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In one of her early memories Janie cuddles into her mom’s side on her little twin bed, back when they lived with Marie in the little in-law suite at the back of her house. They are under the pink and yellow quilt with all the little flowers that her great grandmother had made her when she was born. Janie was maybe five or six and her mom had just finished reading Angelina Ballerina, Janie’s favourite at the time. It’s memory like so many others, just her and her mom nestled close to each other, reading, or talking, or sometimes just being next to each other. Just the two of them, always. But this memory is just a little different.
“...until at last she became the famous ballerina Mademoiselle Angelina, and people came from far and wide to enjoy her lovely dancing.” Tessa closed the book and laid it on the little bedside table.
Janie remembers wrapping her arms tightly around her mom’s body as her mom kissed the top of her head. “Mommy,” she began, “did you want to be a famous ballerina like Angelina?”
She seemed to contemplate for a moment before answering. “Maybe when I was little I did, yeah. I went to camp at the national ballet and everything.”
“But then you had me?” Janie asked.
“Then I had you, and I wouldn’t change you for the world,” her mom had answered. It was something she told Janie all the time, despite everything she’d never want to change having Janie in her life. She brushed Janie’s hair off her forehead and ran her thumb over the bridge of her nose. “And there were a lot of other things that happened in between and I wouldn’t change those either. I love you so much my little mouse.”
Janie squeaked and wiggled her nose like a mouse and her mom leaned down and rubbed her own nose against Janie’s and Janie could feel her mom’s laugh brush against her cheek. “I love you too, mommy.”
“Good,” she smiled, her mom’s smile was always Janie’s favourite thing. She’d do anything to make her mom smile. “Now time for sleep!”
As her mom turned to roll out of the bed Janie squeezed her a little bit tighter. “Mommy, did you ever want to get married?”
Her mom drew in a deep breath, pausing to bite at her bottom lip. “I don’t know sweetie. I’m pretty happy with just you and me. Aren’t you?”
She was. Very happy. Janie had the best mom and a whole community of people who loved her. She had her aunt Marie-France and her fiance Patch, and she had Joe at the diner who let her wipe the tables and play with the salt and pepper shakers, and Alma who would bring her cookies, and Frank at the grocery store who would sneak her candies with a wink. Janie never felt like she was lacking, but she knew her mom was young and very pretty. She wasn’t fully convinced her mom wasn’t a princess and princesses fell in love. She loved their life, but sometimes she thought her mom deserved to find a prince. “What about my dad? Did you want to marry him?”
“Maybe when we were young I’d thought about it, but no I don’t think so,” she shook her head and looked a Janie, her eyes creasing, mouth falling into the slightest hint of a frown, like maybe she was sad.
“Okay,” Janie hugged her mom just a little tighter before letting her go. And that was the end of that conversation. Janie and Tessa were happy with the way things were, just the two of them. The Virtue girls. Until Scott.
Janie sits alone on the bus. It bumps along the old country roads, the sun beaming in hot through the little square windows, spotlights flickering on the brown vinyl seats as the bus moves. The other kids—none from her school, no other Ilderton kids go to private school—shout and throw balled up papers at each other over the seat backs, ducking and laughing. Janie draws her knees up, resting them against the back of the seat in front of her and pulls out her book, carefully removing her bookmark and placing it on the seat next to her. She rides the bus home from London to Ilderton everyday after school, everyday she sits in the exact same seat, and everyday she reads a book on the bumpy, half hour journey.
Only today her knees won’t stop bouncing and she can’t focus on the words on the page as they shake and jumbled together. She’s filled with a restless energy, excited to get off the bus and into the diner. More so than usual. Scott had asked her if she wanted to do something special tonight while her mom worked late at the studio. He’d suggested going out for ice cream, or going to the movies, or even to the mall. She’s never had a father-daughter date, but she assumes it would be something like this: their plan is to go to Alma and Joe’s for dinner because Janie (and Tessa) loves Alma’s cooking, and then Janie asked if Scott would take her into London to the new ice cream place that puts whatever toppings you want into your ice cream, it’s next to the mini putt where they will finish their evening. Even though Janie knows she is terrible at mini putt she is bursting with excitement to hang out with Scott.
