FicWad

He’d known that once they were old enough to understand, to comprehend the lack of a mother in their life, questions were going to arise.

It was inevitable. Much as he tried to keep things going spectacularly, they would notice, they would see how their family was different than that of their cousins or friends.

He could scarcely recall a moment when the girls were young-Lucy was five and Molly was seven-; some new neighbors had moved into the house across the street from them in their muggle neighborhood. A family of four. The girls were nosy as ever, peeking out from the corner of the window to get a glimpse. He’d been in the kitchen, preparing dinner by hand when Lucy came barreling into the room and asked the dreaded question.

“Daddy!” Lucy skidded to a stop, giving his leg a hug.

He smiled down at her. “Yes, Pumpkin?”

“I has a question,” she stepped back, grinning toothily at him.

He didn’t bother to correct her. “And what’s your question?” he stirred the pot of potatoes.

“Where’s our mummy?”

He nearly dropped the spoon.

“W-What?” he asked, weakly. He turned to look at her, swallowing thickly. “What did you say, sweetie?”

“Where’s our Mummy?” Lucy repeated, not noticing the change in his demeanor. “Cody has a mummy and Danni has a mummy. Why don’t Molly and I have a Mummy?”

She was peering at him with those eyes of hers, so full of childhood innocence. Percy would hate to take it away.

What was he even supposed to tell her? It wasn’t supposed to happen yet. He’d thought he was safe! The girls were too young for that sort of talk, they wouldn’t get it. But now that she’d gone ahead and brought it up, he had to say something, least so she wouldn’t go and ask someone else.

He wasn’t even certain those were her words! Perhaps she was just parroting Molly again or one of her friends had asked-that Cody was a bit too nosy for Percy;s liking-or she must have overheard someone at the Burrow talking hushedly about it. Godric knows that George couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Percy didn’t know where the question had come from nor did he know how to properly respond. But the damage was done. He didn’t like this, being so out of his element, so caught off guard. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t how he functioned.

As Lucy waited for an answer, bouncing on her heels, Percy stared down at her, his tongue feeling awfully loose and unreliable.

No one else in the family had been through a divorce or gone through a situation close enough to his. No one was able to give him the advice he so desperately needed. What did they know about this? Sometimes, Percy envied his siblings’ marriages. They were happy and together and everything was so bloody perfect.

He couldn’t say the same, not by a longshot.

So, he did what every parent had done at one point or another, he put it off. She was far too young for that talk. It would need to happen eventually, but that time wasn’t now.

“Lucy,” he put on a false cheery voice, “I have an idea.”

Her eyes lit up. “What?”

“How about we go out for ice cream after dinner. How’s that sound?”

She gasped, letting out a giddy holler. “Okay, Daddy!” she jumped and down, once, then went running back into the living room to inform Molly of the night’s activity. “Molly! Molly! Daddy says we’re getting ice cream!”

Percy let out a deep breath, leaning against the counter.

It wasn’t that he didn’t feel awful, because he did. Merlin knows that he did. He didn’t want to lie or ignore the subject entirely. He didn’t want to be like the bloody coward that he felt like. That he knew he was. It was going to come up again, he very well knew that. There would come a day where they would be searching for answers and there would be no way of avoiding it.

He knew that.

But how did one tell a child that her mother had run off without a second thought about them?

Percy continued to cook; every once and awhile, he’d glance on over at his girls as they rammed the firetrucks that were gifted to them from Harry into each other, making siren noises.

That night, when the girls were put to bed, he laid in his bedroom for the longest time and wept.

The topic didn’t come up again until Molly was ready to attend Hogwarts. Even then, he’d frozen up when she came to him the night before, hesitantly and full of inquisitiveness. Without beating around the bush, she asked the same question Lucy had-the emotions swirling around within him just the same.

She just wanted to know, he had to accept that. It was natural. A smidgen of information, a piece of her who mother was and why she wasn’t there. A flicker into a person of her life that was only there for a short time. Percy couldn't’ fault her for that.

She hadn’t wanted much. Growing up all those years without a mother in her life had hardened that part of her heart. She hadn’t asked for a deep, thorough explanation, a reminiscing story of how they’d gotten together or really, much at all.

A picture.

That’s it. A simple picture.

