xxxxx

This is my fourth plane ride in less than a month and I think I'm developing claustrophobia. Especially when I have to behave myself.

I'm sitting next to my wife. My wonderful, amazing, fabulous wife who should never, ever, by the way, wear clothes again as far as I'm concerned and I'm trapped on a plane for twenty-eight hours.

I'm not a patient man.

My 13-year-old daughter is also sitting next to my wife and Drea's getting more attention from CJ than I am.

I am also not a fan of sharing.

The wedding was fabulous. There were more people there than I knew what to do with, although I couldn't tell you any of their names. It was all a blur from the first strains of "Here Comes the Bride" to when CJ looked into my eyes and said, "I do."

That was all I needed. I've been on cloud nine for fifteen days now. My fantastic wife, Claudia Jean Lyman, and I honeymooned at this old plantation home in Georgia that's been turned into a bed and breakfast. Five days of blissful peace. I love Drea to distraction but I haven't been away from her for anymore than a day since she was born and it was nice to have a break.

But now I'm on a plane to Rome. Tomorrow is opening exercises and then she has four days off before her first prelim.

"Dad," Drea leans over CJ to tap my arm.

"Yeah?"

"When we get home, I want to take acting lessons."

My heart nearly jumped to my throat. "What?"

"Acting lessons, " she grinned up at me, "Oh! And maybe voice lessons, too."

I hated to break it to her, "Sweetie, us Lyman's are known to be pretty tone deaf."

"Well, who says that I'm all Lyman? Grandma says that I have Mom's voice," Drea raised her eyebrow triumphantly. I forgot that Felicity's mom still keeps in touch with Drea.

"Ok, well, we'll look into it." Drea returns to the book she was reading and I reach for CJ's hand. "Acting lessons?" I hiss into her ear.

"I meant to talk to you about it," she whispered back. "When we were in New York, Drea decided that she wanted to try her hand at Broadway after the Olympics."

"She doesn't aim low, does she?"

"Learned it from her father."

I squeak out a 'yeah' as she squeezes my hand once again. We both stare into space and I wonder what she's thinking.

xxxxx

I wonder what he's thinking.

I've known since New York that Drea's new dream is to be the next Elizabeth Cronin. Elizabeth, by the way, was the Narrator in the production of Joseph that we saw. She's phenomenal. What Drea is to swimming, Elizabeth is to musical theater. At 26, she's starred in three musicals and won a Tony for her role in the revival of Joseph.

And when Drea grows up, she wants to be Elizabeth.

Josh hates theater.

Hates it with an unimaginable passion.

That's one of the reasons we all knew that he was in love with Felicity. He would sit through hours and hours of operas, just to be near her.

Josh is someone that throws himself at his passions wholeheartedly. There's no middle of the road for him. It's one of the things that I love about him, and it's one of the things that drives Drea nuts.

"I love him," she told me over dinner in New York, "I really do. He's just always, well, there. I feel like I have no life outside of him. My whole world is my father and I've always loved that, but now…" She trailed off, but I could finish the sentence for her. She's turning 14 in a few months and there have been a lot of changes in her life. Josh can be pretty overbearing.

But he's just so cute when he is.

I think I'll keep him.

xxxxx

Well, I did it. I told my father that I want to be an actress.

I might as well have said that I wanted to join the Republican Party.

Mom told me to wait until after the Games, but maybe now he'll talk about something other than swimming.

I'm just so sick of it. He over analyzes everything and rehashes everything until I know how to make it perfect. Absolute perfection at all times.

It's nauseating.

Quite frankly, I have no life.

I have no friends.

And I know why. I'm a snob. Or, at least everyone else assumes I am. I only hang out with my father and his ultra-famous friends. I turn down invitations to sleep-overs and pizza parties, because I'm too afraid to ask permission.

I'm not stupid. I figured out fairly early that I'm what keeps Dad from having attacks. And if I ever left him, he'd be unable to function and too many people depend on him, so I forgo all social activities with people my age to be with my dad.

Please don't get me wrong, I love him. My dad is the man. But I'd rather he learn how to be the man from a distance, you know? Because now he has Mom to keep him from attacks and I can be normal again, right?

Right?

xxxxx

The Lyman family hadn't spoken for five minutes. And for that family, that was amazing. The trio stood in the Sistine Chapel, staring at the ceiling. Drea finally broke the silence, "Can you ever imagine being that good at anything?"

Josh raised his eyebrow, "Drea, you're the fastest woman in the water at least in the US, possibly in the world."

"Yeah, but what is swimming? I win a gold medal, big whoop. What have I contributed to society? What have I done to make other people's lives better? Nothing," Drea countered her father.

"Drea, an Olympic gold medal is nothing to sneeze at," CJ put her arm around Drea's shoulder.

"Oh, I know that, Mom. It's just that, well, the medal is for me. It's to prove to myself that I can do it. The medal is the reward for racing the clock and that's great and all, it's just so fleeting. Because in four years, someone will come along and win the same I event I won and them I'm not even a memory anymore, I'm just a name in the history books," Drea sighed. "And I'd like to be more than that. I'd like to be remembered as someone who changed the world. "

"And you think acting will do that?" Josh asked.

CJ could have hit him. We're going to start that now, Joshua? It couldn't wait until we're not in a holy sanctuary?

"I'm not sure, Dad," Drea replied honestly. Someone shushed them and she replied more quietly, "I'm not sure. But I do know this. When I was watching Joseph something inside of me clicked. Almost like a spark of something I never knew was there. Tomorrow, I'm going to put on a suit, step on a block and swim, just like I've done a million times. It's just not like it used to be. I'm sorry."

Josh felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach. With the wind knocked out of him, Josh pulled his daughter into a hug, "No, it's me who should be sorry. You've always risen to every task that I've asked you to, I tend to forget that you're really still a child. Drea, if you want to be an actress, then you will be. I can't promise you fame or fortune, but I will do everything within my power to give you your dreams."

CJ knew that Josh thought he was saying the right words, but she knew he wasn't. The very last thing Drea wanted to hear right now was that Josh was going to help her with her new ambition. Acting was something Drea figured Josh would never ever want to help her with. Something that could truly just be Drea's. And her thoughts were confirmed by the slouch in Drea's shoulders as Josh hugged her.

As Drea pulled away from him, she smiled weakly at her dad. "Thanks, Papa Bear." Making brief eye contact with CJ, Drea quickly turned her back on her parents and wiped tears from her eyes.

Oh, Josh, CJ moaned inwardly, if you hold her too tightly, you're going to crush her.