Ten years.
It sounds like a lot when people say it out loud, but when I look at Piper, it feels like ten minutes.
We’re in the wings of the same concert hall where I first watched her walk onto a stage and take the air out of my lungs. Only this time, she’s not trembling. She’s not searching the crowd for courage. She doesn’t need it.
She stands tall and sure.
I lean against the wall, arms crossed, watching her talk to the conductor. Her hair is pinned back, her dress black and simple, her violin held lightly at her side. She laughs at something the cellist says, and the sound hits me in the chest the same way it did the first time she ever laughed near me.
You’d think I’d get used to it.
I haven’t.
“Dad,” a small voice says, tugging at my sleeve.
I look down into a pair of gray-blue eyes that are so much like mine it’s almost unfair to her. Piper always hoped our kidswould get her eyes. Instead, our daughter looks like my clone with her mother’s hair and stubbornness.
“What’s up, bug?”
She clutches her tiny violin case. “Is it time?”
“Almost.” I crouch down and fix the bow where it’s sticking out of her case. “You nervous?”
She shakes her head, chin up. She’s a brave and determined little thing. Pipes to her core.
“Mom said nervous means you care.”
“She’s right.”
“Are you nervous?”
I nod. “Every time she plays. I guess it’s every time you play now, too.”
She thinks about that. “Do you stop being nervous when she finishes?”
“No,” I say, smiling. “That part’s permanent.”
She grins like she understands, even if she doesn’t yet. She will.
“You promise you brought Gerald?”
I peek around the curtains to make sure before I take her little shoulders in my hands. “Your brother’s got him. He’s sitting in the front row with Grandma. See?”
She blows out a breath when she sees the judgmental-eyed little fucker. The penguin has worn down over the years, but he’s stuck around.
She looks past me. “Mom saw us.”
Piper’s already walking over, dress brushing her knees, eyes warm when they land on me, always on me, even after ten years. She presses a kiss to our daughter’s head and another to my mouth.
It still feels like something that rewires me every time.
“You two surviving back here?” she asks.
“Barely,” I say.
Our daughter rolls her eyes—Piper’s eye roll, not mine. “Dad’s being dramatic.”
“Of course he is.” Piper smooths her dress.
