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I shook my head. “Nope. She has no interest in joining Brownies or Girl Scouts, but she’s obsessed with earning badges. About a year ago, she watched a movie where the little girl was a Girl Scout trying to earn a wilderness badge. The next week, she came home from school with a book of all the badges from the library. There are a hundred and thirty-five of those damn things, you know. My daughter is intent on earning every single one. Louise has even indulged her with a full set of all the badges. I’m not sure where she got them. I wouldn’t put it past her to have mugged a scout leader to make Maddie happy. But I’d like to kill her for not removing thebuglingbadge. To earn it, you have to be able to play ten bugle calls. Taps is pretty painful when performed by a six-year-old.”
Nora covered her mouth. “Oh my God. That’s hysterical. So who decides if she’s earned the badges if she’s not actually in Scouts?”
‘That would be me.”
“How many has she earned so far?”
“I think we’re up to seventeen. In the fall, we’ll go camping so she can earn her wilderness badge. I bought blow-up mattresses, but I’ve been told we have to sleep in sleeping bags on the ground. I’m not looking forward to that part.”
Nora’s eyes warmed. “You’re like William—a big, tough guy on the outside, but the inside is filled with mush.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew how I’d failed her on the invention badge.”
“Why did you fail her?”
“She invented these inserts that go in your shoes to keep your feet warm.”
Nora’s forehead wrinkled. “You mean like socks?”
I deadpanned. “Exactly.Socks.”
We laughed, and I shook my head. “I guess I should be glad she eased up on her other hobby, the one she had before earning Girl Scout badges.”
“What was the other hobby?”
“Searching real estate listings.”
“Like, regular house listings?”
“Yep. She would spend hours looking through the listings with photos. Sometimes she’d find features we don’t have at home and get upset when I wouldn’t add them to our place.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for one, she wanted me to add a dog-washing station.”
“That could be useful at least.”
“We don’t have a dog.”
Nora laughed. “Oh my God.”
“Tell me about it. Another time she asked me to add a urinal. Not sure what she was going to do with that.”
“Does Maddie look like you?”
“You tell me…” I pulled up a selfie she’d taken last week and turned the phone screen to Nora.
“Oh my gosh.” She took my phone from my hand. “Look at all that blond curly hair.”
“She gets that from her mother.”
“But she has your aquamarine eyes though. And your nice full lips. She’s beautiful, Beck.”
“Thanks. She keeps me on my toes.”
“I bet.” She handed me back my phone. “Maddie sounds pretty awesome. And for the record, her dad sounds pretty great, too.” Nora held up her drink, which was three-quarters of the way gone, and made a toast. “To good dads.”
I smiled. “And to the little girls who made us better men.”