Percy did, indeed, have one. The only one of Audrey that he secretly kept. With a sigh, he flicked his wand, the item flying down the stairs and into his hand. He couldn’t help but gaze at it as he gave it to Molly.

It was taken in the autumn of ‘98; as a matter of fact, he’d been the one to take the picture. He and Audrey had gone to a park on their third date. The season had changed and everything was bursting with radiance. The leaves were a beautiful shade of red and orange, flowing down as they fell to the ground. It was like a cascading waterfall. Audrey was beaming, a slight laugh escaping her from the thrill of it all.

Something happened inside of him, a small pang that he had to push through. He was no longer in love with her, but she was the first woman he’d fallen madly for and she was the mother of his children. She would always have a special place in him, even if that place wasn’t the same after all these years.

Molly had been alright with that. She accepted the picture without much else being said between them, taking it to her bedroom where it was placed in a drawer-he thought. Honestly, he knew he got off easy on that and he was selfishly relieved.

It’d been years since she left, but she was still a tricky subject to talk about. He’d been so hurt and he didn’t want his girls to have that same feeling, to have that ache because the realization of Audrey not wanting them would come eventually, even with him trying to delay it.

Or maybe, deep down, he was afraid. Afraid that with the knowledge their mother was out there-somewhere-they would embark on a mission to find her. To get some closure.

It was reasonable, but Percy didn’t want to think abou it.

He’d tried to be more than enough for them. Taking on and fulfilling two roles, a role that Audrey had simply given up on. It was difficult and stressful and some days Percy wanted to scream because he was up to here with everything-but he would do anything for his children. He’d let them put a ridiculous amount of hair clips on him or a tiara to his head that would surely cut off his circulation one day. He would tackle every bad dream, every skinned knee, everything that made them shed a tear. He would listen and comfort them through any inevitable heartbreak of their own and help them get ready for any dates, assuring them repeatedly that they looked absolutely beautiful and their date would adore them.

His girls were his entire world. The bitterness, which at one point had consumed him, was long gone by now. But his protectiveness of them, especially when it came to the subject of her , would remain.

~~

Lucy peeked around the wall into the living room. Percy was on the couch, engrossed in a novel he’d received as a birthday present. She knocked on the wall with her knuckles.

He glanced up.
“Hi, Daddy,” she gave him a small smile. “Hope I didn’t interrupt.”

Shaking his head, he patted the seat next to him. “Not at all. Did you need something?”

She sat down, snuggling into his side. Out of both of his girls, Lucy was the one that didn’t stray away from physical affection. Molly would let him hug her and give her a kiss on her cheek as a goodbye, then put on that facade of being embarrassed by it. He saw right through that-she would be quite upset if he neglected to do so.

“I mean,” she began, unsurely, “if you’re not busy....”

He closed the book. “Of course not,” he reassured her. “I’m never too busy for you, girls.”

She gave him another smile. “Okay.”

Percy sensed something wasn’t right. Lucy was chewing on her bottom lip and avoiding his eyes. He knew his daughters well enough, was aware of how they behaved when something was wrong and this certainly signalled that something was bothering her.

“You alright, Luce?”

She shrugged and he could practically see her mind overworking to come up with a response. “I just....I dunno. I just had a question.”

“Alright,” he said slowly, “what about, Sweetheart?”

She looked down at her lap. “Promise you won’t get mad?”

“Lucy,” Now he was concerned. He shifted himself a little to face her directly, studying her. “What’s wrong, honey? You know you and your sister can talk to me about anything. Is it that boy you’re seeing? Do I need to have a talk with him? You know boys at that age can be a little-”

“ Dad ,” she said with a slight giggle, “it’s not Dustin.”

“Oh,” he said, leaning back. “Well, alright, then.” For good measure, to lighten things up, he added, “Well, he’s lucky, then.”

It’d worked. Lucy laughed, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.

“What?”

“It’s true,” Percy nodded, a mischievous smile on his lips. “I’m within my full right to hex any boy that upsets you or Molly.”

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

He nudged her, playfully. “I could be worse. You remember how Uncle Bill was when Vic started dating?”

Bill had been regarded as the cool older brother for as long as Percy could remember. He and his younger siblings had idolized him. His laid back nature was one of the things that Percy had, admittedly, envied for a while. And he’d just assumed that when Bill was a parent, he’d have that same attitude.