Scott had told her he wanted to talk to her, she doesn’t know what it’s about and her stomach is filled with butterflies, they flap around her middle. Both nervous and excited.
At exactly 10 and 5/6th (Scott has been helping her with her fractions) there are a few things that Janie is old enough to know for certain. First, she has the best mom, probably in the world. She’s known this since she was old enough to notice these kinds of differences. Her mom is the absolute best. It doesn’t matter to Janie that her mom had barely turned seventeen when she had her, that never stopped her from loving Janie with all her heart. It never stopped her from doing all she could to make their lives as good as they could be, from filling Janie’s childhood up with amazing memories, from working so hard to accomplish her goals. Janie loves her mom, her mom is her best friend and her inspiration.
That brings Janie to the second thing she knows for certain: her mom deserves all the happiness in the world. Janie is finally old enough to realize that although she often made it seem like everything was easy her mom didn’t have an easy time at all. She got pregnant at sixteen and got kicked out of her house! Janie can’t begin to imagine not having her mom there to support her with anything she needed. Janie was born June 17th, 2006 at 11:11 PM (Tessa says she’s the best thing she could have ever wished for), exactly one month after her mom’s 17th birthday. The only person who was there with her when she gave birth was Janie’s aunt Marie-France. Marie isn’t her real aunt, but her mom says that it isn’t always blood that makes family but who’s there for you when you need them most. Her mom worked hard to go to school, to help build the dance studio up to what it is now, to raise her and saved enough to buy them their little house. Her mom deserves to be stupidly happy. Scott makes her mom happy. Scott makes her mom so happy she practically glows.
The last thing that Janie knows for certain is that Scott is awesome. He’s kind and funny, even when he’s annoyed. He calls her kiddo, cooks for her and her mom, and helps with her homework and so much more. He loves her mom and that's awesome because her mom deserves so much love. Scott’s told Janie he loves her too, and she thinks her mom is right that family isn’t about blood but who is there for you, because she feels warm inside just like she does when she drinks hot chocolate every time he says it. He says it casually, like when he’s dropped her off at school or after she’s worked really hard at a dance competition or a school project. He’ll say, “I’m so proud of you kiddo, I love you.” The first time he said that her mom cried and hugged them both. Janie fully believes he means it too. She may not quite be eleven yet, but she isn’t stupid, she knows that he could just be saying it because he wants to be with her mom and she’s just part of the deal, but Janie knows that isn’t true. She knows because Scott treated her the same before he even knew her mom was her mom.
When the bus pulls up in the town square Janie already has her book tucked neatly back into her backpack, which is slung over one shoulder--something her mom tells her not to do, because it will hurt her back. She taps her toes against the floor of the bus waiting for everyone else to file off before thanking the driver Doe and bounding down the stairs. She’s practically running by the time she opens the door to the diner and hears the familiar chime of the bell above her.
“Woah! What’s the hurry kiddo,” Scott says, looking up at her and placing a hot chocolate on the counter in front of her regular swivel stool. Just like every other Monday. Just like every other Monday he still has his apron on and his pencil tucked behind his ear, his Toronto Maple Leafs hat her mom bought him for Christmas last year on backwards.
Maybe he forgot? Or can’t leave. But she sees Kaetlyn over at the corner table taking an order and she can see Chiddy and Javi through the little window into the kitchen. Scott hired both Kaetlyn and Javi in the fall, because he knew how overworked his dad had always been, how little time he spent with his family not at the diner and so decided to hire some more staff so he and Chiddy could have some time off on occasion.
Scott must notice her looking wide-eyed between him and the hot chocolate. “We’re still going out kiddo,” he smiles. “I just thought you might still want your drink.” He shrugs his shoulders, “I think I’ve also just gotten used to making it everyday.”
