Sometimes, you just need to listen.
She had come to him about childish woes: scraped knees and mean words of the other kids. He had been spared a lot of the boy troubles and he thanked God and Lindsay for that, though he still heard some of it. And he had thought that when a breakdown in communication would happen, it would be due to different thoughts on appropriate teenage fashion, or curfew, or even said boy problems. But not this.
"Dad, no one does bug collections any more for science fairs."
"Well, you already did a volcano and a study on the solar system. If you want to do something new, you can do a catalogue of butterflies or an ant farm."
"No bugs."
"What about magnets?"
"No."
Danny kept giving suggestions, and eventually, Lucy stopped answering and shrugged in response to him. Twenty minutes later, Danny gave up and waited for his daughter to meet his eyes.
"What's going on, Luce?"
Lucy looked so nervous and awkward and Danny's fatherly and investigative instincts went into overdrive, preparing him for the worst.
"I don't want to do the science fair this year," she whispered.
He just barely stopped himself from laughing in relief. "Lucy, why didn't you just tell me?"
"Cause you and Mom are always so happy to see me do the fair and I didn't want to disappoint you."
Danny shook his head and pulled Lucy into his arms. "Whatever you do, science, theatre, sports, don't matter what. You do what you love and you do your best and I will always be proud of you."