with this information. Probably nothing.” While he’s far less prickly than he used to be, he still goes out of his way to keep people out of reach.
Beams of headlights flash across a window, signaling Jonah’s return from Anchorage. A nervous flutter stirs in my stomach. “They’re here!” It comes out in a squeal.
Simon’s soft chuckle soothes me. “Don’t worry. They’re going to love you. And if they don’t? We’ll be there the day after tomorrow to talk some sense into them.”
I smile. “Pack enough warm clothes! This big storm rolling in over Christmas is supposed to be bad.” I never paid much attention to the weather. Living in Alaska? I don’t roll out of bed without checking the weather online.
“Bigger than last year?”
I recall the nightmare of being stranded in Anchorage, ready to spend my Christmas holiday with strangers and a vast collection of stuffed wildlife. “As long as it comes after you arrive, I don’t care if we get ten feet.”
“Well, you know your mother. Clothing has never been an issue for us. She made me haul out a third suitcase. Of course, some of that space is reserved for her bridal magazine collection.”
I groan. While I’m anxious to see my mom again, I’m dreading the pressure to set a wedding date. For a woman who spent so much effort warning me against the perils of falling in love with a bush pilot who lives across the continent, she has certainly changed her tune.
“I know. Just try to remember that you’re her only daughter. All she wants is for you to have the day of your dreams, and for her to be able to help you plan it.”
“Yeah. In Toronto.” She’s been relentless, sending website links of possible reception venues and photographers almost daily.
“She has a lot of connections here, being in the floristry. Connections she doesn’t have in Alaska.”
“But having it in Alaska might make more sense for us.”
“Then that is what you tell her, and she’ll accept it.” He adds after a beat, “Eventually.”
I hear Jonah’s booming voice. “I should go. Love you.” I end the call with Simon and rush to jam another log in the dwindling fire.
“… small fortune to heat, but we’re actually using it a lot more in the winter than I thought we would.”
They must be talking about the hot tub—a focal point on the cozy screened-in porch and a place Jonah and I have grown accustomed to enjoying sans bathing suits, something we won’t be doing for the next two weeks.
Dusting my hands off on my jeans, I venture to the entrance, tamping down the nerves that come with meeting your future mother-in-law in person for the first time.