She slides into the seat and drops her bag next to her. “Okay,” she says, taking the long spoon and scooping the whipped cream off the top of her hot chocolate. She hopes the relief she feels that he didn’t forget isn’t too obvious.
“We have to drop dinner off for your mom,” he lifts her mom’s lunch box, the cute one with the pink flowers he got her, out from behind the counter. “But then I’m all yours kid. Are you excited?”
Janie nods and Scott reaches forward to wipe some whipped cream off her nose. It makes her smile, she thinks that’s something dads do.
Janie knows she has a dad, and she likes him. Her dad is a nice guy. When he calls he remembers the names of all her friends, and he knows the nights she has dance class and remembers to call to say congratulations after a show or competition, and he knows her teacher’s name. He visits on Christmas and her birthday when he can, but he’s living in England right now, which is cool she guesses.
Scott though, Scott knows all her friends too. He also knows that Laina is her best friend, that they have all their dance classes together and have been friends since they were two. He’s learned that Melody is her best friend at school and they are junior members of the student government together. He knows that Imogen is her friend sometimes, but doesn’t like Janie when Janie gets better grades than her. He also knew, without her having to say, that when she came home from school in a sour mood last Wednesday it was because Melody sat with Imogen again at lunch instead of her. And he knew that Laina was annoying her when she wouldn’t shut up about how easy math is. Scott knows when every test is, or when every science project or history diorama is due. He marks them in his calendar hanging up next to the phone in the diner. She loves seeing Janie Math Test written his messy handwriting, all slanted and squished together.
It makes her feel bad, like there is this dull ache in her chest that spreads down to her tummy, but sometimes she wishes Scott were her dad. Scott would be such a great dad. Sometimes she pretends, in her head, that he’s her dad. That her mom had met Scott when they were kids, not her dad. She thinks Scott wouldn’t have left them like her dad had. Alma and Joe would have been good grandparents too, they would have taken her mom in. They already kind of did. She knows that things wouldn’t have gone the way they did though. If her mom hadn’t been childhood sweethearts with her dad there’d be no her. Sometimes she just imagines that Scott and her mom are married and he’s her real stepdad. But that image doesn’t look all that much different from their real life now. Except she wouldn’t have to get embarrassed and pretend it is an accident when she almost calls him dad.
Once she’s finished her hot chocolate and Scott has made sure that the diner isn’t going to fall down in his absence they walk across the square to drop her mom off her dinner. It’s a really pretty spring afternoon, the tulips are blooming and there are buds on the rose bushes throughout the square. It’s warm too. The sun shines down on her bare arms and it’s like being wrapped in a hug. Even though it’s sunny today, it rained yesterday and Janie hops around puddles on the path while Scott easily strides over them.
Her mom is in the back office at the studio, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail, wearing her glasses (she says she hardly needs them, but Janie doesn’t believe her anymore with the headaches she gets and the amount she squints without them), with stacks of paperwork in front of her. She doesn’t even look up when they come in, just holds up a finger for them to wait while she finishes whatever it is she is doing.
Scott places her lunch box on her desk and she finally glances up and shines a smile at them both. “Thank you, love,” she says to him, as he leans over to kiss her cheek. To Janie she says, “How was school, sweetie?”
The three of them talk for a bit in the tiny little office that was such a big part of so much of Janie’s childhood. It seems cramped now that she’s so much bigger—even if she’s still small for almost eleven. There’s a big Rubbermaid bin of old costumes in the corner, the lid off and it’s contents practically exploding out. The desk is old and wobbly (one leg is propped up with a small stack of old recital programs) and it’s painted with the handprints of students from summer dance camp one year. The wall behind her mom is covered in photos of old dance classes and recitals. The space is filled with memories of all the students that passed through here since Marie-France opened it so many years ago. There are a lot of Janie too. Janie at one, her chubby fist curled around her mom’s ponytail while her mom tried to teach proper pliés. Janie hanging out with Marie-France in the office one day when she was seven, pretending to do Marie’s job behind the desk, wearing her mom’s glasses. Janie dancing with the senior ballet class in nothing but a cloth diaper when she was just barely old enough to walk.
