Mrs Hamilton continued, "You used to be so polite and reserved, Zara, but lately you have grown increasingly rude and disrespectful and arrogant."
I laughed, because I couldn't stop myself. I'd thought—hoped, even—that Zara took exclusively after Abbi, but that was me, all me: increasingly rude and disrespectful and arrogant. Zara was my daughter; she was mine. I knew right then and there I loved her and would love her, no matter what.
I laughed because this was the last place in the world I expected to get that push I'd been waiting for—a principal's office. But seeing Zara's presentation, the pictures she took and cherished, and seeing her stand up for their importance to her, that did it.
Because I did nothing to deserve that kind of love and devotion from my daughter. Hell, when she gave her presentation in class, all she knew was that I was gone from her life. But she loved me.
And I loved her.
It really was that goddamn simple.
"Do you find something humorous, sir?"
I shook my head and waved my hand. "No, no, sorry."
"Maybe instead of laughing you'd like to correct the behaviour of your daughter?" Mrs Hamilton asked, assessing me with irritated eyes over her half-moon glasses.
I looked at the back of Zara's head and then at Abbi. Then I shook my head.
"No," I said, "no, thank you, but I don't think I will do that."
Zara finally turned her head toward me. She peeked at me with one green eye just visible past her curtain of wild blonde hair. I winked at her as Mrs Hamilton bristled as she adjusted herself in her chair.
"Zara was rude to her teacher, to me, to this institution," she said. "We do not allow that kind of behaviour here."
I bridged my fingers and grinned wickedly at the principal.
"Well, I say fuck any 'institution' that doesn't see what a brilliant student Zara is."
Mrs Hamilton nearly choked. Zara's lips cracked into a smile as she watched me. Abbi's mouth was hanging open as she stared at me.
"Excuse me?" Mrs Hamilton said, clutching at her imaginary pearls around her throat.
"I can repeat myself if you didn't hear me, ma'am," I said, the shark awakening inside of me, for once for something I actually gave a damn about. "I don't see a goddamn thing wrong with what my daughter did, and what's more, I’m proud as hell of her."
"You are a very crass man," Mrs Hamilton said, aghast. "Very rude. I suppose you are where Zara gets that from."
I grinned wickedly and leaned forward. "I sure fucking hope so, love."
"I think it goes without saying that neither you nor Zara are welcome back at this institution."
I nodded and stood. "Yes, I rather expected that."
Mrs Hamilton arranged her papers as I took Zara's hand and she smiled up at me.
"I hope all that was worth it," she said.
Abbi was looking at me as she replied, "I think it was more than worth it."
She took Zara's other hand and we walked out together, the three of us. Out in the hallway, at first the only sound was the echoing of our footsteps on the marble floors.
Then Zara glanced up at me.
"You said I was your daughter," she said, her words simple, her meaning not.
Abbi and I locked eyes before I looked down at Zara.
"And you said I was your dad," I told her.
She nodded and that was all that needed to be said between us: I was promising to always be there for her and she was promising to always believe that I was going to be there for her.
It was as simple as that.
Because we loved each other.
Abbi looked over at me and there were tears in her eyes.
After another stretch of silence, Zara asked, "So where am I going to go to school?"
Abbi sniffled and wiped her hand under her nose. "Um, I've been looking at this one really good school."
I frowned at her. Had she predicted that I would essentially get Zara kicked out of school?
"Really?" I asked her. "Where is it?"
We pushed open the doors and all three of us blinked against the blinding afternoon sunlight, golden and pure. Abbi's hair glowed like an endless field of wheat dancing in the wind as she smiled at me.
"Dublin."
Epilogue
Abbi
I wondered how long it would take him to notice.
It was a year later and the whole family was up in the Glendalough Mountains for the very same Celtic festival Michael and I stumbled into when we tripped, like drunken fools, into love. The sun danced on the lake exactly the way I remembered it: like a field of glistening diamonds. The breeze swept the same sweet scent of the pines over us like a favourite perfume and the grasses brushed against our bare, tanned legs like an old dog, happy to see us return. My heart pounded with the familiar rhythm of the drums, because I had that same feeling as ten years ago: the feeling that something wonderful and frightening—and exhilarating and beautiful and precious—was starting.
Ma was the first to notice.
All fifteen or so of us arrived by the same rickety old bus with the same grouchy old driver who shooed us all off without waiting long enough to fully brake; neither Michael nor I told our family we might have a teeny bit of an idea why the driver was less than accommodating toward us. For the children we got hot chocolates and for the adults, Irish coffees. I offered to add the Irish part and Ma's sharp eyes noticed I skipped a cup: mine. She moved in close to me after I passed out the drinks to everyone.
"Who else
