“Too tight?”
“No. Just right.” She smiled.
That was all it was. I had no idea how much it meant to her. I only knew she’d moved into my heart by lunchtime.
More days followed. I braided. I smuggled her granola bars. I checked her spelling words while Daniel slept off chemo.
She’d moved into my heart
Before long, she was sitting in my lap during his treatments, and I let her.
***
Daniel was harder to read. He’d watch me across the room with a strange look, like I was a word on the tip of his tongue.
“What?” I asked him once.
“Nothing.” He smiled. “Gratitude. And the morphine.”
I thought he was a dying father relieved that somebody cared about his little girl.
Daniel was harder to read.
The two of us got close, too.
Tea at odd hours. Long talks. One evening I told him about my husband and Josie. Not the whole accident, because I never tell that part. But enough.
His eyes filled, and he turned toward the window.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just… I… that’s a lot to hear as a father.”
***
As he got weaker, the three of us started to look like a family. Then one afternoon, while Lily was at school, Daniel took my hand.
The two of us got close
“Marry me.”
“Daniel. We barely know each other.”
“I love you,” he said. “And I won’t lie to you. I’m scared. More than anything, I want to know that when I’m gone, Lily will be with someone who loves her.”
By then, I already loved her.
I said yes.
“Marry me.”
We married in his hospital room.
I wore a white sundress, and Lily wore yellow and never let go of my hand.
Before the wedding, Daniel had already signed the paperwork naming me as Lily’s guardian after his death.
***
Two weeks later, he died.
