“Shave your beard before you go?”
My smile instantly turns into a frown. “I like my beard.”
“Take my word for it, big brother,” she says, her tone brimming with an annoying amount of female confidence. “Shave.”
Freshly shaven and wearing jeans with a white t-shirt and unbuttoned plaid flannel shirt, I check myself out in the mirror on the back of my closet door for the hundredth time. Part of me feels like I look too…too Alaskan, but that’s ridiculous, right? I am Alaskan, and this is exactly what I’d wear for drinks and dinner on a Friday night. I should be myself, regardless of what my daughter things.
“Daddy,” she’d said, perched on my bed next to Meghan after school, “you know that this is a first date, right?”
“Uh. Yes, Gillian. I’m aware.”
“And you only get one shot to make a first impression.”
I looked at her over my shoulder. Where does she get this stuff anyway? “Your point?”
“You really think Levis and a flannel are the right choice?”
“Yeah,” parrots Meghan with disdain. “Levis?”
For reasons I can’t understand myself, but possibly because we’ve become so close since Wendy passed, I talked to the kids about my date. As we ate dinner last night, I ran the idea by them, relieved when none of them seemed upset at the prospect of me getting back out there. Meghan smiled at me like she didn’t totally understand what was going on, and Chad was the most ambivalent, rolling his eyes and wishing me “luck.” But Gilly perked up like someone had plugged in the sun on a rainy day. And since then, she—and her little sister—have appointed themselves my style and advice team.
“What’s wrong with Levis?” I asked Meghan.
“I dunno,” she said honestly, glancing up at her sister. “
What’s wrong with Levis, Gilly?”
“You need to dress to impress,” she answered, jumping up to stand beside me in front of the closet. After sighing loudly, she pointed to a pair of black trousers. “You never wear those.”
Correct. I don’t. Last time I wore those pants was at Wendy’s funeral, and I don’t know why I held onto them. I’m never wearing them again.
“Not really my style, Gilly-bean,” I said softly.
She gave me a look. “Well, if you must wear jeans, pair them with a stylish top.”
I put my hands on my hips. “And where exactly am I supposed to find one of those?”
“At the store?” suggested my middle child with a bucketful of sass.
Behind us, Meghan started giggling, and something about my two little girls giving me dating advice felt like such progress, like such a sign of healing, it lifted my heart. Not because we were leaving Wendy behind, but because we were figuring out how to keep living without her, which is exactly what she would have wanted.
“Hey!” I said, pretending to be mad, but unable to keep myself from smiling. “Are you two ganging up on me?”
“We’re trying to help you!” they replied, almost in unison.
And with that, I picked up Gilly under her arms and threw her down on the bed next to her sister, tickling them both until they were bellowing with laughter.
“With help like yours, I think I’m better off figuring it out myself!” I said, lying down between them, grateful for their giggles and smiles.
Maybe I’d kept this house a shrine to my wife for too long. Maybe I’d inadvertently kept us all in the dark—or the twilight—because I couldn’t face the light. Maybe, because my life had skittered to a stop with Wendy’s passing, theirs had too. But maybe, after two long years, I was finally ready to raise the shades, to let in a little bit of light, and to let our lives start moving forward once again.
The girls had scampered off to pack their bags for an overnight at their aunt’s house, and I rummaged through my choices alone, taking out a newer flannel shirt that I hadn’t owned when Wendy was alive. Ripping off the sales tag, I placed it on my bed next to the jeans.
Looks new and feels right, I think, giving myself a nod of approval as I push the closet door closed, and hope my instincts serve me better than Gilly’s advice.
Considered by some of my neighbors to be the finest accommodations downtown, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Northstar Hotel.
It’s a pretty ugly building, in my opinion—concrete and four-storied, like any traveler’s motel in the Lower 48—especially when compared to some of the fishing lodges just slightly out of town. The Talon Lodge and Spa, for instance, is somewhere I’d take a sweetheart, if I had one. On its own private island, the lodge is log-cabin rustic, but still luxurious. It’s the sort of place a man could fish in the morning, get lost in his woman’s curves all afternoon, and then treat her to a five-star dinner by candlelight when they were done.