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"Are you okay?" He heard her say in a small voice.
He smiled. "I'm fine now that I'm with my princess."
Silence followed, broken by Giselle's whisper, "I'm sorry..."
Abbott placed his cheek on top of her head and replied, "For what?"
"I don't know..."
"Well, then you shouldn't be."
"But I am..."
Abbott chuckled softly and said, "...which brings us back to the same question—Sorry for what?"
"Well," she said, "for not being here with you...by your side."
Abbott chuckled again. His little girl seemed to be growing up. "I think out of the two of us, it's my job to take care of you. I should be the one to worry about your happiness, not the other way around."
She paused. "Your smile makes me happy, daddy."
"Right back at you."
Giselle untangled herself from him. "I miss her so much."
He looked at her face, seeing so much of Rose in her, then his eyes darted toward the floor underneath his feet as he said, "I do, too. She was my companion." He gulped. "It seems like it was just yesterday when she..." His voice trailed off.
Giselle placed her hand on his back and rubbed it soothingly. "You have me."
He turned to her and poked her nose, smiling. "And you, me."
She smiled in reply.
"You're just like your mother, you know," he said. A small smile played on his lips. "And not just physically. You have her spirit, her generosity."
She blinked thrice in a second.
He placed his hand on her head. "I'm so proud of you."
She smiled, her eyes filling up.
Rose had once told him that it was all she'd ever wanted to hear her father say, that he was proud of her. His daughter's tear-filled eyes confirmed to him that maybe it was almost every kid's wish.
Abbott returned the smile. A long moment of comfortable silence followed. She placed her head back on his shoulder, and he went back to staring at his wife's smiling photograph.
The thought crossed his mind again, and he couldn't seem to shake it off. What would Giselle do if he left her the way Rose had?
With a heavy heart, he said, "I have something to tell you."
"Yes?"
"When I..." He knew it would hurt her, but he had to let it out. He couldn't put a finger on the reason, but he was convinced that she had to know. "When I die, Giselle, I wish for my body to be buried here in Petrichor, next to Rose's."
Giselle sprang to her feet and left him sitting on the staircase alone. He looked up at her.
Abbott got up to his feet, ready to explain himself. Only, he didn't know what to say.
"Don't you dare," she said, her voice cracking, "talk to me that way—I've lost enough, don't you think?"
