“Are you going to be like this the entire trip? You'll put a dampener on the whole thing”.
“I certainly hope not… then again, I'm not puking my guts up yet, so I'll reserve judgement”.
“The least you could do is make yourself useful, come and help me unpack”.
“I will, love; I will… just as soon as I calm my nerves down. I'm going to go for a walk, I'll check up on the girls along the way”.
“They're not children, they can look after themselves, I'm sure they'll be fine”.
“Just checking”.
She sighed and shook her head in dismay.
“Do you know what your problem is? You worry about everything”.
He shuffled past her, back into the cabin.
“So you keep reminding me. I'll be back before you know it”.
“Do you even know where the girls are?”
“I know their cabin number, I'll find it”.
“I'll probably be done before you get back", she rambled, clearly not particularly happy with his decision to leave the cabin, “Well, since you insist on going, please see if you can find hand lotion, I'm not sure if what we have will be enough”.
“I'll be back at the drop of a penny”.
“I should certainly hope so”.
With that, he slipped out of the cabin room with keycard in hand, before she could lambaste him any further.
For all the diabetes levels of sweet that she was capable of being at times, there was that all too familiar overbearing side that came with; it probably wasn't all that difficult in hindsight to see why their daughter had decided to go on a rebellious rampage.
Honestly, Edward didn't really understand what it was that his daughter was going through, or whether or not this gay thing was merely a faze or a permanent fixture. Did it bother him? Initially probably, but perhaps that was mostly due to being confronted with the stark reality that he wouldn’t be getting a grandchild. Now that he had had time to come to terms with it, he had to admit that he harboured no ill feelings towards her choice of sexuality, he however knew better than to go against his wife on this, but was it to continue being at the cost of a relationship with his daughter. He knew better than to come between them, he had been blessed with two strong women in his life, but the flipside was that they were constantly at loggerheads.
There were certainly worst things in the world than his daughter being gay, for example discovering she was involved in any form of sex work, addicted to heavy drugs, or jailed for a heinous crime. It could be argued that his daughter was at least still on the side of sanity.
If he didn't think about it as deeply as he used to, he found that it was a great deal easier to contend with.
Slipping past people carrying and wheeling things to their cabins, he stopped before a crew member to ask her for directions.
“Sorry, one second, sir”, she replied, helping a family who had slipped in to ask for her assistance a mere second before him. They seemed like a nice family, a young couple and a little ginger haired boy with the sniffles. His interest in the family stemmed from the memories of what his own little family once were, happy, united, and inseparable.
Once she had answered their questions, the family went off in the direction they were given, the little boy continuing to wave back to her as they left.
“Yes, how may I help you, sir?” She asked, finally granting him attention. He peered down at her name badge; Faye was her name and her title, shore excursion manager.
“Hello Faye, sorry to bother you”.
“It’s no trouble”, she replied with a smile.
“I appear to have gotten myself a little lost, I was hoping you could direct me towards cabin number one, zero, five, zero. Are you the right person to ask?”
“Certainly, sir. Cabins numbered one thousand and up are on the first floor, two thousand and up on the second floor and so on and so forth. The numbers following determine where the cabin is in relation to the ship, lower numbers are towards the front. I hope that helps”.
“Thank you, Faye, you're a star”, Edward thanked her and was on his way.
Finding the girl’s cabin really wasn't as difficult as he had at first thought it might be with that lovely lady’s help, but that didn't mean the journey was any quicker, for besides weaving in and out of excitable, fairly overburdened holiday goers, there was simply far too much to distract, to steal attention away from his goal. Bars, restaurants, arcades, gyms, swimming pools, a cinema, bowling alley, pubs, casinos - something he resisted a tremendous urge to visit - and much more, chances were that anything you could think of was available on this ship.
Eventually he found himself standing before his daughter’s cabin door, in a corridor significantly less lavish than his own, her giggles coming from behind it. Contemplating the outcome of disturbing a possibly private moment between she and her girlfriend, he hesitated for a second, before plucking up the courage to knock.
“Who is it?” Returned the voice of his daughter’s girlfriend.
“It's Edward, I just came to check if you two found your cabin okay and settled in fine”, he replied.
“It's your dad”, he heard a lowered voice.
“We’re fine, dad”, his daughter replied.
“Do you have everything? If you need anything your mother has…”
“Jesus, dad, we're fine, honestly, if we need you, we’ll come and look for you”.
People in the corridor were beginning to glance over at him and he could bet they were thinking he was here to harass the young women inside the cabin.
Feeling a bit of an idiot standing outside the door, he slowly grew