Her favourite is right in the middle. It’s one of her and her mom in front of the big mirrors. Her mom is wearing her ballet tights and slippers, a big, baggy sweater thrown on over top. Her hair is in a bun with little wisps flying out around her face, her cheeks are all red and rosy like she was just dancing. She is facing the mirror and stretching, a tiny baby Janie is laid out on the floor in front of her. You can see in the reflection in the mirror Marie-France smiling at Tessa’s expression looking at Janie—complete, unabashed joy and love—as she snapped the picture unnoticed.
Scott gives her mom a kiss before they leave and her mom comes around the desk to wrap Janie in a hug. She tucks Janie’s hair behind her ear and gives her a kiss on the top of her head, like she used to do when she was little. “Be good you two,” she’s smiling, and Janie can see the glimmer of tears in her eyes, as she looks between her and Scott. She’s been getting really sappy when it comes to Janie and Scott getting along and wanting to spend time together. Sometimes Janie wonders if her mom feels guilty that she never had much of a father figured before Scott. She shouldn’t.
“We’ll be at the house when you’re all done,” Scott says, giving her arm one last squeeze. He never calls it home, or refers to it as his house, just the house or the Virtch house. Scott still has his apartment over the diner, though he rarely stays there anymore. Janie is pretty sure it’s because he doesn’t want to encroach on their space—knowing it’s been just her and her mom for so long. Her mom worked really hard to buy their little house before they even knew Scott and Janie thinks that Scott doesn’t want to take that from her. Even though, really, he lives there too. They don’t mind sharing. After nine years of just Tessa and Janie Virtue against the world, Scott wove himself so seamless into the fibres of their life.
Janie heads with Scott to Alma and Joe’s, a place she has grown to love. It feels like home. It feels like a grandparent’s house should. It’s warm and cozy, not perfect, tidy but not pristine. The wallpaper is peeling up in the corners of the kitchen, there are scratches on the old wooden kitchen table, there is a singe mark in the living room carpet where Scott had dropped a lit match after his brothers dared him to see how long he could hold it between his fingers. The house always smells like cooking and if it doesn’t, it smells like baking. Kate and Jim’s house is all white and sparse and Janie isn’t allowed to touch anything until she has washed her hands.
Alma hugs them both when they come in. Janie is already just taller than Alma’s shoulder, so she rests her head there when she hugs back. Alma’s hugs are warm and comforting, like being wrapped in a blanket. Janie thinks that after her mom who’s hugs feel like home, like a place you go and never want to leave (her mom wraps up all the love she has in her hugs) and maybe Scott, Alma gives the best hugs.
Joe gives her a high five and a wink when he says, “Hope Scotty here made something good for your mom since she had to work.”
Janie nods, “He packed her lasagna.”
“And some of the brownies you sent over the other day,” Scott adds, kissing his mom on the cheek.
They sit down to dinner and Janie feels like she belongs here, with the Moirs. She wishes her mom was here, because it feels like her mom is part of this family now too, but she doesn’t feel out of place without her mom. Her friends at school (mostly Imogen) thought it was weird that she was going to her mom’s boyfriend’s parents house for dinner without her mom, but it’s not weird. It feels right. Like there is a balance to her life that wasn’t there before. She’s never met her dad’s parents and only really started spending time with Kate and Jim not quite two years ago. She’s known Joe mostly, but Alma too, since she was a baby. They feel like grandparents. They treat her just like the rest of their grandkids too. As if she were Scott’s daughter. When Janie thinks about that it makes her chest feel all warm, and that warmth spreads all the way through her until she is smiling.
Once they finish eating they are shooed out the door by Alma and Joe to go get their ice cream and get to the mini putt before it starts to get dark out. Janie is just on the porch, leading the way to the car, when she turns to see Alma pulling Scott into a tight embrace.
