They didn’t help the missing of him, that phantom ache I felt in my heart as if it was missing a vital piece, but they made me smile.
I didn’t smile then, looking out the window as Danner got in the car, started it up so that “Snake Song” blew like smoke through the space between us and Main Street began to slide by outside my window. I touched my fingers to the cool glass and wondered when my Dad would see something new again.
“What’s up, Rosie?” Danner asked, adjusting his navy Entrance PD toque over his head.
It was snowing out, just a light dusting, but it was nearly Christmas and the streets were covered in it, just as Danner was, snowflakes melting on the tips of his long lashes, on his broad shoulders under his heavy coat. I wanted to capture one of the icy flakes on his cheek and bring it to my mouth.
I was eleven, but little thoughts like that had begun to stud my thoughts, making the topography of my mind rough and dangerous, riddled with landmines of desire I didn’t fully understand.
I pulled my own hat, a smaller one with skull and crossbones all over, down over my cold ears and looked back out the window.
“Nothing.”
He snorted. “Rosie, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you got a personality that poisons or lightens an atmosphere dependin’ on your mood. Right now, the air in here tastes like arsenic, so I’m thinking there’s something wrong over on your side of the car.”
I sighed, rolling my head against the back seat as if he was annoying me when really, I loved that he’d noticed.
“Fine, I’m missing my dad, okay? I know I’m eleven and too old to get all snot-nosed about something like that, but it’s true so whatever, okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed instantly.
“Yeah, like you don’t need to make a big deal of it or anything,” I told him.
“Right.”
“I mean it, Danner,” I said, because I only called him Lion when I was feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable.
“I hear ya, Harleigh Rose.”
“Good,” I said, looking out the front window as we turned off Main and the ocean opened up in front of us, gunmetal grey in the winter light.
“Good,” he echoed.
I slanted him a look to see if he was making fun, but his lips were their normal firm, full and flat.
We were silent after that, our Lion & Rosie playlist the only sound in the truck as we drove. I leaned an elbow into the passenger side window sill and thought about birthdays with my dad before he went to prison. When I was four, he’d taken King and me to Whistler and taught me how to ski on the bunny slope. When I was five, the year he got me my first pair of combat boots, he’d invited the entire club over for a party in my honour with a banner that said “Happy Birthday, Princess” and everything.
I vaguely heard Danner making a call in the background of my memories, but I didn’t want to listen or talk to him. It felt wrong to be with him and enjoy it when I couldn’t share the day with Dad.
“Rosie,” Danner called my name after a while and I adjusted so I could look over at him. “I’ve got two surprises for you today, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little angry with myself for not thinking of this one first, but it is what it is. We’re here now, and then we’ll go get your present after, okay?”
I frowned at him. “I don’t need even more fun!”
One of his thick light brown eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”
I huffed with frustration. “It makes me feel bad to be having fun on my birthday without my dad. God, I told you not to make a big deal about it and now we’re talking about it again.”
Danner bit the edge of his lip, trying to hide back a smile. “Well, I’m thinking you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
When I just continued to glare at him, he tipped his chin out the front window and I followed the gesture to see Ford Mountain Correctional looming ahead of us.
Something that had been germinating in my chest for months, that had been planted there years ago by a teenage boy when he’d saved me from watching my dad go down in gunfire, that had been watered and tended to since then with act after generous act, erupted through the malnourished soil of my soul and sprung into bloom. I could feel it unfurl, red and ripe and full of plump petals bowed into feminine curves.
It was the exact moment that I fell in love with Lion Danner.
My eyes shone with held back tears as I deep breathed to get myself under control. Danner let me have a moment, parking the car and walking around to my side to open the door like the gentleman he was even to an eleven year old.
I hopped out of the car into the crunching snow and followed my new, tender instincts by taking his hand in my gloved one.
“Thank you, Lion,” I said, staring at his big hands, warm even in the cold air, mapped with veins and topped with long, thick fingers.
His hand clenched mine, then twisted so our hands were intertwined. “Come on, I called ahead and he’s waiting.”
Danner
Harleigh Rose sat in the large, open room at a round table talking to her dad and smiling so big, I thought it would split her face in two. She wasn’t supposed to touch him, it was forbidden, but she kept forgetting, putting her hand on his arm and then glaring at the correction officers who told her to quit it.
I was outside the room in a viewing area, because it was only one visitor at a time. The distance was nice, it let me see how much better Harleigh Rose looked after the three months she’d spent with my parents and me compared to her time with her mother. Her hair was a clean, shining rose, yellow and brown gold streaming down her back, her clothes new and pristine. She’d gained such much-needed weight even though she was naturally long and thin, and her skin had lost its pallor.
There was a warmth in my chest that felt like something more than pride at doing a good deed. I was invested in the Garro kids. One might even say, I loved them.
My cell rang in my pockets and I knew who it was before I even answered it.
“Dad.”
“Lionel, why the fuck are you at the correctional facility meeting with that felon?” he demanded. “You insisted on taking those kids in, and I get you, that kind of life is not meant for the lowest of the low, let alone children, but you have to keep them away from their parents! Whatever positive influence we may have on them won’t take otherwise.”
I rubbed my hand over my face and leaned a shoulder into the glass as I watched Harleigh Rose tip her head back in tandem with her father and laugh her bold, brassy laugh.
“Not going to keep her away from her father, Dad.”
“You know what those thugs are like, Lionel. You went to the academy, you worked with Sgt. Renner and I know you saw how brutal those biker gangs can be.”
I did, and I had.
The club in Vancouver, where I’d done my police training, called Berserkers MC, was one of the most despicable organized crime syndicates I’d ever had the misfortune of studying.
“Zeus Garro jumped in front of a bullet to save Louise Lafayette,” I pointed out. “It’s not like the man doesn’t have a heart or an obvious soft spot for kids.”
“You goin’ soft on me?” Harold Danner said quietly.
It was when he went quiet that you had to be careful.