“The sales lady picked out the bed stuff.”
Listen. There’s just something so incredibly endearing about Charlie nervously pacing the aisles of Bed Bath and Beyond a month before Bella gets there, worrying about how to make her happy and comfortable in his their home.
A middle aged employee sees him pacing and cautiously says, “Chief? Something I can help you with?” and Charlie just. Pours out his worry and excitement and everything and just gushes for like 10 minutes about how excited he is to see his daughter (his daughter!) again, for more than just two weeks this time, but he’s just not sure if he’s really dad material and he hasn’t even seen her in years and he doesn’t understand teenagers and -
“You got this, chief,” the employee - Connie - says, placing a gentle squeeze on his arm. “All you have to do is be her dad. You’re exactly the right man for the job.”
Charlie lets out a deep breath, runs a hand through his hair. “Thanks, Connie. That’s…real nice of ya. Can you help me out with this bed stuff? I’d rather wrestle a bear than pick out bed sheets.”
Connie laughs. “What’s her favorite color? We can start there, and I’ll put together a color scheme based on that.”
Charlie closes his eyes for a moment and sifts through his (few, far too few) memories of Bella. He sees her as a toddler, wobbling around the living room as her mother films and laughs; as a kindergartener, her nose already stuck in a book; as an eight year old still missing teeth.
Back then, Bella was still dressed by her mother, which meant that she was an amalgam of colorful, mismatched clothes, but none of them, even in retrospect, really felt like Bella to Charlie.
Charlie adds “favorite color” to the list of things he wants to learn about his daughter, now that he’ll have real time with her at last. Then he directs his mind back to the task at present: “Favorite color,” he says outloud, “I can’t recall -”
Then his mind flashes back to the birthday card Bella send him last year - a deep, lovely purple card embossed with lettering in silver and gold. Inside the card Bella had rambled about her day at school, about the books she was reading, about everything and nothing.
Charlie still has the card in the glovebox of his car, and he takes it out whenever he has a particularly hard day at work. It reminds him of why he does the work he does - to protect that which is most precious.
Charlie tucks the memory away and smiles at Connie. “She likes purple. But not the grape jelly stuff. The stuff that looks like it belongs in a sunset.”
Connie smiles and motions to follow her. “I have just the thing.”
A month later, Charlie’s pacing nervously again, this time in Bella’s room, with Bella there.
“The sales lady picked out the bed stuff,” Charlie says, trying to sound nonchalant, and not ridiculously hopeful. “You like purple, right?”
Bella looks around. “Purple’s cool,” she says with a quick grin. “Thanks.”
Charlie’s proud smile lasts for days. “I’m cool,” he says to himself the next morning in the mirror. “My daughter thinks I’m cool.”
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