He remembered picking her up–Vanessa, a toddler–and carrying her, and she squirmed like crazy, wanting down. He put her down and watched her wobble, wearing that determined, toddler-hell-bent-on-walking look. He remembered her hitting the dirt, looking up, checking with him, and he looked down and said, “You’re okay. It’s just a fall. You wanted to walk, so get up and walk.” And she did.

“Bear with me,” he said, “this is going to sound weird, but often I think of God, or the supreme being, as maybe a rule or a set of rules. Cosmic rules. Like, hard science. You know, the reason things happen. I’m thinking, like, chemistry and biology and outer space. The whole thing. The universe. And okay, maybe there are divine rules. I could go that far. Or maybe there’s just the one big rule.” A pause. “One big rule that would cover everything, everywhere. All the time. The cosmology of everything. I think I’m using that word right … cosmology?” A shrug, a smile, a touch of embarrassment. His daughter asked him the big one. The big one. “There is something, I’m sure. I say that because I feel that. I have felt it.” A pause, a long look into the eyes of his daughter, then, “How am I doing?”

Vanessa liked her dad. Always had. Probably more now than when she wasn’t sick. Really liked him. Loved him, too. Being sick she’d had all kinds of time to do all kinds of thinking about life and friends and family and figured that, inside a family, any family, love was basically baked in. Not optional; basically compulsory. She had friends in families that were different than hers. That was okay, too. So, she knew and felt that love was biological. Self-serving, too. Self-preserving. So for her, love was one thing, but liking was something else, and it felt good to like her dad. Liking her dad was like getting a reward. It was extra … at least that’s what she thought.

“You’re doing good,” she said. “I mean it.” She went quiet, and he stayed quiet and let her relax for a minute. How had he done? Okay? He felt okay. He was happy they’d talked like that. He was happy he saw her paying attention. Would anything he said make a big difference? Weren’t they past that?

“You know what?” she asked. She was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“What?”

“A priest came by, a couple times. Here. We talked.”

It was a Catholic hospital. Should he be surprised? Vanessa hadn’t mentioned this before. Had she told her mother? Her brothers? Maybe not. She had a private life. Who doesn’t want some sort of private life?

“Okay. That’s news to me, but that’s okay, isn’t it?” He thought about it for a second, then: “You like him?” The Hoffmans went, when they went, to the First Presbyterian Church of Wainwright. Lauren Hoffman had picked it out years and years ago. It was nice. Pretty inside. The people were nice, and the minister was an okay guy.

“Yeah, I did. And you know what else?”

Her father raised eyebrows, cocked his head. A Catholic priest? The Hoffmans had Catholic friends. He’d been inside Catholic churches. Weddings, funerals. He’d sat through a mass or two. So his daughter talked with a priest; that would be okay, wouldn’t it?

“I told him once … asked him, maybe … I don’t know, we were just talking, you know. I told him … I brought it up … I told him that I’m thinking that God is, like, everything. Like, I don’t know, the universe.” She pulled her hands up out of the covers, held them apart as if she were holding a basketball, fingers crimped, holding something. “Like totally everything. I mean, everything that is living. Everything. And everything is living. Things are living, things that you wouldn’t think are living at all. Air. Water. Clouds.” She laughed out loud. “Rocks. Mountains. And then there’s the other living things, cats and dogs and birds. Everything. People, too. The stars. The planets. The moon.” She got quiet, thinking about what she was saying. Checking herself. “What I said to him, it sounded like science fiction. It did. When I said it, it sounded pretty far out to me. Really, it did. But you know what he said?”

“Lay it on me.” Liking his daughter was not enough for Paul Hoffman. He loved her. Physically and emotionally. Spiritually. Chemically and biologically. His kids were miracles. Life was a miracle. This conversation was a small miracle.

“The priest started laughing. We both did, and he said, ‘God is everything.’ I mean it; he cracked up and I cracked up. He said if you don’t see God in everything, you’re not paying attention.”

Paul Hoffman saw his daughter beaming. In the hospital. Thinking she was dying. How does that work? How does that happen?

“How often have you seen this priest?” Paul Hoffman wanted to meet the guy.

“I don’t know. Couple times. Three or four times, maybe.”

