The next morning, Roger woke up with a start, calling out Holly's name. Then he leaned back down on his bed, grabbing a pillow and squeezing it over his face, moaning out in frustration. Once again, his night had been filled with dreams of a highly erotic nature, all of which involved his redhead first love. The dreams had begun the very day that Holly had come back into his life, and had reoccurred each and every night since then. To make matters worse, they were so vivid that the memories of them always tortured him throughout the day.
"As if things weren't complicated enough," he grumbled, heading for the shower, which he chose to take very cold. He was coming out of it ten minutes later when he heard an insistent knock at the door. He hurriedly put on his bathrobe and went to the door.
Holly was standing on the other side, fully dressed, and he could immediately tell from her stony expression that she was still mad at him. "Blake called and asked if we wanted to meet with her for lunch. Are you up for it?"
"Of course!" Roger hesitated and then added: "Have you had breakfast yet?"
Holly drummed her fingers impatiently against the door frame. "Listen, Roger. I will be civil and will get along with you for the rest of this trip, for our daughter's sake. But make no mistake; I'm still pissed at you!"
She started to walk back to her room but Roger grabbed her hand, forcing her to stop. "Come on, Holly! Please don't be like this. Weren't we getting along better before that stupid conversation last night?"
"I'm glad we had that talk; at least now I know where we stand."
"Where DO we stand, Holly? I don't even know myself! Can't we at least be friends for now?"
Holly snorted and yanked her hand free of his. "No, Roger, I don't think that you and I can ever be just friends," she said, walking away.
Roger sighed and came back into his room, closing the door softly. "Talk about a mess," he muttered.
They found Blake waiting for them in the lobby a little while later, her hair in a ponytail, wearing blue jeans and a navy trench coat. Holly and Roger had also opted for a more casual style, feeling it would help them all feeling more at ease with each other. They headed to one of Blake's favorite local eatery, chatting animatedly as they walked down the street.
Holly made good on her promise to behave in front of Blake, and was so friendly towards Roger that he could almost have sworn she had decided to forgive him. He knew her too well, however, not to know that it was all an act on her part. Blake, for her part, seemed oblivious to any tension that might be lingering between them.
They spent the meal discussing Holly's job at WSPR and the respective merits of Apple and BlueHorizon, as well as Blake's years in college, a passage which she qualified as "a perfect mix between learning, partying and dating very cute but dumb boys." After they had finished sharing a piece of lemon pie for dessert, Blake grabbed her knife and clanked it against her glass of water.
"There something that I need to say to you." Her face grew so earnest that her parents glanced at each other, slightly wary of what was to follow.
"I did a lot of thinking after we met yesterday. In fact, I stayed up pretty much all night, thinking about you guys, and about what you might come to mean to me in the future. You see, I feel that there is this connection between us already. I don't know if it's supposed to be like this or not, and I certainly didn't expect it to be this way, but there it is."
She grabbed their hands and gave them a light squeeze. "Are you trying to make me cry?" Roger asked, fighting back the tears and smiling at the same time, while Holly finally ran her hand through her daughter's hair, like she had longed to do the day before.
"I have to admit that I was pretty conflicted about it at first," Blake added after a while. "I actually felt guilty that I liked you."
"Because of your parents?" Holly asked softly.
Blake nodded. "I love them so much, and somehow I was afraid that spending time with you would make me forget about them that much more quickly. I know it sounds stupid."
"It doesn't, really," Roger said.
"In any case, at some point last night, I was even sure if I should see you again. Then I tried to imagine the kind of advice that my dad would give me in such a situation. My dad had the best judgment ever; he always knew how to make me see things more clearly."
"And what would he have told you?"
"To just go with the flow," Blake said, tilting her head back and laughing. "My father was a bit of a hippie, did I mention that? My mother was too. I also remembered last night that she used to say that there would never be too much love in the world. In the end, that's pretty much what settled it for me."
Holly leaned back in her chair, moved to tears once again. "I really wished that I could have gotten to meet them. They seemed like great parents, and great people."
Blake looked at her mother and bit her lip, a move that Roger and Holly would come to recognize as a sign of nervousness. "Funny that you should mention that. How would you like to meet them?"
The cemetery was almost empty, even if it was a Saturday afternoon. Blake lovingly put down the bouquet of lilies they had bought on the way on her parents' gravestone, and then took a few steps back to join Holly and Roger.
She wiped a tear and leaned her head against Roger's shoulder. "I miss them every day, but I know that they would be glad that you guys came back into my life."
"We're here to take care of you now. You can count on us," Roger said, kissing the top of her head.
Blake smiled through her tears. "It's funny how you two talk about yourselves. It's always "we" and "us". If I didn't know any better, I'd thing that you were joined at the hip or something!"
Roger and Holly both did their best to hide their embarrassment and when Blake suggested a stroll in the park next to the cemetery, they eagerly accepted. Blake's life was once again the focus of the conversation, Holly and Roger being only too happy to finally get to learn more about their daughter's life.
While Blake was describing her one-bedroom apartment, Roger's thoughts went from his eldest to his youngest daughter. He loved Jessica with all his heart; she was the apple of his eyes and he would gladly give his life for her. He could already feel, however, that his relationship with Blake would be just as special, even though it would be radically different. Whereas Jessica would always remain his precious little girl, he recognized Blake as a kindred spirit. They agreed on many subjects and he could see that she shared his business acumen and intuition. He started dreaming about future days where she might come and work by his side, even becoming his partner, and then he silently laughed for getting so much ahead of himself.
Roger was not the only one who noticed the profound connection he shared with his daughter; Holly had the opportunity to observe it too during the following days, with a mix of pleasure and envy. They all met several times over the remainder of their stay in San Francisco, and every time she could feel that, for all Blake's friendliness towards her, her daughter was still holding back ever so slightly. Their conversations were plainly not as fluid as the ones taking place between Blake and Roger, who jabbered all day long as if their life depended on it. Despite Roger's assurances, Holly still wondered if Blake's reluctance was rooted in the fact that she had been the one to put her up for adoption.
The week flew by and before they knew it, it was time for them to say their goodbyes. Blake accompanied them to the airport and gladly accepted their offer to come and visit them soon in Springfield. She was barely out of sight before Roger turned to Holly with a questioning look.
"I guess you'll go back to being mad at me now that Blake is out of sight?"
Holly pursed her lips. "I wish I could, but you seem to forget that Jessica and Ethan are waiting for us at home, and that we'll have to put up a happy front for them too."
Roger couldn't resist from teasing her: "So what you're saying is that you're destined to be nice to me forever?"
Holly gave him a nasty look. "Very funny. Oh, wait, it's not funny at all. Actually, it's the opposite of funny! I'd say that it's the LEAST funny thing that I ever heard. I meant what I said before about us not being friends, Roger. It's not what I want from you, and if you can't deal with that, then it's your loss."
She grabbed her luggage and started walking toward the boarding area. After a few steps, she turned to face him and walked backward. She couldn't have stopped the outpour of all the feelings she had kept bottled up inside for the whole week if she had tried. "You know something else?" she said, raising her voice, completely unbothered by the people staring at them. "You have some nerve, coming after me in Springfield, telling me that you're going to leave your wife, when in fact you're just a coward. That's right; you can't handle the first thing that life throws at you. Well, you know what, I deserve better than that."
She turned back and walked away, leaving Roger rooted to the spot for the second time in the same week. A little old woman approached him and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He looked at her, still dazed by Holly's very public outburst, aware that he probably looked like a jerk in the eyes of the small crowd that had gathered around him.
"If I were you, young man," the woman said, "I'd find myself another place to sit on the plane."