“I’m so proud of you,” Janie hears her say to Scott. “You’ve been wonderful to those girls. I know they both mean the world to you, but don’t forget you mean the world to them too. They love you and it will all turn out.”
“Thanks Ma,” Scott says before pulling away. Janie quickly turns and heads down the steps, hoping Scott didn’t notice her listening.
Janie orders a vanilla ice cream, but gets Oreo crumbs and mini peanut butter cups in it.
“I thought you’d go all chocolate,” Scott says.
“No,” Janie shakes her head. “That’s mom. She’d get the dark chocolate with frozen strawberry and Oreo. Or she’d maybe do a s’mores one...with the mini marshmallows.”
Scott laughs. “She’d definitely pick s’mores! Or marshmallows with coffee ice cream. Actually, she’d probably just ask if she could take the whole pack of little marshmallows.”
They laugh their way out of the little shop, ice cream cones in hand. They talk about her mom’s affinity for sweets and how grumpy she is in the morning before coffee. Though, now that Scott is mostly living with them and makes coffee before her mom is even up she seems to enter the world of the living a little earlier and a little bit easier. Scott himself, just his presence, seems to help too, except for that one time he tried singing before it was even 7:30 and her mom threw a pop tart at his head. Now he waits until 7:31 to start singing and is just met with sideways glances and a stare that could turn a man to stone.
As promised they end their night with mini putt. The sun is starting to get low in the sky and everything glows pretty pink, the late spring air around them cooling off. Janie pulls on the sweater Scott made her bring, the one she’d insisted she wouldn’t need. He smiles as they walk in, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “Aren’t you glad you brought your sweater now, kiddo?”
She huffs, and fakes a pout. “Yeah, yeah...I guess you were right.”
“Sure was kid,” he smiles and pulls her into a side hug. She thinks he might come close to leaning down and kissing the top of her head like her mom does sometimes, but stops himself. “Do you want to take the pink ball?” he asks instead. Holding out the hot pink and highlighter yellow golf balls in his hand.
“You can be the pink,” she says, grabbing the yellow from him.
He smiles and leads her to the first hole. “Whatever you want kiddo.”
It’s around the ninth hole that they catch up to the family ahead of them and have to wait for them to finish. Janie hops up on the small stone wall around one of the raised planters between holes, walking around the edge, arms out to help her balance. She stumbles over a loose brick and nearly tumbles to the ground, but Scott is there to catch her. His eyes are wide, like he was scared, and he looks at her for a minute before deciding on how to handle the situation.
“Janie, can you please get down from there,” he says, his voice not harsh but stern, a tone that leaves little room for argument. “It’s not safe and I don’t want you getting hurt,” the last part is softer, filled with concern.
Janie does as she’s asked and hops down, her heels hitting hard against the pavement. She feels a bit silly, climbing on things and making Scott tell her off. She’s almost eleven and should know better. Scott doesn’t seem angry or upset with her though, he takes in a deep breath and looks more a combination of both proud and relieved that she listened to him right away.
He isn’t the only one who seems impressed, the dad from the family they’ve been waiting on chuckles and turns to Scott. “How’d you get one of the ones that actually listens? I swear I had to ask mine ten times and offer bribes to get them off of that.”
Scott freezes for a moment and she watches his face as it goes through an array of emotions. At first he looks a little confused, she and Scott have only been out together without her mom in Ilderton and everyone in Ilderton knows them and who they are to each other. Then she sees his eyes widen in understanding. She expects him to jump right in to explain that he isn’t her dad, that she doesn’t belong to him. She won’t be upset, she tells herself as much, because he isn’t her dad. He’s just Scott, he loves her mom, and that’s okay. He probably doesn’t want anyone thinking that anyways because she’s almost eleven and he hasn’t even turned thirty yet. She waits for the inevitable “Oh, she’s not mine,” but it doesn’t come.
Instead Scott shrugs his shoulders and laughs, just three sharp breaths. “That’s all her mom,” he says.
The dad nods at Scott in understanding, his head turning to where his wife has given up helping their youngest actually aim the ball in the hole and is showing him how to use his putter to drag the ball across the AstroTurf. “She must have a pretty great mom.”
