“No.”
“Yep.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she told me.”
“When?”
“All the time.”
Lily’s brow furrowed.
Duke continued.
“She said the scariest moment was right before the music started.”
“She used to feel like everybody in the room would notice every mistake.”
“What did she do?”
“She danced anyway.”
Lily considered.
Then looked toward the tutu.
“Did she make you wear that?”
Duke laughed.
“No.”
“That was definitely you.”
Lily smiled.
It had been.
Three weeks earlier, while Duke was repairing a motorcycle in the garage, Lily had appeared holding a roll of pink tulle.
“Daddy?”
Duke looked up from the carburetor.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why do you have fabric?”
“Miss Mara says recital makes some kids nervous.”
“Okay.”
“I might get nervous.”
“Okay.”
“If I get nervous, can you help?”
“Of course.”
“How?”
That had been the problem.
Duke could fix engines.
Build a transmission.
Replace a clutch.
Repair drywall badly.
Cook six meals reliably.
Braid hair at an acceptable beginner level after two years of practice.
He could not think of how to help a five-year-old trapped beneath stage lights without becoming an even larger distraction.
“What do you want me to do?”
Lily had unrolled the tulle.
“You dance too.”
Duke stared.
“No.”
Lily’s face fell.
The no came too fast.
He saw it.
Duke sighed.
“What kind of dancing?”
“My dance.”
“I cannot do your dance.”
“You can do bad.”
Duke almost smiled.
“I can absolutely do bad.”
Lily brightened.
Then showed him the fabric.
“We make you a tutu.”
That was how it started.
Not as courage.
As insurance.
Lily wanted to know that if she became embarrassed, her father would become more embarrassed.
Bear had called Mara.
The instructor laughed for almost thirty seconds.
Then realized he was serious.
Three mothers volunteered to sew.
One of them, a woman named Caroline Bishop, had been the first person to laugh when Duke eventually stood during the recital.
That detail would bother her for years.
At the time, she simply did not connect the enormous tutu they had made in a back office with the possibility he might truly wear it in front of hundreds of people.
Most adults support courage abstractly.
Then reality arrives wearing pink tulle.
Duke practiced with Lily twice at home.
He refused to learn the full choreography.
Not because pride.
Because Lily’s request was not for him to perform.
It was for him to be available.
He folded the tutu into the grocery bag.
Lily placed it beneath his recital chair herself.
“If I don't need it, don't put it on.”
“Deal.”
“If I do…”
“Then everybody gets to see your father destroy ballet forever.”
She laughed.
The plan was ridiculous.
Until it wasn’t.
Backstage, Lily climbed from her chair and crawled into Duke’s lap.
The tutu made it difficult.
She pushed the tulle away.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Was Mama watching?”
Duke’s throat tightened.
He never lied about death.
He never told Lily her mother was literally watching from a cloud.
He did not know.
He believed in some things.