Chapter 8: What Douglas Remembered

Douglas's POV

I stood in the doorway with rain running off my cuffs and a four-year-old calling me Daddy.

Ivy said, very flat, "She asked me last month where hers was. I said he lived far away."

"That's fair."

"It wasn't a lie."

"I know."

She went to find a towel.

Polly walked up and took two of my fingers in her fist and pulled me in.

I sat on the edge of a couch with a worn blanket on it.

She climbed onto my knee and put the tiger in my lap and told me everything.

His name was Stripes.

He was afraid of the vacuum.

She did not like crusts, and Pop-Pop used to cut them off with a butter knife.

I listened to every word.

Ivy stood in the kitchen doorway with the towel and did not tell her to go to bed.

Ten minutes later my daughter was asleep against my shirt with her mouth open.

I did not breathe for a while.

"Put her down," Ivy said, quietly.

"One minute."

"Douglas."

"One minute, Ivy."

She did not say it again.

When I carried Polly to her bed, her hair slid back from her forehead and the white streak showed in the lamplight.

Ivy had the same streak at her own hairline.

I had kissed it a hundred times and never asked.

I went down the stairs without being told.

The ring was in the glove compartment of the car, in the same black box.

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