And they are all gone, he thought. They were so successful for so long. Many were large and powerful. Yet they were annihilated. It was an inevitability of nature.

Darling touched his daughter’s cheek with the back of a finger. “I’m glad you like your pony, Jess. But I guess what I really want to know is if you have a happy life.”

“You mean everything?”

“Yes,” he smiled.

The young girl nodded vigorously.

“I’m glad,” he said.

“Now can you tell me something?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Of course,” he replied.

“Where are we going?”

Darling felt tears pressure the backs of his eyes. Tears crept around to the front. He nonchalantly touched them away with his fingertips.

“Actually, sweetie, I’m going somewhere,” Darling told her. “I’ve got a big job for you.”

“Okay.” She made a face. Her brows dipped. “Daddy, I think someone’s knocking on the door.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Darling said. “What I need you to do right now is go home with Shawn and Kristin.”

“Go home? That’s not a job,” she said.

“It is,” Darling said. “A very important one. You’re to go home with them and tell Andrew something. Tell him that Daddy has to go somewhere, and you could not go.”

“Where are you going?”

“Where do you think?” he asked.

Jessica-Ann thought for a moment. “To visit Mommy?”

Darling started slightly. That caught him off guard. The young girl looked up at him.

“What made you say that?” he asked.

“Your voice sounds the same as it did when you told me Mommy had her accident,” the girl replied. “Are you going to her grave?”

“No,” Darling said. “There’s something else I have to do.” He helped her sit up as he eased from the seat. Still holding her hand, he had her stand on the cushion. “Give Daddy a hug,” he said as he put his arms around her.

She wrapped her lean arms around his shoulders and put her head on his chest.

Darling could smell the shampoo she had used the night before. Apricot, he thought. He remembered when Jessica-Ann was much younger. Her mother would frequently go out for the night, often longer, and he would give their daughter a bath. He would wash her hair. Then he would put her to bed. Now she was doing those things herself.

When had that happened?

What matters is that it did happen, he told himself. That was the wonder of growth and evolution. It took place even without a global cataclysm.