She handed me the shoes.
We walked under the spring night sky.
Halfway across the parking lot, she looked up at me.
“Grandpa?”
“Yes?”
“I was in the pictures.”
“You were.”
“Right in the middle.”
“Yes.”
“You promised.”
“I did.”
“You were right.”
“I usually am.”
She gave me a sideways look.
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” I admitted.
The next morning, Claire apologized.
Emmett told me afterward.
“She got down to Margot’s level and told her she had said something wrong.”
“What did Margot say?”
“She said okay.”
I smiled.
“Then she asked Claire whether she wanted to see her shoes.”
I laughed.
“For twenty minutes,” Emmett added. “Claire now understands the different sounds made by patent leather, canvas, and rubber soles.”
“That’s important information.”
“With Margot, apparently it is.”
Then his voice became quieter.
“Howard?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“I do. For making sure she was in those pictures. For being the person she knows she can count on.”
I thought about that for a long time afterward.
I am sixty-eight years old.
I have buried my wife.
I have buried my daughter.
Loss has taught me what matters and what does not.
What matters is a five-year-old girl in a pink dress who has already lost more than she should have.
A little girl who deserves to dance in parking lots.
To appear in family photographs.
To grow up knowing there is no question about whether she belongs.
What does not matter is whether protecting that truth made a wedding reception uncomfortable for a few minutes.
Phoebe would have approved.
Although knowing my daughter, she probably would have said it much louder.
One year after the wedding, Claire sent me a photograph.
It showed Margot at a birthday party.
Emmett stood on one side.
Claire stood on the other.
Margot was right in the center.
Laughing.
Underneath the photograph, Claire had written:
“Our most important girl.”
I printed it.
Then I placed it on my refrigerator beside an old photograph of Phoebe.
I don’t think my daughter would have minded.
I think she would have understood.
I think she would have been relieved.
And I know I was.
