The next day right before lunch-time Harm was pushing Isabelle on the swings in the park and Frank and Trish were sitting on the blanket with the picnic basket. Mac had dropped Belle off at the hotel with them this morning and first they had had breakfast together and then they had gone to the grocery store to buy some things for lunch. Harm had been rather shocked by the whole grocery store experience. There were so many things and different foods that he had never seen before. It was the first time he was in a store of any kind for a really long time and he was just glad that it wasn't during the worst rush hour. Isabelle kept running back and forth and he was terrified that they were going to loose her, yet his mother and Frank didn't seem to be worried about that at all.
Isabelle talked almost nonstop with Trish and Frank, but very little with Harm. He had no idea what to talk about with an eight-year old girl. Especially not when she was supposed to be your daughter. Isabelle seemed uncomfortable with the fact that every time she neared Harm, she was closely observed by Trish and Frank. It was something that Harm felt too, and it was definitely not making things easier for either one of them.
When they arrived at the park Isabelle had wanted to go on the swings and Frank had said that he thought Harm should push her. Trish and Frank couldn't help themselves from continuing to watch the two of them intently hoping to see that they were making some progress. Their attention was suddenly captured by an astray dog that came a little too close to their picnic. Before the owners of the dog had gotten there to drag the dog away, Isabelle had sprung from the swing and grabbed Harm's hand and started to run off into the small gathering of trees.
"Hurry up," she said and Harm decided to follow her and ran beside her. Within a few seconds they were out of view of Trish and Frank and then they slowed down. On the other side of the trees there was a walking path and now they slowed down and walked instead. Harm was unsure if she'd want to let go of his hand, but figured that if she did she'd probably simply let go of it.
"You do this often? Run off like this?" Harm asked her.
"Yeah..." Isabelle said "I promised Mom to stop, but I figured that if I brought you along it should be OK."
"Yeah, I guess so," he said and smiled at her "So where are we heading?"
"Secret," she said. They left the path and climbed up through the woods again until they reached a tree and Isabelle started to climb up the tree.
"Eh... I can't..." Harm started.
"Oh, come on... please," she begged him. She often climbed in trees and was good at it, but decided not to climb so high before Harm came after her. She had turned around and tried to persuade him to come after her.
"Well, OK," he said when she gave him the most pleading look she could muster. He brought his hands and arms up to the branches and threaded one of them to see if they'd hold for him as well. Though, Harm was no longer as talented in tree climbing as his daughter was, they had eventually gotten high enough for Isabelle's liking.
"I like it up here. No one can see you, but you see everyone who walks by on the path," she said and her eyes followed an old man who was walking with his dog on the path bellow.
"Yeah, it's nice," Harm agreed.
"Harm..." she said a few seconds later and looked up at him.
"Yeah."
"Are you... are you happy to be back here in America?" she asked.
"Of course I am."
"Because you don't look very happy about it sometimes."
"I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to... I'm very happy to be back and to be able to see you, but I didn't even know that you existed and everything else that is changed around here... It's all just making me so tired. Isabelle... Belle... I am very glad that you are here."
"I'm glad that you came back too."
They sat silent for a while, but finally a rather loud growl from Isabelle's stomach was heard.
"Hungry, huh?" Harm said and smiled "I thought we just had breakfast."
"I'm growing," she answered and started to climb down the tree. When they were both back on the ground she took Harm's hand again and they walked back to Trish and Frank together.
TBC