However , a week after Vic came home from her third year of Hogwarts, there had been a letter addressed for her that she’d immediately taken to her room with a goofy grin on her face and sometime after, Bill had found out she’d been writing to a boy in her year-he’d been anything but cool .

He’d been adamantly against Vic dating, lamenting to Percy over a glass of firewhiskey over how his daughter was growing up too fast and he wished he could slow time down.

Of course, Percy understood. He sympathized-he did. His girls were interested in boys as well and he longed for those days when they would happily curl in his lap, snuggled against his chest as he read them a story of their choosing. But they had to grow up eventually and that's what he’d told Bill.

Lucy grimaced.

He laughed.

“Now, enough of that,” he waved his hand, brushing at the air. “You’ve stalled long enough.”

Just as he suspected, she grinned guiltily.

“Now, tell me,” he said. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

She didn’t speak for all of a minute. He watched a multitude of emotions cross her face all at once. Hesitancy. Apprehension. Uncertainty. Then, that familiar Gryffindor courage came shining out and she said so softly that he had to strain his ears, “It’s about Mum.”

Oh.

Oh .

“Yeah?” he said, managing to keep his voice steady while on the inside he was freaking out . His siblings would have told him that it was no big deal but that was completely incorrect to Percy. He thought it was a pretty bloody big deal. “What about her?”

He was taken back to that five year old, asking why she and Molly didn’t have a mummy. She’d been wanting something earnest, nothing that should have been told to her as a child her age.

However, she was no longer that same five year. She’d grown into a quiet, thoughtful thirteen year old who was seeking the truth. Despite that Percy wasn’t ready for it.

He just wasn’t sure if he was ready, to open to letting that part of his life resurface after burying it for so long. Some things were better left unsaid, left tucked away instead of dwelling on the what if’s and what could have been. It didn’t mean that it hurt any less, because even after all this time, there were moments where he was laying in bed, staring up at his ceiling blankly and just wondering what if things had been different. What if right at that moment, Audrey was curled up next to him, snoring lightly, rather than an empty, cold side that he’d come accustomed to?

But this wasn’t just about him anymore.

“Well,” Lucy said, drawing out the word, “I, erm, I was wondering....”

She trailed off. Clearly, she wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“What do you want to know?” he cut in, gently.

His baby girl was so relieved . Relaxed now, tension gone, sitting up straighter, looking him in the eye, determined . She was every bit of the Gryffindor that he knew she’d be. And he couldn’t help but have one thought: Audrey should have been there to witness it, to see how wonderful their daughter was turning out to be.

“Everything,” Lucy admitted.

“I see,” he sighed. “Suppose I should start at the beginning, hmm?”

She listened, attentively.

“Alright, well, your Mum was a Ravenclaw when we were in school. Met her on the train; she was a first year when I was in my second. And since we were in different houses, we didn’t see much of each other.”

Lucy nodded. “Did you think she was pretty, when you met her?”

He let out a chuckle. “Well, I didn’t think she was terrible looking, but at twelve, my eye wasn’t on girls.”

“What was it on?”

“Being named Prefect,” Percy said, reminiscing to that summer before Ron’s first year when he’d received his badge and a congratulations from Professor McGonagall. It’d been the happiest moment of his life. “Your Aunt and Uncles can attest, I was terribly insufferable at that time.”

“Oh, I don’t need them to tell me,” Lucy teased.

“Hush, you,” he commanded, jokingly before switching back to a more serious side. “Anyway, I didn’t really talk to your mother until after Hogwarts, when we were working at the Ministry before your Uncle Harry got rid of You-Know-Who.”

“When you weren’t talking to anyone,” Lucy said.

“Right.” It was still unpleasant to think about. But everyone had already forgiven him and for that, he was eternally grateful. “Your Mum was a secretary in the department that I was working in. She used to bring me coffee sometimes after most people went home and it was just the two of us.”

Lucy frowned. “But, Dad, you hate coffee.”

“Despise it,” he agreed. “But your mother didn’t know that.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “So you just...drank it anyway?”

“Sort of. I’d get rid of it when she wasn’t looking, usually.”

“Why didn’t you just tell her you didn’t like it?” Lucy’s eyes gleamed with amusement.

