Call Me Daddy

“I’ve seen it.” She smiles. “But it’s so much more beautiful when it’s flying, don’t you think?”

I’m sure there’s no deeper meaning intended behind her words, but I feel it nonetheless.

“Yes, Laine. It’s so much more beautiful alive.”

“I feel alive,” she tells me.

“Me too, sweetheart. Me too.”

I wander amongst the plants, leading Laine so gently along the paths marked out. So many butterflies, and I tell her about them all. I tell her their Latin names and where they’re from. I tell her if they’re endangered, and what sizes they grow to.

She listens in wonder, hanging onto every word I say. I think she may love them nearly as much as I do.

Her steps are light and bouncy, her gasps genuine. “That one!” she squeals, pointing up ahead. “It’s so beautiful!”

And it is.

Of course it is.

The Maculinea Arion is the largest and rarest of the blue English butterflies. Little, blue-eyed Laine reminds me of one – so beautiful in her fragility. So graceful and delicate. Such a rare delight. I tell her so, and her smile melts my heart.

“That’s really nice.”

“And really true, sweetheart.”

The Arion flutters close, and my breath hitches, the thrill palpable. I see the butterfly’s path, see so clearly that it’s going to land. It couldn’t be more perfect, and it makes me shiver. Fate, she would say, and I’m beginning to believe her. I step away and take out my phone, just quickly enough to call up my camera app.

The butterfly dithers around her head before it lands, perches and flaps its wings once, twice, three times before it rests, so blue against Laine’s pale blonde hair. I watch my beautiful girl crowned by the beautiful butterfly, my heart full to bursting as so many others flutter around us.

Her shock is divine, her expression of wonder so beautifully innocent, and I know it for certain. Laine will love butterflies as much as I do. I can see it in her eyes.

I capture the moment and I know it’s one I will savour forever.Talk is so easy on the way home. Laine flicks through the spotter pamphlet as though it’s a treasured possession, reading me out the names in Latin to make sure she has the pronunciation right. Her sweet voice makes them ethereal. Magical.

Wonderful.

“Maybe you could teach me how to spot them in the wild,” she says. “It sounds fun.”

“Harder work than the zoo.” I smile to myself. “It’s a different kind of fun, Laine, but no less enjoyable.”

“I think I’d like it,” she tells me, and I do too.

A few weeks ago I’d have struggled to ever imagine myself trekking into the countryside with jars and nets, but not today. Today anything feels possible.

“Better than crosswords, right?” she asks.

That makes me laugh. “Yes, Laine, considerably better than crosswords.”

“Better than TV, too,” she says.

We stop for dinner at a fancy little restaurant on the outskirts of the city, and I stare at her as she scours the menu.

“I don’t know what to choose,” she admits. “I don’t know what half this stuff is.”

I slide my chair around to her side of the table and talk her through the options. Her hand rests on my knee under the tablecloth and squeezes, and she’s so close, so intoxicatingly close. I can smell her shampoo, and her, close enough to enjoy the flutter of her eyelashes as her eyes wander over the main courses.

“I think we should go with the winter roast,” I tell her.

She nods. “That sounds good to me.”

I move back to my own side of the table before I give our order to the waiter, and already I’m missing her touch.

“When did you know you first liked butterflies?” she asks, and it makes me smile to realise she’s still thinking about them.

“A school project,” I tell her. “Infant school, I must’ve been only five or six. A conservation assignment, British wildlife and its habitat. We went out into the meadow behind the school and I spotted a monarch fluttering from leaf to leaf. I was mesmerised by its colours. Once I started watching them I never stopped. My father bought me a net for my birthday, I didn’t even ask. It was a surprise.”

“That was nice of him, to encourage that.”

“He was a fair man. Stern, but fair,” I tell her.

“Stern,” she repeats with a smile, and I know exactly what she’s thinking.

She’s picturing my father’s belt on my backside, the severity of the punishment I received in his old study.

“As I said, stern but fair.” I pour her a mineral water from the jug on the table. “As I hope to be. That’s what I aim for, Laine, that same balance.”

“I haven’t seen you stern. Not yet.”

I hand her the glass. “You will, given time. When it’s necessary, sweetheart, only when it’s necessary.”

“I’ll always be good, Da-” Her voice falters, and I get it. She’s unsure how to address me in public. Daddy Nick sounds so fucking creepy.