“I have one more thing to add,” I say and slip my necklace over my head. The gold coin spins back and forth as it dangles from the chain.
I did it, Elizabeth Ann. With you to guide me back into the light, I did it. Thank you for never giving up on me.
I reach an arm around Liz and pull her close. Her head finds a resting place on my shoulder as we sit in silence, lost in our own thoughts.
“What do you think she would be doing now?” Liz asks.
We’ve imagined every permutation of what Elizabeth Ann’s life would be like. “Graduate school because she’d be smart like her mom.”
“Maybe planning her wedding to the amazing man who stole her heart.”
I groan. “She’s too young to be married.” Besides, no man would be good enough for my daughter.
Liz laughs and pokes my knee. “She’s twenty-four.”
Thinking about the decades we lost with her destroys me. No parent should ever outlive their child.
Mustering a smile that I absolutely do not feel, I reply, “Still too young. She can’t get married until she’s thirty. At least.”
“So, you’re one of those, huh?”
“One of what?”
“One of those dads who would threaten and intimidate any guy who asked her out.”
“Damn straight.”
Liz’s pretty, upturned face balks good-humoredly at me. “My dad never did that to you.”
“That’s because I’m awesome.”
“You still are,” she replies quietly, almost in a whisper.
My grin falls away as I stare into her pale-green eyes. I’m suddenly transported back to the first time I ever saw her. I was only six years old, but I knew…somehow I justknew…that I would love her forever.
Without my permission, my hand cradles her face, my fingers threading around the nape of her neck and into her hair. “You are so beautiful.”
A blush tints her cheeks, just as a single raindrop lands on the tip of her nose.
We look up.
Liz blinks as the next raindrop clings to her eyelashes—and then the clouds open up and release their burden all at once, drenching us within seconds. Liz looks at me with wide eyes as the rain beats down on us, her hair plastered to her face in a long, wet curtain of wheat blonde, and her shirt stuck to her like a second skin.
Then she laughs. Not a shy chuckle, but a full-bodied, throw-her-head-back kind of laugh—bright, surprised, and carefree.
“Oh my god!” Standing up, she stretches her arms wide to the sky, not caring that her guitar and bag are getting drenched.
I can’t help but follow, pulled by the gravity of her joy. Her hands reach for mine, and she spins us around in a circle. I don’t know the steps, but I don’t need to. She leads, and I follow as we slip, laugh, and spin again.
Liz stumbles into me, and I catch her with an arm around her waist. Our arms slide around each other, and our movements turn into something softer, slower, our bodies pressing closer as we dance to the hush of the falling rain drumming like a soft percussion all around us.
“Fallon asked me to marry him,” she says against my chest.
I noticed in the tree that she had taken off her wedding rings.
My heart stumbles. The rain keeps falling.
But neither of us moves. Neither of us lets go.
