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She is quiet for a moment before she glances at me. “I’m sorry I freaked out over the snake.”
“It’s fine,” I reassure her.
“Snakes are…not my favorite animal.”
“Perfectly understandable.”
“And I’m sorry about the…you know.”
“That’s fine, too.”
She touches my arm and stops walking. I stop as well, and she smiles at me. “You know, yesterday when I was threatening you with a piece of firewood, I thought you were someone very different.”
“An intruder?”
“No. I mean, you were Mr. Michaelson, my boss.”
“And who am I now?” I am almost afraid to hear her answer.
“You are Lilly’s father.”
“Is that better or worse?”
She looks away from me for a moment and watches Lilly and Sugar. “Better. Much better.”
I smile. “Good to know.”
We continue walking and, after a while, I say, “I heard you singing last night.”
She puts her hands to her face. “Oh my gosh. That’s so embarrassing.”
“You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re really good.”
She sticks her hands in her pockets. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional singer. A popstar.”
“And why didn’t you pursue that?”
“I had a teacher in eighth grade who told me my voice was adequate but not star quality.”
I stop walking. “That’s a terrible thing to say to a kid.”
She stops and looks at me. “Right? But at the time, I took it to heart. I figured he knew what he was talking about.”
“Man, I’d like to take that guy out behind the bleachers and have a talk with him.”
“Mr. Michaelson!”
I laugh. “Sorry, I just hate when people say stupid things without even considering what impact it might have on a child.”
“It sounds like you had a teacher like mine.”
I sigh. “I had a couple of them in boarding school. Granted, I was a bit of a pain. But some people shouldn’t be teachers.” We begin walking again, catching up to Lilly who has stopped to pick some flowers.
“Boarding school, huh?”
“Yeah. It was horrible and I let everyone around me know just how unhappy I was. I’ll never do that to Lilly.”
“Good.”