Honestly, he really should have.

“Luce, I’d only had one girl interested in me as a teenager and I didn’t even know if Audrey fancied me at that time, so I’d tolerate a little coffee if it meant spending a few minutes with her.”

“You know, Dad, that’s almost romantic,” Lucy grinned. “And kinda weird, coming from you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Percy said, dryly. “Anyway, yes, I tolerated it just so I could be with her and that worked until one day.”

“What happened?” Lucy asked, eagerly.

“Audrey and I decided to walk down to the cafeteria to get our coffee together and on the way back up, we passed by a potted plant and honestly, I’d just wanted to get rid of it so I poured it in.”

“And?”

“It started screaming,” he shook his head at the memory and she covered her mouth to smother her giggles. “One of those talking pots, wouldn’t you know it? Awful thing. I was so embarrassed but your mother thought it was hilarious and took to teasing me whenever the opportunity came to her.”

“....Wow, Dad,” Lucy couldn’t stop the stream of laughter that was erupting from her. “Brilliant. What happened after that?”

“Well, it was quite a strange year. It wasn’t really permissible to date amongst your co-workers but we snuck around it. She used to pull me in the broom closet quite a bit.”

Lucy’s face scrunched up at the thought. “Gross,” she muttered.

Percy rolled his eyes fondly.

“ Anyway . Sometime after that, I found out your Mum did, indeed, fancy me and we managed to have a few dates before getting together officially.”

“Did you think she was pretty then?” Lucy probed.

Percy smiled softly, recalling that moment when he’d begun to see Audrey in a different light. “She was the prettiest girl I’d laid my eyes on.”

“What’d she look like?” Lucy asked, relishing at being able to hear those intimate details.

“Like you,” he caressed the silk blonde locks she’d inherited from her mother. “Blonde hair and she never took it out of her braid, either, if she could help it. She was about average height, I’d say. She only came up to my chest. Hmm, her eyes are hazel, though and I used to get lost in them often. I think she thought I was being cheesy when I said that, but I’d meant it.”

Lucy nodded along, wearing a thoughtful expression. “I look like Mum,” she whispered-he assumed-more to herself than to him.

“Except for your eyes,” Percy said. “And your terrible eyesight. That’s all me, I’m afraid. Your Mum’s eyes are much better than mine are.”

“So, she doesn’t wear glasses, then.”

“Well, I’m not certain about now but when we were together, no. Although, she did use to take mine to try them on,” percy smiled wryly. “Thought it was the funniest thing.”

“What was she like?” Lucy asked, after a beat of silence for her to ponder what she’d been told. “Does she like reading, too? Do me and her have anything else in common?”

“She was....” he searched for the most appropriate word, “unique. Very unique. Very much her own person. She was the kindest person I’d come across but she also wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself. I think that’s what attracted me to her in the first place. She was the opposite of myself, in many ways. I preferred to be alone for the most part and she relished in large groups. I could read for hours and she positively loathed to read and made it known on more than one occasion.”

Percy paused. “Before we even began to get more comfortable around each other, your Mum had taken to embarrassing me on purpose.”

Lucy cracked a grin. “How?”

“Oh, many ways. The plant gave her an idea so she charmed my chair in my office to say some rather....interesting things whenever I sat down. Oh, and there was this one time where, for nearly a month, she would greet me rather obnoxiously whenever she saw me.”

“Did she make you laugh?” Lucy asked, curiously.

“Quite often,” Percy said, reminiscing back to those very times. “Of course, that was after we began to talk. I was quite irritated by her presence when she first arrived.”

“Why?”

“Well, I said I was quite insufferable,” Percy said with a chuckle. “It was a difficult year, too. Strange and difficult. Finding out I’d been wrong about my job then later finding out Professor Dumbledore was dead-not to mention everything else after.”

Lucy nodded wordlessly.

“But anyway. She was the complete opposite of myself, as I said, and she was always doing things unorthodox. Think she was trying to wind me up on purpose and I must say, it worked majority of the time,” Percy’s chest ached, drifting back into those old memories he’d been suppressing. Her grin that had once made his stomach flip flop was becoming vivid in his mind once again. “Really, I couldn’t stand her at first, if I’m being honest. She was a right pain in the bum and it wasn’t until one night she brought me a coffee because she said I’d been working too hard-that I finally noticed her.”