“Yeah,” Scott and Janie say in unison.
“I’m Simon,” he says, holding out his hand first to Scott and then to Janie.
“I’m Scott and this is Janie,” Scott says, she sees a smile slowly find its way to his eyes, they twinkle in that way they do when he’s really happy but doesn’t want to show it. Like when he sings in the mornings and her mom is glaring daggers at him while she sips her coffee.
Simon points out the members of his family, his wife Theresa, the littlest of his three kids Jack who is four, Haden who is six, and Mackenna who is nine, waiting rather impatiently, swinging her golf club around by the tree.
“Daaddd,” Mackenna whines, kicking her putter with her sneaker and watching it swing back and forth. “Are we going to be done soon? I want ice cream.”
“That’d be the bribe,” Simon says to Scott with a little laugh. Then he turns to his daughter, “Mack, we’ll be done when we’re done. Let your brothers play. They’re just learning.”
Janie leans her head against Scott’s arm and says, “Oh, I like bribes.”
He and Simon both break out into laughter, Simon looks to her and then to Scott shaking his head and smirking in some kind of solidarity, as if he’s saying welcome to the club man.
“You already had your ice cream, kiddo,” Scott says.
She pouts. She doesn’t even want more treats, she’s still full from her ice cream and it isn’t like sweets are in short demand in her life, but she kind of wants to see what he’ll say. She doesn’t want to push too hard, just test.
“Do we have mini marshmallows at home?” she smiles her cutest, sweetest smile, the one that has almost always won her mom over and tries to bat her eyelashes.
“You really are just like your mom, kiddo,” Scott chuckles. “And knowing her she probably does have marshmallows in her stash, but you aren’t having any. You had ice cream and it’ll be after nine on a school night when we get home. Sorry kid.” He really does make a great dad. His tone is firm but kind and he shakes his head at her with an exasperated smile. Even though she knows he means it and she will not be getting marshmallows she secretly loves that he isn’t afraid to tell her no. To make and set rules for her. Her real dad would never. She’s pretty sure if she asked Chris for a pony he’d try to buy one. But her dad doesn’t live with her, he would never have to deal with the aftermath of her having pure sugar just before bed. Scott does though. Scott knows when she has treats that late she can’t sleep and feels groggy in the mornings.
“Okay,” she says with a shrug and that’s that. She won’t ask again.
Little Jack finally manages to get his blue ball into the hole, dragging it across the course with his putter and they all cheer. Simon has his phone out snapping pictures of the moment, Jack with his hands in the air excitedly. Janie and Scott join in on the cheering too.
Simon offers to wait for them to finish the hole so that they can jump ahead and not have to risk waiting on them again, but Scott waves them on. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Take your time we’re in no rush.”
It’s twenty minutes later after they’ve decide to replay hole seventeen while waiting for Simon and his family to finish the last hole that Scott finally stops and says, “So, uh, kiddo I’d wanted to talk to you about something.”
Janie nods, feeling his nerves as he fixes his hat and shoves his hands in his pockets, rocking a bit on his heels. His nervousness leaves him and fills her. She picks at a rip in the rubber grip on her putter and bites at her lip. “Yeah?” she says, nodding.
Scott takes a step closer to her and lowers his voice a little, like what he’s saying might be a secret. “You know I love your mom very much, right?” When she nods he continues. “And you’re the most important thing in the world to her. But I hope you know you’re important to me too. So important Kiddo. Both of you are. You two mean so much to me. More than I can begin to explain.” He takes a deep breath and looks at her. His expression is so soft, vulnerable and open, like he’s letting her into part of his soul. His mouth is not quite set in a smile but twitching like that’s the direction it wants to go if it weren’t so relaxed and there is this look in his eyes, a gentleness to them and how they take her in. It’s a looked filled with so much love and care, one she’s only ever received from her mom before. It makes her want to wrap her arms around his neck and cry.
