So that’s all I say – Dad. The only word that feels most right in the world.
“I’m still your father, you know,” he whispers into my ear as he strokes my back. Even now, he’s still comforting me. “And I’ll always be your father.”
I fight back a swell of tears. “I know.”
“So you mustn’t worry about me.” He pulls away and looks into my eyes once more. “What kind of father makes his daughter worry?”
“A good one,” I answer. A selfless one.
He snorts.
I hold his hand. “I’m your daughter, Dad. Of course I worry.”
“But that’s exactly why I don’t want you to,” he tells me. “That’s exactly why I want you to live your life, to seek out your future.”
He places a hand on my shoulder.
“You don’t owe me anything, daughter.”
That’s not true. I owe him everything. My life. My education. My home. The happy memories of my teenage years. My cooking skills. My passion for art. My strength. My happiness. Everything I am today, I am because of him.
And that’s exactly why I want to give him everything, or at least, what he wants. I want to give him something before he loses everything. I want to be the best daughter I can be while he still remembers he has one.
“Aster?” My father gives me a puzzled look. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I plant a kiss on the back of his hand and give him a smile. “I’m just really glad I had you for a father.”
I have no doubts anymore. No fears. I don’t even know why I was hesitating in the first place. For my father, for the best father in the world, no task is too hard, no sacrifice too great.
For him, I’ll do anything.
~
“So you’re going to go up to a stranger and ask him to marry you?” Peggy asks me after I tell her the situation over the phone.
I sit on the stool in front of the bathroom mirror. “Not a stranger. Someone I know.”
“Like? Tucker Jones? Or maybe the guy at the supermarket who always grabs things from the top shelf for you?”
“Very funny.”
Actually, I have no idea. I’ve just made my decision and the plan has barely sunk in. I haven’t figured out the details yet.
“Oh, I know,” Peggy says excitedly. “What about Mason, the steamy guy next door?”
“No.” The answer leaves my lips before I can think.
“Why not? He’s single, right?”
I try to remember if he was wearing a wedding ring. I can’t. Still, even if he’s not married, it doesn’t mean he’s single.
“I don’t know. For all I know, he has a fiancee back in DC.”
“Nah,” Peggy disagrees. “If he had, he wouldn’t be checking you out.”
My jaw drops. “He wasn’t.”
“Yes, he was,” she insists.
“Well, he’s a man. Men check women out. It’s what they do.”
“Only women they find attractive. Besides, he was only checking you out. Not me.”
“Probably only because he knows me.”
“All the more reason to pick him,” Peggy tells me. “You know each other. He’s single. And have I told you he’s hot?”
I roll my eyes. “A million times.”
“Only because he’s that hot,” Peggy says. “Anyway, it seems to me like you’ve got the perfect candidate for a husband.”
I touch my forehead and sigh. “I can’t believe I’m picking a husband like I’m picking a pair of shoes from the outlet.”
“It’s that easy.”
“Really?” My eyebrows furrow. “Because I seem to remember you saying that getting a husband was one of the most impossible things in the world.”
“Getting a husband,” Peggy emphasizes the word. “Picking a husband is easy. The hard part is getting them to pick you, too, and then proving that the two of you get along well enough that you won’t kill each other when you’re sleeping in the same bed every night.”
“That sounds like a lengthy process,” I say.
And I don’t have time.
“It usually is,” Peggy says. “But you’re not going the usual route, are you? All you have to do is ask Mason to pretend to marry you.”
“Pretend?” I’m confused.
“Yeah. Unless you want to ask him for real, which isn’t a bad idea, either.”
“Wait. You want me to pretend to get married?”
Peggy sighs. “Honey, do you really think you can have a real marriage when you’re just marrying to make your father happy? Then you’re more naive than I thought.”
She has a point. “So, a pretend marriage? Like with a fake pastor and fake papers?”
“Yeah. That shouldn’t be too hard. We can just ask someone to play the role.”
“Who? My dad knows nearly everyone in this town.”
He might have quit taking pictures, but he didn’t stop talking to people, which he liked to do while fixing stuff for them. Those are the two things he’s best at.
“Then someone from out of town,” Peggy says. “We’ll hire someone.”
“And the ceremony?”
“We’ll just have a really simple one. Just the fake pastor, your dad and me as witnesses and you and Mason. The simpler the lie, the easier to pull off.”