Daddy in Dress Blues by Cathie Linz

Author:Cathie Linz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

CURT GAVE JESSICA a bewildered look that let her know he was still uncertain about how to deal with the subject of Gloria’s death. That he revealed even that much was a big step. Not long ago he would have responded with a steely-eyed expression that rejected any emotion. Yes, he was coming around, slowly but surely.

Then Blue went on to ask, “Can you somersault when you get dead?”

Now Curt’s expression was tinged with panic. Since Curt was so uncomfortable with the subject during Daddy Boot Camp, Jessica had only had time to caution him not to tell Blue that death was like sleeping, because that would make the little girl afraid to fall asleep. She hadn’t gone on to tell him what to say. But at the moment he looked incapable of speaking at all.

“If you’re in heaven, I don’t see why you couldn’t do somersaults there,” Jessica replied, smoothing back Blue’s damp hair from her face.

“Will Tawanna get dead?” Blue said.

Squeezing the little girl’s hand, Jessica replied, “Not for a long time, hopefully.”

Turning away from Jessica, Blue intently stared up at her father. “Will you get dead, Daddy?”

Curt stood there, frozen, unable to use the old line that marines never die, they just go to hell and regroup.

“Everybody dies sometime,” he said, his voice sounding rusty even to his own ears. Clearing his throat, he added, “But I plan on being around for a very long time. Until you’re at least as old as I am.”

“Everybody dies?” Blue repeated, her eyes going as big as saucers. “Even the Easter Bunny?”

“Uh, well, I’m no expert on the Easter Bunny,” Curt replied, backpedaling. “Jessie knows more about that stuff than I do.”

“You folks need a booster seat?” Emily, a longtime waitress, interrupted them to ask. Bending down to Blue, she said, “Well, hi there, sweet pea.”

Emily had been working at Dino’s for as long as Jessica could remember. She usually only worked the weekday afternoon shift, so Jessica didn’t get to see her that often anymore. The sixty-something waitress was known for her outgoing personality and flamboyant earrings. Today the earrings were dangling red cherries that bobbed around her face as she spoke to Blue. “Aren’t you just the cutest thing.”

“No,” Blue said. “G.I. Joe is cuter than me.”

To give him credit, Curt didn’t immediately correct her by saying that the military action figure wasn’t cute. Instead he firmly stated, “No one is cuter than my daughter.”

Blue beamed. Just beamed.

Jessica wanted to reach out and hug Curt. She wished she had the words to tell him how important this moment was, how much a little girl needed her father’s love and approval.

Not having received either from her own father, Jessica knew firsthand how you could spend a lifetime longing for something you never had. First it had been her father’s love, then it had been Curt’s love, and then it had been a child’s love. And while the children in her classes loved her while they were with her, they moved on.

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