“Here. Take this. You look like dragion dung.”

“That’s hardly an appropriate way to speak to your co-workers during hours.”

“Oh, I see it now. You’re one of those uppity types, aren’t ya?”

He’d been rendered speechless by her sheer audacity; no one had spoken to him in that way since he’d first started working at the Ministry.

“Enjoy your coffee, Percy Weasley. And try not to tie your tie so tight next time. Cuts off air to your brain. Makes ya cranky. Like now.”

“Dad?”

Lucy’s voice brought him out of his daydream.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Why did she leave?”

Percy took a good, long look at his daughter. Her eyes, so full of wonder and defeat; her face worn in a way that should never have been.

And he hated it.

Hated what Audrey had brought on by her own selfishness.

“It’s complicated, Lucy,” he eventually settled on.

“How?” her voice was sharper. “How’s it complicated?”

Percy kissed her temple, soothing rubbing a hand down her back. “You have to understand; your Mum and I.....Audrey and I got married fairly quick after the war.”

“I know that,” Lucy’s voice was now tinged with impatience. “Uncle George said you were the second one, after Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur.”

“There was a reason for that,” he took a deep breath. “You see, Luce, after the war, we just...we all wanted some normalcy back. It was so tough for so long that we just wanted to feel something familiar again. So, we got married and tried to make life go on again.”

He continued, “It was okay for a while. We were happy. Audrey got along with everyone fine and I was slowly talking to the family again. I thought everything was going to be okay again.”

“But it wasn’t,” Lucy said, knowingly.

“No,” he agreed. “It wasn’t. Your Mum and I started having rows after Molly was born. We’d never really fought before that and then suddenly we were screaming at each other left and right.”

That was the most unpleasant phase of his marriage. The one where they’d gotten past being comfortable with each other and had gone on to nitpicking at everything. He could admit, shamefully, some of his worst offences where when he was exhausted from a day’s work and came home, scolding Audrey for trivial things, such as leaving a window or a cabinet door open.

But he admitted to his rather poor behavior. Audrey, more often than not, made countless excuses, stating numerously of her disdain on staying home to watch over Molly.

Initially, he believed it to be hormones from her pregnancy. His Mum had said that she still might be moody after giving birth. So, he brushed it off and when time came for her maternity leave to finish, he’d thought-given her complaining-she would go back. But with an angry fling of her arms, she informed him-bitterness stinging her tone-that she was intending to quit her job so they didn’t have to worry about a babysitter.

That was when the storm began to roll in.

“Do you regret it?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Getting married?” he clarified.

Did he?

In the short time he and Audrey were together, so many beautiful memories had become woven in his mind. Ones that’d he cherish. If only now things were different, better circumstances, but while the marriage itself hadn’t worked out, she had given him the two most precious gifts anyone had given him.

“No,” he assured, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “Because I’ve got you and your sister and I’d do it all over again if I had the chance.”

“You mean it?” she asked, insecurely.

“I mean it,” he affirmed. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Yes.” Percy recognized the pointedness of which she spoke. “You still haven’t told me why she left.”

“Right,” he mumbled. He rubbed at his chin. “Well, I’m going to be truthful, Luce, but I don’t want you to dwell on it.”

She nodded.

She was doing that a lot. Then again, what else was she to do?

“Your Mum wasn’t happy being a wife and a mother,” he admitted.

Lucy kept her gaze downward. “Did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t have to.”

Much as she tried to keep up the pretense, Percy had begun to see through it as the months passed from Molly’s birth. She didn’t have that gentle, nurturing aura to her and would frequently snap at little Molly for crying too much or showing blatant favoritism by the way she would instantly calm down in Percy’s arms when she’d previously been wailing in Audrey’s.

(Percy had nearly snorted at her claim that their baby was somehow favoring him, but he held it back when Audrey’s eyes practically had fire coming from them).

He’d brought his concerns to his parents, in hopes that they could share some wisdom to help them through it. It was the war , they said, she must be struggling . They were of the belief that Audrey would get accustomed to parenthood eventually, that she’d merely gotten off on a rocky start.

But it didn’t get better.

