Page 85 of The Parent Trap

He’s calling me Dee, and I…don’t hate it.

“I know.” I laugh. “But also, you weren’t. Because I am—was…am. I don’t know. I don’t really unwind and let myself have fun pretty much ever, and that’s the truth, so the fact that I was able to with you says a lot.” My throat is tight, and I cough, trying to clear the lump from it. “Especially since, um…” I let out a harsh breath, force myself to say it, despite the sharp lance of pain the words bring. “Especially since Daddy died, having fun has just seemed…impossible. If not wrong. Enjoying anything. Doing anything but work has been…impossible and wrong.”

“I can’t say I knew your dadsuperwell, but I have a hard time believing he’d want you to be a workaholic monk with no life, never enjoying yourself, never doing anything for you. He loved you. He was proud of you, I know he was. And he’d want you to…live. Not just…exist. Not just wallow along and be miserable.”

“Goddammit, Thai,” I croak, throat tight and clogged. “How is it you can make me cry so damn easily?”

“Delia, I…shit. I’m sorry.” A swallow, audible across the line. “I’m sorry.”

“No! I…in this case it’s…well, not a good cry, like crying from happiness. But—I dunno. I guess because I know you’re right, about what Daddy would have wanted for me. He said as much, before he passed.”

I remember some of the last words he said to me:

“Have fun. You work too much…and get laid.”

His voice echoes in my head, gruff, but faint. Loving.

I’m not sure anything I’ve done with Thai counts as getting laid, per se, but…I think it means I’m trying.

I hear him, again—still:

“For your next trick, try being…just a girl.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You’ll meet a man who can show you. Let him.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

“That’s a promise you’re making me on my deathbed, Delia. You break it, I’ll haunt you.”

I’m trying, Daddy. I swear, I’m trying. But it’s hard—so hard.

“Lost you, I think,” he says.

“Sorry,” I say, trying to sound like my voice is more solid than it is. “I just…I was remembering some things Daddy said to me, before he passed. Advice a lot along the same lines as you’re saying he’d want for me. Don’t work so much. Don’t forget to have a life.”

“Is that what he said? Or is that a paraphrase?”

I laugh. “It’s a paraphrase.” I don’t believe my own ears, that I’m saying what comes out of my mouth. “What he actually said was—” I make my voice as deep and gruff as it will go, in my best impression of him, “‘Have fun. You work too much. And get laid.’” I break into something that’s equal parts laughter and tears.

“Your father, on his deathbed, told you to get laid?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Sounds like classic Mr. McKenna. He was an irreverent old bastard.” A clearing of his throat. “Coming from me, that’s high praise.”

“I know. And he was.” I swallow hard. “The rest of what he said is…well, it’s pretty private, I guess. But you aren’t wrong in that he’d approve of today—of me taking the day off to have fun with you.” I laugh. “He’d approve ofeverythingwe did, if it meant I was doing something that made me happy, that I enjoyed. He just wouldn’t want to know the details.”

“Did it?” he asks, his voice quiet. “Make you happy? Did you enjoy it?”

“You know I enjoyed it,” I whisper, too embarrassed to speak any louder. “And…yeah, I think it did make me happy.”

“Which part?”