Chapter 41

My mind was in turmoil when I escorted my daughter Katy to school for the first time. Of course, we had been there before, and was she probably a lot less nervous than I was. But starting school is a first real hint to a parent that someday something very precious to you will grow up, leave you and start a life of their own. I know, it would take more than a decade, but the seed was now planted. I should be prepared when the time came. When I looked at her interaction with other children, I was sure she would be ok. I hoped that I would be, too.

While leaning on the classroom's wall, my mind went back a few months ... back to the time when I was still Eric, and she was Lily.

It turned out that I didn't need to sell my old home. It was sheer luck that I had decided that Lily and I should take a cab to the airport when we flew to the West Coast, to look for a new place to live. We rented a car and drove around and looked around - and enjoyed our time together.

Then, on Monday morning, my aunty's call woke me up in the hotel. She told me that our house and car had been burned to ashes. She told me that it seemed that in Sunday service, one of preachers had gone a bit overboard. He had declared me to be a reincarnation of the devil, who had caused all this misery by marrying the Whore of Babylon with Lily being our bastard succubus. One of his 'lambs' had taken it quite literally, and had decided to act. She was captured praying by the roadside at the scene. She was now hospitalized, but they were afraid that she might not be the only one. They really, really hated me.

The insurance company offered me money - 80% of the full value of the house and all the other stuff. I took it. After what had happened to Lily and me, we had no legal problems in changing our names quickly.

We managed to do that, and disappear, just before the story hit the national news. It was my 'fifteen seconds of fame, ' but I made sure that I was not there to face it. Luckily, some married Washington politician was 'exposed, ' literally, while having good time with his male lover. That made much better 'news.' So, as nobody was telling the story, it was soon buried. I was very happy about that.

Once again I looked at my daughter - and she was MY daughter. Ok, my aunty and Beth might disagree a bit, but they also had their hands full. They had decided to move close to us AND help the poor girl who had been found in the same sex-house with Lily. I guess she considered me as more or less a finished project, and now she wanted another one, or ... she was just an old softy! Of course, she would still kick my ass if I ever said that out loud; though the thought of teasing her about that brought a dim smile to my face.

"Adorable, aren't they?"

My solitary daydreaming was interrupted by a female voice. By a deep, harmonious voice the source of which was a prototypical 'California Girl.' Dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, some freckles, and just enough curves. I made sure that my gaze remained on her eyes.

"Yes, they are. I'm sorry, I was lost in my thoughts for a moment. Noel Heller, father of Katy. Pleased to meet you."

"I know, my daughter Evelyn - or Eve - and your Katy are already friends, and my name is Lindsay, Lindsay Hollis."

Her hand was soft but still there was some strength in her grip. Only the tiniest of wrinkles around the corners of her eyes hinted that she probably was a bit older than me. Suddenly the closeness started to feel more intimate than anything I had felt for more than a year. Then I started to mentally withdraw. She kept looking at me cocking her head a bit.

"I noticed that you are the only single dad here. Couldn't your wife make it?"

An innocent question. Almost. During the last few months I had learned to build a wall around several things in my past, so that occasional inquiries would just bounce off and I was able to give a standard answer of 'her mother and I are separated.' It is not that I would have liked to forget that I had been married to Sara, but the opposite. Our time together had been so short and precious that I felt that I could not give away anything about it, or it would be lost forever. Like she was. The final insult had been that they had accidentally 'lost' her ashes, and had tossed them in the corner of the graveyard behind the crematory.