“She was impatient,” Percy recalled. “Not very eager to witness Molly’s milestones. Think she was resentful that she’d done it all so quick.”

He hadn’t known the correct way to approach the delicate subject with her, without sounding accusatory or making her believe that she was an awful mother. He’d come across her holding a sleeping Molly in her lap, with one arm over her middle to keep her from falling.

It proved that she was capable of acting motherly when she didn’t let her temper fly off so easily.

He’d thought, or maybe he’d merely been fooling himself to feel better about the situation that he’d tried so hard to avoid, things would get better.

He’d thought that she was genuinely glad when she found out she was pregnant with Lucy.

She never indicated anything else, nothing to suggest that she was dismayed by it. She was there to pick out colors for the nursery, to decorate it with some stuffed animals and had snickered when Percy failed miserably trying to put together the crib by hand.

But then, as the months passed, the due date inching closer, she became a little more withdrawn. Any pleasant mood or smile would wipe away at the mention of the baby. She quit participating in any talk about it altogether.

It left an uneasy feeling swirling in Percy’s stomach. Though, he tried to convince himself that it was just nerves. She’d be alright once the baby came.

She didn’t.

“Did she even love us?” Lucy expressed her doubt.

I don’t even know, myself.

“I wish I could tell you,” Percy adjusted Lucy’s glasses for her, they’d slipped down to her nose.“I wish I could say she loved you both dearly-and maybe she did, deep down-but the truth is, I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Lucy mumbled.

“But I love you,” it didn’t matter that she obviously knew that, he would reiterate it to them so he knew that they knew it. “And that’s never going to change.”

“I know, Dad,” she said, gratefully. “I love you, too.”

He ruffled her hair.

“I just have one more question.”

“Ask away,” he told her.

“When did Mum leave?”

“Shortly after we took you home from St. Mungos,” he said, heavily sighing. “Your Mum, she was....acting quite strange. She wouldn’t touch you and I was so busy trying to take care of you and keep Molly out of trouble I-” His words caught in his throat.

“You what?” Lucy said, concerned.

“I didn’t even notice the empty wardrobe,” he said with a slight, humorless laugh. “She’d left. Nearly two weeks after you were born and she left while I was changing you. I didn’t even hear here, didn;t even get to say goodbye.”

Lucy took his hand, squeezing it comfortingly.

“She left me a note, explaining everything. I’m glad you and your sister don’t remember. I-I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was terrified of letting you both down.”

Lucy looked scandalized. “You could never let us down, Daddy!”

He smiled softly. “Thank you, Princess.”

They sat there, silently, each drifting off into their own thoughts.

“How long did it take, you know, before it got better?”

He’d expected that question.

“A while,” he said, truthfully. “It took a great deal of time to stop feeling so bitter. There were days I didn’t want to get out of bed but I had to, because I had you girls to care for.”

“So,” Lucy’s voice had taken on a slightly teasing tinge-that he suspected was to break up the tension and honestly, he was grateful for that, “technically, that means you owe us, right? Because otherwise you would’ve stayed in bed and probably looked like Uncle Charlie when he goes months without shaving.”

A teeny smirk found its way on his lips. “Perhaps.”

“So, like a new broom owe us or extra hour till curfew owe us?” Lucy grinned.

“ Or ,” he chuckled, “how about I overlook the fact that Uncle George found you and that boy kissing in the back of the shop last week?” He raised his eyebrows when she smiled sheepishly.

“We’ll go with that.”

“I thought so,” he checked his wristwatch. He ought to get dinner started by now before Molly came to moan that she was positively starving. “And maybe a stop at that muggle pizza place is fine, to.”

“You’re the best,” Lucy kissed his cheek, jumping to her feet to inform Molly of their plans.

“And don't forget it!” he called to her.

He was getting up when she stepped back into the room, looking far more lighter than she had when she first came to him.

“Dad?”

“Yes?” He looked at her.

“Thanks,” she said sincerely. “I know I don’t appreciate you enough but I promise, I’ll do better. You really are the best.”

She left, making all sorts of racket as she ran up the stairs, hollering to her sister.

A warm sensation filled his whole body. He’d doubted for so long that he was doing the right thing, fretting and comparing himself to all those other parents that seemed to have it all together-

But his little girl thought he was the best.

And that was alright with him.