“And you’re cool with him? Everything good?”

“Yeah, Dad, it felt good talking to him. When he left, I felt good.”

They fell silent, stayed silent, thinking. What goes through a young lady’s mind? What goes through a father’s mind, visiting his daughter in the hospital, a daughter declaring she’s dying. Can daughters do that? Do that and get away with it?

Paul Hoffman swallowed and felt a truth lodged in his throat, the size of a fist; he couldn’t swallow it and couldn’t spit it out. How did this happen? He and his daughter talking. She’s animated, and that makes him happy, and his happiness, what does he do with that? He felt animated, and that seemed to make his daughter happy.

“So, can I say something?” Father asked the daughter. Vanessa said, “Sure.”

“Okay,” her dad said, “I’m not thinking for you. I’m not doing that. I want you to know that. I’m thinking for me, okay? I’m not asking a question; I’m just wanting to put something out there, and you don’t have to say a thing or respond, but I just … here’s what I’ve been thinking. I’m thinking about this since you already talked to Mom and your brothers.” He stopped. Vanessa looked nonplussed, and he was absolutely blown away by the presence of a seventeen-year-old, the presence she exhibited. Taylor told everyone, “Vanessa is ahead of us,” and he was right.

He leaned back in his chair, and his daughter leaned back against a pillow. A plateau? Had their conversation plateaued? “The joy ride?” his father said. “You and Ethan?”

A remarkable smile arrived, first on Vanessa, then on her father. Two smiles, celebrating the same joy. That brother-and-sister joyride, everyone should experience something like that. Every family should have such an event, something that could be mythic. An event that marks something as really being marked. A small event that grows larger and larger over time is remembered for a long time, and whenever it is remembered, it forces something, a smile, some reflection, laughter or even a gleeful argument. And then the myth grows ever larger.

“It was the best thing,” Vanessa said. “It was …” she was shaking her head, searching for words. “It was the best.”

“Okay,” her father said. “Okay, I get it. Just so you know, at first it worried us. Scared us. Me and your mother. But we’re good now. Really. It was a wonderful thing and Ethan didn’t get in any real trouble. And I’m happy you and him got out like you did. Ethan stepped up, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” she said. Her father could tell she was wearing down. It didn’t take much. “He did, Dad. He was great.” She went quiet, and he went quiet, and finally, she said, “Dad, you wanting to say something?” Vanessa, tired, was not missing a thing.

“I do,” he said, “and so, here’s what I’ve been wondering. You had these talks with Mom and your brothers and now me and I’m good with it. It’s smart, Vanessa. Thank you. It’s very smart. But it worries me a little, just so you know. I guess the thing I want to say is, are you sure? Know what I mean? You’re tired. I get it. It’s been a struggle. I understand. You’re the one’s been carrying the load. I just want to get  this out there, okay? So, I’m saying, maybe you’re tired is all. I mean, that’s not all, I realize that. But if you want to think about that, okay. If not, okay. I wanted to say it, and so there it is. You’re out of steam? Low on hope? I get it.”

He looked to make sure his daughter had heard his words. Understood them. Was he making a plea?

Vanessa gave a weak nod. Noncommittal.

Before he left, Paul Hoffman stood and leaned over his daughter and laid his hands on her head and put his face into his daughter’s and they breathed the same exact air – warm, it was – and they exhaled together and Paul Hoffman said “Vanessa” – and that meant all the words that could possibly go with ‘Vanessa’ – and Vanessa grabbed her father’s hands and held them against one cheek and held them there for a long time, both of them silent.

On the drive home, yet another image flashed in Paul Hoffman’s mind. Vanessa, six or seven, Ethan and Taylor and his wife. They’re either walking into church or out, and it must have been an occasion because everyone was dressed up and he remembers looking at his kids, his boys dressed in jackets and ties, shoes shined, his daughter wearing a dress and a sweater and those buckle shoes, with socks, everybody spick and span and together. A great memory, and he was happy it showed up, and if there is a better memory than that, what would that be?

About the Author:

Victor Kreuiter’s stories have appeared in EQMM, Halfway Down The Stairs, Bewildering Stories, Tough, Frontier Tales, Del Sol SFF Review, Literally Stories, and other online and print publications.