She thinks she may have started already when he brings a hand up to her cheek and says, “Kiddo.” His voice is so gentle it wraps around the words like a blanket as they drift towards her. He bends down so that one of his knees rests against the AstroTurf, so that he’s at eye level with her. “Janie, kiddo, you and your mom are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I don’t know where my life would be without you guys. I know it’s been just the two of you for so long and that you are a family just you two, but I was hoping there could be some room for me somewhere in that family, too.”
Janie is nodding, she reaches up to wipe a tear from her eye. “Yeah,” is all she can manage to push out over her trembling lips.
“Yeah?” he asks. “I…I wanted to talk to you first, before anything because I don’t want to do anything that would make you unhappy. Kiddo, I want to be part of your family. I want to ask your mom to marry me. Do you think that’s okay?”
She doesn’t answer him at first, just throws her arms around his neck. He almost loses his balance and has to stand back upright, her arms still wrapped tightly around him, her feet dangling off the ground. He hugs her back, tight. She can feel the quickness of his pulse against her, knows exactly how important her answer was to him. So she finally says, “Yes! Yes, yes, yes.”
“Do you think she’ll say yes?” he asks as he puts her back down on her feet. There are tears in his eyes too.
“If you ask her right, definitely!” Janie says, smiling.
“Well you’ll have to help me, kiddo,” he says as he pulls her into another hug, one armed and not quite so tight. “We can plan it together. I want you to be part of it.”
She looks at him for a minute. He looks so excited that it almost makes him seem like a kid. She’s so happy for him, for her mom. They are going to be so happy together, she knows that. But there’s something that strikes her about what he said, about family. Being a family. She takes a deep breath. The air has cooled off even more now that the sun has disappeared from the sky and the chill of the breeze stings. “Scott,” she asks, she knows her voice sounds small, young, like she’s a little kid but she doesn’t care. “Does this mean you’ll be like my dad?”
She hears his breath catch in his throat, trapped behind his own emotions. He looks up at the cloudless sky, where the moon and stars have just begun to rise for the night, and blinks quickly. She knows he’s trying not to cry. She didn’t want to make him cry. Maybe she should take it back, it’s already been a lot for one night. Besides, she has a dad, she reminds herself. She doesn’t need Scott to be her dad, even if it’s what she wants. She’s about to say something else, something that will draw the question back in, make it like it never happened. Maybe she should correct herself and say step-dad.
Before she can say anything more Scott takes off his hat, runs a hand through his hair and then pulls her into another hug. His arms are warm as they wrap around her body and she feels safe and protected in his embrace. Like nothing bad can happen to her when he’s with her. He will always protect her and her mom. “I will be whatever you want me to be, kiddo,” he says. He bends down and presses his lips to her hairline, like her mom does. “And no matter what that is, Janie, I will always be here for you.”
As they are leaving to go back home Simon stops them.
“Hey man,” he starts, clapping Scott on the shoulder. “I was getting some pictures of the kids on the last hole there and I caught you and your daughter celebrating. It was such a beautiful moment that I snapped a picture. I hope that’s okay? I just thought that as a dad, if it were me and my kid I’d want to be able to go back and treasure those kinds of moments.”
Scott’s eyes widen for a moment in disbelief but then he pulls Simon into a hug. “Thanks so much man.”
Scott and Simon exchange information so that Simon can email him the photo. It really is a perfect shot, capturing a moment. The moment they became family, Janie thinks. She has her arms wrapped around his neck, clinging to him like she never wants to let go, her finger tips are white from the strength of her grip. Her face is buried in her neck, while he arms warp firmly around her holding her off the ground. Their golf clubs lay at his feet where they dropped them.
It’ll be her favourite picture of the two of them for years to come. Her mom’s too. In just over a month’s time, for Father’s Day, she will get her mom to help her get it printed and framed. She’ll wrapped it up carefully, all by herself, and surprise him with it when they go to Alma and Joe’s for dinner that night. Everyone will cry when he opens it. He’ll hang it proudly in the diner, right behind the till.