Spring Forward – Daniel 50

[For a quick guide go here: Quick guide.

For back story go here: Story so far at 30 Nov 2020 and more recent Daniel episodes especially this one.]

[Other back story through in-links.]

The talk Daniel had had with Daisy as they brought the spent candle inside in the morning, before heading to school, had been touching on the level where they could connect. Daisy had been wondering a lot about her friends lately now she could see them in the flesh again. Talking and playing with them on a daily basis had raised more questions for her about what they had been doing before. What had they been doing in their homes all the days when they couldn’t go out? What were their parents like and had they all made the same Krispy Cakes she had? The world had been strange for 12 months and was in some ways becoming stranger, when you could do things and couldn’t do others. When people were both happy and sad at the same time. Daisy felt very happy sad, she said and sometimes felt she was crying happy tears because she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

Daniel felt a similar level of strangeness and happy sadness. A year on and he had to admit he was feeling fitter, more alive and more connected (somehow) to his life. The past twelve months had seen him reassess what he was doing and why. It had seen him lose a lover and make new friends. He’d given up trying to be the salesperson he never really was, and while he still didn’t think he knew what he was going to be instead, he was at least on his way to finding out. Above all he felt connected to his daughter in a way he hadn’t previously. Sometimes that was frustrating, exhausting and hilarious, but it always felt like the right thing, the thing he needed.

And then also felt the empty space. The lost opportunities, the lost people whose shadows still cast around him, alongside the shadows of his work colleagues and indeed everyone else who he might have been working and walking alongside in the past year.

As they walked to school Daisy was listing which of her classmates had brothers, sisters, babies and guinea pigs. Daniel was a bit worried she’d want at least one of these for herself and he wasn’t in a position at the moment to offer any of them – not even the guinea pig. But again this was more a reflection than a request. And it brought their thoughts back around to Chrissy.

Daisy was wondering what her mum did all day. The weekly phone or video call wasn’t really sufficient to do this and keep up with her, but it was pretty much all they’d been able to make work – try to do it for too long or too much and the stilted conversations became silences and the silences were harder to break the next time.

Even though it felt like they’d only just started back to school the Easter holidays were on the horizon, and maybe this was the time when Daisy and Chrissy could be together again for a little longer. Perhaps she could stay over with her mum and find out first hand what she did all day.

“What if I get in the way or do something wrong?” Daisy asked Daniel in a small voice.

“Honestly, you won’t,” he said. “Mummy loves you. A lot. She misses you and I’m sure she’d love to have you stay. And I’m certain that she’ll be happy for you to do anything. Like I am.”

“You weren’t always happy,” said Daisy, straightforwardly.

“Wasn’t I?”

“You were a bit cross about the coffee table,” said Daisy. “And other things.”

“Well, accidents happen and it’s a bit… difficult,” said Daniel. “But we made things alright in the end.”

“You threw away the table,” observed Daisy. “Did that make it alright?”

“It got rid of it,” said Daniel. “That made it alright.”

On his return trip from school, Daniel logged an answerphone message with Chrissy, suggesting they sort out something for the holidays and speak later that day or tonight. He also scanned through an email from a company who were pretty set on sponsoring part of the Together… Apart app. 

There was progress in the air. He would press ahead with all of these things, using the positive energy of spring and the diminishing lockdown to forge ahead, find himself and be a better person, father, partner, businessman, whatever. There was nothing he couldn’t do – well, OK, there were a considerable number of things that he still couldn’t do, but he knew what he meant. 

So buoyed up by these feelings for not one second did he pause over the name of the sponsor’s chief contact, the person he would now be working with. One Gordon Donner.