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“I m-made you?” I stuttered on those shocking words. “How? Why?” I had no idea at all how I could have made Dalton want to become a police officer. My mind struggled as I tried to determine what he meant.
“It was the day of your dad’s funeral,” he said, his voice so sad that my throat closed up, making it hard for me to breathe. Thinking back on that day was difficult, because it was such a blur . . .
• • •
I’d stood in the front row of the funeral home’s chapel, my mom barely able to function as she sat next to me, her eyes glazed over and her cheeks red and chapped from days of crying. She’d blown her nose as tears spilled down her face, just as they had since we found out my dad had been killed. She hadn’t taken the news well, and I’d found her in the back of her closet, buried under a pile of Dad’s clothes on more than one occasion.
As torn apart as I was, it was awful to watch my mom crumple in the wake of it all. It made me feel like I needed to be strong for both of us, but I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t even fake it. My dad had been my hero, and now he was gone. He’d never walk me down the aisle, or see me graduate from college, or anything that I had always assumed he’d be around for.
When you’re a kid, you never think about losing a parent. You need them too much and assume they’ll live forever, that they’ll always be there for you. My mom’s withdrawal from life—from me—devastated me, making me feel as if I was losing them both at once.
The sounds of soft conversation and muted grief filled the room, and when I turned around once to look behind me, I noticed that the room was completely packed with people, but I didn’t really see anyone. There were a lot of men in police uniforms, but that was the only detail I really noticed. Aside from some family members and Kristy, I had no idea who was here, although we were informed later that hundreds of people had stood outside and filled the parking lot because there wasn’t enough room for everyone inside.
It all seemed like a bad dream I desperately wanted to wake up from, but couldn’t. Kristy wrapped her arm around me, her own tears flowing. My dad was her second dad, and I knew it was a painful loss for her as well. Everything around me seemed to move in slow motion, my mind unable to process any of it. I was completely numb and out of it, going through the motions robotically because it was required of me, but not really absorbing any of it. I just wanted my dad back, and no one could ever make that happen for me. It killed me to think tha
t I’d never be the same girl ever again.
I suddenly wondered—can you still be Daddy’s little girl if you don’t have a dad anymore?
• • •
I shook my head to rid myself of the memory and rejoined Dalton in the present. “You were there? You came to my dad’s funeral?” My eyes continued to fill and I tried my best to hold back the tears, but failed as two fell.
Dalton nodded before reaching out and wiping the tears away with his thumbs. “I don’t mean to make you sad. Please don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it. But go on,” I said. “I want to hear this.”
“I was there. The whole school was there. I’m not surprised you don’t remember, you seemed pretty out of it. But then you gave that speech. I don’t know how you pulled it together to speak, but I was so glad you did.”
I barely remembered that either. I mean, I knew I talked at my dad’s funeral, but I couldn’t remember anything I said. It was like being in a fog, a day thick with emotion and so much sadness that the air felt almost too heavy to breathe in.
“What did I say? If you remember, I mean.”
“Oh, I remember.” Dalton sucked in a breath and his eyes closed for only a moment before reopening. “You said that every little girl was supposed to idolize their father, and that you were no exception. But that you didn’t only love him because he was the best dad ever, you loved him because he was a good man. You called him a hero in every sense of the word. You said that your dad was a great police officer because he wanted to protect people, he believed in right versus wrong, and he was a man of good character.”
More tears spilled as I nodded. “He was the best man I ever knew.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe you were there.” I didn’t remember Dalton being there, and I would have remembered that because even in my zombie-like state . . . well, it was Dalton. “And I can’t believe you remember my speech.”
“It sort of changed my life, so—”
He looked away, and when he said nothing else for a moment, my curiosity forced me to prod him.
“But why?” I asked, wanting to make sense of it all. “Why did what I said about my dad mean so much to you?”
Dalton’s face tightened and he blinked rapidly, staring at his hands in his lap. “Because I grew up in a shitty house, Cammie. When you were up there saying those things, I couldn’t relate at all. I didn’t feel an ounce of what you felt for my own dad, but I wanted to.” His voice cracked on that last part, and he lifted his gaze to mine. “I mean, I hoped that someday I’d have my own family, and I wanted my kids to feel about me the way you felt about your dad. I wanted to be someone’s hero. I wanted someone to love me the way you loved him.”
I couldn’t fight the tears at all by this point and I finally stopped trying. I couldn’t believe that I had affected Dalton’s life choices to that extent. It was more than a little overwhelming.
Dalton reached out and touched my cheek. “Seeing you at the funeral damn near killed me that day. It hurt me to see you in so much pain. You had no idea, but I wanted to protect you from that moment on. I did a really shitty job of it, obviously, because I couldn’t even protect myself back then.”
He wanted to protect me?
“Aside from that,” he said, “your speech inspired me. You inspired me. I never had anyone to look up to, but I wanted to be the kind of man that others did. You gave me that hope.”
“But you always were,” I insisted.
