Chapter 18:

"Okay, Freddie, I'm ready... so where are we going?"

"I told you... it's a surprise."

"Oh, c'mon!" Daphne teased him. The truth was she loved being surprised, and Fred knew it. "Just a hint!"

"Nope... I promised you a surprise, and if I told you I'd be breaking my promise," Fred said with a feigned chivalry.

"Okay... it's not Disneyworld, is it?"

"Do you wish it were?"

"No!"

"Well, there's your answer. Come on," Fred indicated, and they drove off.

Daphne assumed he would turn right at that one intersection-- that was where all the malls, restaurants, parks, and theaters were. Instead he turned left-- straight into nothing more than residential district. Maybe there's someone he wants me to meet, Daphne wondered. Or, there are some hiking trails behind all those houses... nah, if we were going to do that he would have warned me to change out of this dress...

"We're here," Fred told her all of a sudden.

The van had stopped right in front of a very beautiful, two-story, white Victorian house. Fred climbed out of the driver's seat. Daphne followed.

He walked up the steps and went straight through the door without knocking. He laughed when Daphne stared at him inquisitively.

"We don't need to knock. Not at this house..." he told her.

"Why not?" she asked him.

"Because it's ours."

Daphne gasped. This was their house? All of a sudden she loved it deeply. The whole thing was theirs, the whole thing, from the front steps to the kitchen they had just entered (painted yellow, just like she had imagined in her dream house when she was a little girl).

"Do you like it?" Freddie asked earnestly.

Daphne answered very sincerely. "I love it."

"Better than Disneyworld?"

"Completely."

"Good. Would you like to see the rest of it?"

"You bet!"

He led her down the hall to a dining room with a large sliding-glass door and white furniture-- it could have doubled as a sunroom. He then showed her a small library, where the house's previous owners had left their bookcases and even a few of their books. He showed her a cozy living room with a large brick fireplace, and an empty room that could be used as a toy room.

"And," Freddie told her excitedly, "you haven't even seen the upstairs yet! There's something up there I really wanted to show you!"

There were a total of five bedrooms upstairs, but rather than systematically going through each one, Freddie sped down the hall toward a door with a large sign on the door: Baby's Room.

Daphne wasn't sure whether Fred had trusted the aliens and painted the room pink, or played it safe and painted it yellow, but she eagerly followed him in, curiously.

It was neither pink nor yellow. It wasn't blue, either. Yet it was entirely baby-friendly. The walls had all been painted sea-green, and they were adorned with whimsical posters of tropical fish, coral, algae, and even a mermaid and a shipwreck. A stuffed octopus sat ready and waiting in the crib. A small bookshelf opposite the bed had just one book perched on top, a book about pirates. The bookshelf, dresser, and crib were all white with a wavy aqua design printed on them. A mobile of shells hung just above the crib.

"It's impressive... it's perfect!" Daphne exclaimed.

"It beats the cliche yellow duckies," Fred answered with a shrug.

They both stood there a long time, just smiling, hugging, and feeling good. Just then, though, an odd, sad sensation filled Daphne, and she had to let go for just a minute.

"What... what's wrong?" Freddie asked, worried.

"Nothing... it's just that... it's all coming true..."

"What is?"

"Well... When I visited Daddy a few months ago, I was scared to death that he'd be mad. But not only wasn't he mad, he wished me well... he said things would be okay... and he was right... except for one thing, and that's him."

Fred nodded. Daphne had confided these feelings to him before; he only wished there were something he could do for her. He knew Daphne had sort of drifted from her father throughout college, especially as Mr. Blake grew stricter about his daughter's whereabouts whenever she was home. Maybe he had felt the need to be overprotective while she was around to make up for whenever she was miles away, in some sorority he knew little about, doing who knows what.

Yet the last few months had shifted the tide. Daphne was visiting her father at least once a week, and calling him every night. It was like there was this dormant closeness between a father and a daughter that had only had the guts to come out when there was hardly any time left to enjoy it.

Was that how it always was with parents and children? Freddie considered his own family. It had been two weeks since he'd written. Granted, he had tried to call four days ago, but the line was busy and he'd never really tried again.

Freddie held Daphne as she cried tears of sorrow from one eye, tears of joy from the other. He held her close, already making resolutions for his own daughter inside...