“I want to do the praline pecan. It has pecan pieces in it. See?” Franny said, pointing to the ice cream.
“Cone preference?” I asked her.
She turned her excited face toward me. “I like waffle cones.”
I already knew what Addy liked. I turned to the young boy waiting to take our orders. “Two scoops of pecan praline in a waffle cone, two scoops of mint chocolate chip in a sugar cone, and a scoop of each of those in a waffle cone.”
“Mommy never gets us two scoops,” Franny said, her eyes big as she looked at her mother.
“It’s OK. Today’s a treat day,” Addy assured her.
I felt Addy’s gaze on me and met it with my own.
“You don’t like mint chocolate chip,” she said matter-of-factly.
That had been true at one point, but over the past ten years, mint chocolate chip was all I ever ate. I wasn’t telling her that, though. Instead, I shrugged. “I’m a daredevil.”
She grinned and shook her head, before reaching for the cone full of pecan praline that the guy handed over the counter. “Here you go, sweetie. Let’s find a good spot in the shade to eat this.”
Franny hurried for the door while licking her ice cream, and Addy turned back to me. “I’ll pay for ours.”
Like fucking hell she’d pay. “I got this,” I said, then took her cone from the guy and handed it to her. “Go help Franny find a spot.”
Addy studied me a moment, gave me a small nod, and did as I’d asked.
Addy
He was different. This wasn’t the man I’d come to know over the past month. He wasn’t as hard and cold. The fact that he remembered my favorite ice cream may have gotten to me a little. It was as if, for a moment, I had River again. I didn’t want to expect that or hope for it, though. But I was glad for Franny that this was the man she would meet and know.
“He’s really tall,” Franny said quietly. “He seems strong.”
Tall and strong. That was what she thought so far. I smiled as we sat down at a round table with a large umbrella blocking the sun.
“He also bought our ice cream. That’s nice.”
I agreed with a nod. “He’s a good man.” Deep down, I knew he was.
Franny grinned and licked her cone.
“Good spot,” Captain said, as he pulled out a chair on the other side of Franny and across from me. “Ice cream good?” he asked, looking at Franny.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand while nodding vigorously. “I love it here. We got to come here once for a treat when we first moved in. But it costs a lot, so we don’t come anymore.”
I wanted to crawl under the table and hide, but I had nothing to be ashamed of. Franny was not a deprived child. She had a good life, and I’d given that to her. I held my head high, as if what she’d just said wasn’t embarrassing to me at all.
“Ice cream all the time takes away the thrill of it. You’d get bored. Keeps it a treat when you only get it every once in a while,” Captain said. I could feel his gaze on me, and I lifted my eyes from my own cone. He gave me a small smile and took a lick of his ice cream.
“Mom said that you used to take her to get ice cream a lot. Did it get boring?” Franny asked with complete sincerity.
Over the years, whenever she asked about her dad, she’d ask me to tell her something about him. She remembered every single story. I dropped my eyes back to my ice cream. I hoped he understood that I didn’t fill her head because I was holding out hope that something would happen between us; I just gave her pieces of him along the way.
“Yeah, I did, and you have a point. It never got boring,” Captain replied.
“I didn’t think so. It tastes too good. We have ice cream for lunch at school on Wednesdays. But it doesn’t taste like this, and it’s only vanilla or chocolate.”
“Is that so?” Captain was listening to her intently, and she was eating up the attention.
“Then on Fridays, we get a cupcake to celebrate all the birthdays that week, and sometimes we get red velvet. Those are my favorite. Except my friend Anna likes the chocolate ones best, so her favorite week isn’t my favorite week and . . .” Franny had her father’s attention, and she was on a roll. I leaned back and enjoyed my ice cream, while our daughter told Captain everything he could ever want to know about her life. She hardly came up for air. The only breaks he got were when she needed to take a lick of ice cream, and even then, he barely had a chance to catch his breath before she started talking again.