Daddy's Girls (8)

All three of them had gone to see Juliette that night, hugged her, and said how sorry they were. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she couldn’t stop crying. They left her after a few minutes to collect herself before they had to wade through the paperwork and formalities of “making the arrangements” the next day.

It sounded morbid to all three of them, and Juliette had said she was dreading it. She had no real right to make decisions, since they weren’t married, but the girls wanted to include her. Their relationship had lasted longer and been warmer and happier than most marriages. If not a mother figure, she had always been a good friend to them, and never created problems with their father, or interfered with his relationship with them. If anything, she had always helped them, and reminded their father to make more effort with them, to understand them better. She had always been a good influence on him.

    With a second bottle of wine, back in Kate’s kitchen, they started telling funny stories about him, and reminiscing about their childhood. Caroline had the least to contribute, since she had spent the least possible amount of time with him, intentionally. Listening to them now, she wondered if she had missed something. She didn’t know the man they were describing, and her memories of him were entirely different from Kate’s and Gemma’s. But Kate had worked with him as an adult for the last twenty years, and Gemma could do no wrong. He worshipped her. Caroline had been a ghost in his life. He had never sought to try to bridge the gap between them. She couldn’t even explain now why she hadn’t been to the ranch in the past three years. She was busy with the children, she and Peter entertained his most important clients, and they traveled with the children on school vacations. There was never time to come home and see her father.

“You ran away from him, Caro,” Gemma said quietly, seeing the questions in her sister’s eyes, and Caroline nodded. She didn’t deny it.

“I know I did. But he never tried to find me, or even know me.”

“Maybe that was your job and not his,” Gemma said softly, “once you grew up. But I was no better. I haven’t been home in nearly a year. It’s hard to come home sometimes, and I got tired of fighting with him.”

“We all did,” Kate chimed in.

“You never fought with him,” Gemma corrected her. “That was my role. All you ever did was please him, or try to.” That was Kate’s place in the family. The pleaser and peacemaker. It surprised her that Gemma sounded harsh about it. In a way, her relationship with their father had been the easiest of all. They were workmates and colleagues as well as father and daughter.

    After they finished the second bottle of wine, they went back to their respective cottages, Caroline in the barely used guesthouse, where Peter and her children were sound asleep, and Gemma to the guesthouse she was familiar with. Kate was in her own cottage, but nothing felt right anymore, not even her father’s house with his belongings everywhere.

As they left Kate’s cottage, Gemma turned to look at her sisters. “We’re orphans now, aren’t we? No mother and no father.” They couldn’t mourn a mother they had never known and didn’t remember, only the idea of her, but their father was all too real, and they knew exactly who and what they were mourning.

“I don’t think they call it ‘orphans’ at our age. We’re grown-ups. We’re supposed to be standing on our own two feet, with children of our own. Caro’s the only one who’s managed to do that. I was his willing slave, and you were always his favorite. That doesn’t make us orphans,” Kate said firmly. She didn’t like what Gemma said.

“I was always Daddy’s Girl. He called me that, he even said it to other people,” Gemma said sadly.

“I guess we all have to grow up now,” Kate said, but she wasn’t at all sure how to do it. Who was going to run the ranch now? She knew the others would expect her to do it, but it couldn’t possibly be the same without her father to guide her, even if he didn’t recognize her contributions. She realized now that she had let her father run her world. And there was no one to do it now.



* * *



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    Their visit to the mortuary the next day was more depressing than any of them had expected. They were suddenly faced with painful decisions. Cremation or burial? If cremated, would they put the urn into the ground or divide up his ashes between the three of them and Juliette? And where would they bury him, if they did, at the cemetery or on the ranch? Would they have a large church service, or private family interment? Someone had to write the obituary. Caroline said she’d do it, since she was the writer among them, so she was the obvious choice.

They decided to hold a proper funeral, and put an announcement in the local paper, since his life had been there for nearly forty years, and he was respected in the community. They needed to pick a photograph for the program. Kate said she’d order the flowers, and Gemma said she’d choose the music. Juliette made only a few minor requests, and was relieved when they decided not to have an open casket, but to have him cremated. They were going to divide his ashes among them. Caroline and Kate were going to scatter them at the ranch, Gemma wanted to take her share with her to scatter in the ocean near L.A., and Juliette said she was going to pick a handsome box and keep them in the house with her. They thought it might be a French tradition, but didn’t know and didn’t ask.