He looks at me for a second, and something moves across his face that might be amusement if the look wasn’t so serious. "We are," he says. "And that brings me to the other thing I wanted to talk to you about." He reaches over and picks up the cup of water from his tray before taking a slow sip. "When they finally let y'all in after surgery, I wasn't fully with it. I know that. But I was with it enough to see the two of you walk through that door, and I saw you holding her hand."
I don't look away from him. "Yes sir."
"I wish someone had told me before I had to get in a car accident to find out." He says it without real heat in it, more like a man who has made peace with something, but still wants to make his point. "But I'll give you that one, given the circumstances. I know how Molly is, and I know she needed time with it before she was ready to let it be anybody else's business." He pauses. "How long?"
"A few months," I tell him. "We kept it between us for a while because we wanted to understand what it was before everyone else weighed in on it. That's on both of us, and I'm not going to apologize for it, but I want you to know it was never about disrespect. It was about doing right by her. We were going to tell you on Wednesday."
He nods slowly. "I can respect that."
There's a beat where neither of us says anything, and the machine beside him hisses in the room as it keeps the fluid off his lungs. I've been thinking about what I want to say to him since I got the text this morning, and some of it I have in order and some of it I don't, and I've decided to just say it the way it comes because Caleb is not a man who needs it pretty and together.
"I'm not going anywhere," I tell him. "I need you to know that first. This isn't something I'm doing halfway or on a timeline that has an out built into it. I'm in this because I love her, and I have for longer than she knows, and at some point — not tomorrow, not next week, when the time is right for her — I'm going to ask her to marry me." I hold his gaze, because what I'm about to say matters and I want him to see that I mean it in full. "But I need to know you're okay with that. I need to know that you approve."
He holds my gaze, and I can see him coming to grips with all of this.
I keep going, because I didn't drive over here to say half of it. "You've known me since I was a kid. Since before I knew who I was going to turn out to be, and you never once treated me like I wasn't worth the time. Every summer when Levi and I were trying to help you, every project, every thing you ever showed us — you never once made it easier on me because of my dyslexia. You didn't explain things slower or check up on me differently or pull me aside and ask if I was keeping up. You treated me exactly the same as you treated Levi, and you have no idea what that meant to a kid who had spent most of his school years being handled like he was stupid and a mess. I have respected you my entire life because of that." I pause, because the inside of my chest is tightening and I’m close to tears. I need to take a second. "I don't take it lightly, what I'm asking. I know what she is to you, and I know what it costs you to let someone else love her the way I do. So I need to hear it from you."
Caleb is quiet for a long moment, but I let him take the time he needs.
When he speaks, his voice is rougher than it was, and I think some of that is the surgery and some of it is not. "You know, when Levi first brought you around, you were this scrawny kid who'd repeated two grades and had a chip on his shoulder the size of the state of Alabama." The corner of his mouth lifts in a faint grin. "And I watched my son become your best friend, and then I watched you figure out who you were, before you became the kind of man that a father hopes his kid has in his corner." He shifts again, carefully. "Ruby has loved you like one of ours for years, and Levi trusts you with his life, and Lucy thinks the sun rises and sets on you. Which says a lot because sisters are rough, man." He pauses. "But my daughter? She is happier than I've seen her in a long time."
I don't say anything.
"I saw her face when she walked through that door the night of the surgery." His voice is quieter now, rough as he lets his emotions through. "And I saw her about to lose it, but you stepped up behind her. You put your hand on her shoulder, and you held her up. In that moment when she needed someone, she didn’t have to ask you. You knew," he stops, raising his eyebrows at me. “You knew, and not many men pay that much attention. But you did.”
He picks up his water again, takes a sip, sets it back down.
"So to answer your question." He looks at me with those steady eyes, and there's something in them that is not just approval but maybe feelings that are deeper. "Yes. I approve. There is no man I can think of that I'd rather see love my daughter than you, Dakota. And I don't say that lightly, and I don't say it because you're Levi's best friend or because you've been around this family your whole life. I say it because I know your character, and I know what you're made of, and I know how you treat the people you love." He pauses one more time, and when he speaks again his voice is rough enough that I know he's working to keep it level. "I have been proud of you for most of your life. I’ve thought of myself as a second father when you needed me and it would be an honor to make that official."
I've held a lot of things together in my life through sheer force of habit, and I'm going to need a second here, so I look at the window and I take a breath and I let it out slowly, and when I look back at him I'm back.
"Thank you," I say, and it comes out quieter than I intended but it means everything I have.
He nods once, the way he does, firm and final. "Now." He picks his phone back up and settles back against the pillow. "Are you going to sit here all morning, or are you going to go find my daughter and take her somewhere that isn't this hospital? She’s either been in here or at work since I was admitted."
A laugh comes out of me before I can stop it. A real one that I haven’t laughed since he got hurt. "You want me to leave already?"
"I want you to take that girl somewhere that doesn't smell like antiseptic and make her eat something that wasn't made in a hospital cafeteria." He waves a hand in the direction of the door. "Ruby's been here since before sunrise and she's not going anywhere, and Levi was here last night. Molly needs someone to take care of her for five minutes instead of the other way around."
He's not wrong. She's been running on caffeine and adrenaline and the stubbornness of someone who refuses to fall apart when the people around her need her to hold it together. She's going to hit a wall at some point today if she hasn't already.
I stand up and push the chair back, and look at him one more time. This man who is lying in a hospital bed with a chest tube and a repaired lung, somehow still looks like the person who runs the room. "I'll take care of her," I tell him.
"I know you will," he says, with the absolute certainty of someone who has never doubted it. "That's why I'm sending you. Now get out of here."
I'm almost to the door when he says my name.
I turn back.
"Welcome to the family." He says it simply, without ceremony, like it's a fact that's been true forever, but he's just now getting around to saying it out loud, which is probably exactly what it is. "Officially."
I nod, because I don't trust myself with words right at this moment, and I walk out into the corridor and I stand there for a second with my back against the wall and the morning light coming through the window at the end of the hall, and I think about a twelve-year-old kid who failed two grades and had no one in his corner. It’s crazy how much distance there is between that kid and this hallway, and how much of that distance is owed to the people in this family.
Then I pull out my phone and text Molly.
D: Clock out and take a personal day. I'm taking you to breakfast.
The reply comes back in under a minute.