Just as I reposition Isla on my lap, I see her face preparing for another massive sneeze. My eyes widen, and Journey takes her back from my hands. “Wimp.”
“You can sneeze on me, cutie-pie,” she mutters in a baby voice to Isla. Rather than sneeze, Isla just giggles. “That’s what I thought. You just wanted to do it to Daddy. I don’t blame you.”
I kiss Journey and Isla and slip out of bed to get dressed so I can drag Hannah out of the house for some one-on-one time. I pray I can get through to her today. I wish for the same thing every day, but I have failed miserably. Something has to give. Anything would be a start.
I tap my knuckles on Hannah’s door. “May I come in?”
“Mmm,” she says. The sound means she’s busy doing something on her computer. God only knows, she’s probably hacking into a government system in another country. She’s smart as a whip and gets perfect grades yet can’t figure out how to be happy. I don’t understand how that works.
I open the door to an immaculately, clean room. This is something different for Hannah, but I love it. She makes her bed every morning, drops her clothes in the hamper. Folds her laundry and places it away in the correct drawers. Even her closet doors close the way they’re supposed to. It’s like I’ve almost raised a functioning human, kind of.
“Whatcha’ doing?”
“Just reconfiguring the data coordinates in my flying module app for the drone mechanism I’m using for my science project.”
I close my eyes, trying to comprehend every word she said, but I have no idea what she’s talking about. I only know she has a major science project coming up. “Oh,” I say. “It’s Sunday.” Great parenting right here. I shouldn’t persuade my daughter to stop doing homework on Sunday.
“Yeah, I know. I just woke up and thought of an idea I needed to try.”
“I don’t know when you became smarter than me, but I don’t hate it,” I say.
Hannah spins around in her desk chair and smirks. “Dad, I became smarter than you at three years old, but it’s okay. We all reach our peak at different times, right?” Yup. My Hannah in a nutshell.
“Can I steal you away from the computer for an hour or so. There’s something I want to show you and talk to you about. I know you hate going anywhere with me, but I promise no one you know will be there, and it’s important to me.”
Hannah looks confused. Usually, she’d argue and tell me she doesn’t want to go anywhere. Leaving the house, unless it’s with a girlfriend, isn’t her thing. I will say, she’s been amazing helping with Isla. She babysits and plays with her when Journey needs to work. Our family blended seamlessly, but there’s still something behind Hannah’s eyes that leaves me feeling unsettled every day. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s my personal fears I’m silently holding her accountable for.
But if it’s not, I may not get a second chance to try to make things right for her.
“Um,” she says, twisting back around to look at her monitor. “Yeah, okay. Just us?”
“Yeah, just us.”
“Why aren’t Journey and Isla coming?”
“I want to spend some time with you, okay?”
Hannah clicks a few buttons with her mouse, putting her computer to sleep and stands up from her chair. “Okay.”
She grabs her phone and drops it into her back pocket and is ready to go. I don’t know how I lucked out that neither Hannah nor Journey needs an hour to get ready in the morning before leaving the house, but Kristy was at least a ninety-minute ordeal before going anywhere. Hannah prefers to shower at night and tie her hair up when it’s wet, so she wakes up with dried wavy hair. What’s better is that it’s her natural caramel brown color again. Thank goodness. The gothic days seem to be behind us.
As per our norm, Hannah is quiet while climbing into the passenger seat of the truck and mostly silent throughout the ride. She messes with the radio several times, which she knows I hate, but I’ve somehow managed to figure out how to avoid meaningless arguments with a teenager over the last few years. It was quite an intense training period.
“Dad, why are we pulling in here?” Hannah asks. She’s clearly uncomfortable and most likely worried about why I brought her here. Thankfully, she hasn’t had to experience much of what surrounds us, and for that, I’m grateful.
“You’ll see,” I say. I pull up to a spot where I can park the truck and lift the gear into park. “I need to take it easy on myself for a few minutes, okay?”
She doesn’t have a response as she steps out of the truck and follows me across a patch of grass. There’s a tree that hovers over the spot where I sit. I come so often there’s no grass in the one area. I plop down as I always do and tug Hannah’s hand to sit down next to me. “Dad …”
I pull in a deep breath and tell myself I can do this. “There’s something I never told you—about something I went through when I was your age.”
“Who is Peter Kevan?” Hannah asks.
My heart aches to hear his name said out loud. It’s been a while since anyone has e spoke it to me. “Pete was my best friend. We started kindergarten together and were pretty much inseparable until our junior year of high school.”
Hannah’s looking at the dates etched into the stone, likely doing the math in her head. “What happened?” she asks, her voice soft and unsure.
“His parents weren’t the greatest. They were going through a pretty ugly divorce, and I think there was some emotional abuse happening at home. I have still some questions about what caused him to end up where he did, but for the most part, I’ve put the pieces together.”
