Annika turned back to her dad.

“Will you sit down?” he said, gesturing to the seat beside him. She’d never seen her dad nervous, and he didn’t look it now, either, but there was something about him that seemed off. He was discomfited, Annika realized, and that threw her. Her dad was never discomfited.

She sat next to him on the settee, but left enough space between them so that she could turn slightly to look at him.

He took a moment to polish his glasses with authority, his brown eyes thoughtful. When he finally looked at her, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

He took a deep breath that made his shoulders heave. “When your mom and I found out she was pregnant with you, you know one of the first things she told me?”

Annika shook her head.

“She said, ‘Raj, one day this little being is going to go off and live her own wild life, making decisions that we’ll deem mistakes and she’ll deem adventures. We’re going to want to toss a cold bucket of water on her, to wake her up, to slow her down. Let’s make a promise right now that we’ll stop each other from doing that. I’ll be your checks and balances and you’ll be mine.” He smiled, and Annika saw his eyes were misty. Her own throat felt tight. She blinked hard. “After you walked out Tuesday night, I kept thinking about your mom. What would she say if she could see you now? What would she say if she could see me?” He shook his head, lines of pain etching his forehead.

“I think about that a lot myself,” Annika admitted, her voice high-pitched with the effort of trying not to cry. “I hope Mom would be proud of me. But I don’t know.”

Her dad scooted closer and put a warm hand on hers. “She would be,” he said, with such determination that she believed him. “I have no doubt of that.” He put an arm around her and continued, “Ani, this place is beautiful. It’s full of your personality and it’s … I never could’ve thought all of this up, not in a million years. And I haven’t taken the time to really reflect on the magic of that. You’ve always been one to march to the beat of your own drum, and I was trying to squelch that. I was trying to make you into a mini model of me and your mom, because…”

Annika laid her head on his shoulder. “Why?”

“Because…” Her dad cleared her throat. “It felt like losing you. It felt like losing your mom again, to not have you follow in her footsteps.”