She laughed and looked up at me. “I said I love you, too.”
“The other part.”
“Daddy.”
I finally exhaled, hearing that beautiful word coming out of her mouth. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?” Miranda was in full-blown tears next to me.
“I’m eleven, not a baby. I know you’re my dad and I know I’m a Mitchell.”
“You always will be, Iz.”
We cuddled up together on the couch until Colt came barging in. He saw the three of us there and left without saying anything. I think he knew that whatever had happened had brought us back to where we needed to be.
Life got back to normal after that. After we finally got Izzy tucked into bed, we retreated to the master bedroom and plopped down on the mattress. I couldn’t remember the last time where my heart felt full.
Miranda climbed on top of my back and started massaging it. “It’s been a long day.”
“It’s been a long two months.”
She kept rubbing on my shoulders. “I bet your glad it’s over.”
“I’m speechless. For a while there, I thought she’d disowned me. You don’t know what it meant to find her in that truck, waiting for me. I still can’t believe it.”
“I still don’t know how you knew. That’s the thing with the two of you. You share somethin’ that nobody could ever explain. Even when you both are at your worst, it’s always been there.”
“Maybe.” There was something there between me and Iz. I didn’t know if it was fate, God, or just the fact that I’d raised her, but it was something.
I turned over and flipped Miranda on my lap. “I’m glad I came. Being here and seein’ the two of you reconnect like that was beautiful. It’s all I ever wanted.”
“Me too.”
“I guess Van really messed with her head.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I was in the room with them. It was ugly. Izzy called her liar and walked out. I really thought it made things worse.”
A voice in the doorway scared us both. We turned to find Izzy there, in her nightgown. “When Aunt Van said that stuff I went upstairs and looked it up. I know you told me not to, but it was all there, on the front page of a paper and everything. It talked about him bein’ in jail and what he did to her and her unborn child. All I had to do was search both of their names.”
We motioned for her to join us on the bed and Miranda scooted her body to the other side of me. We shuffled until Iz was between us. “You know you weren’t supposed to do that anymore.”
She shrugged again. “I had to know the truth. Then when I read it, I felt embarrassed.” She looked really sad for a second. “Then I got sad because I knew I made dad leave. I made everybody hate me.”
“Nobody hates you,” I reminded her.
“It felt like they did. That’s why I ran. I wanted to go where I couldn’t hurt anyone else. I just wanted to be alone.”
“Then you found me,” I added.
She smiled. “When I saw your truck, I knew you couldn’t leave me if I was in there waitin’.”
We both hugged our daughter. “We never wanted you to come here. We just wanted you to be at home where you belong.”
She held both of our hands, and as much as I enjoyed cuddling with my wife, I think neither of us would have traded her sleeping between us.
The three of us drove home the next morning, after Izzy apologized to her aunt and uncle for scaring them. I think Noah was the only one upset that she wasn’t coming to stay with them.
I didn’t know about Miranda, but I couldn’t stop smiling. She cuddled next to me the whole way home, letting me sing the wrong words to all of her favorite songs.
Maybe we should have just given her space. Maybe she needed to hear everything.
We may not ever know exactly what brought her back to me, but she was there and I wasn’t going to ever let her go again.
Everything got back to normal once we arrived in North Carolina. Izzy went to school as if nothing had ever happened. Her brothers welcomed her home by leaving fecal matter on their shared toilet seat and hitting her with a flying video game paddle.
After a black-eye and a huge welcome home dinner from her Mimi, we could tell that things were finally going to settle down. It had been so long since I was able to tuck her in at night. I almost hesitated before walking into her room.
She was sitting there waiting for me in her bed when I walked in. I tucked the covers around her and kissed her on the cheek. “You know, if you think you’re too old for this, I’ll be okay.”
She laughed. “As long as you don’t tell my friends, you can still do it.”