The Light of Hidden Flowers Read Free

which meant that I managed money. It meant that I could extract meaning from numbers, turn data into evidence, parlay evidence into decisions for our clients’ assets.
    I could write a stunning analysis, but dreaded picking up the phone. I could outline recommendations in tidy paragraphs and convincing bullet points, but couldn’t sit face-to-face with a retiree and tell him why he could live on only $8,000 a month, not $10,000. Thus my father’s and my working relationship: him, the strong topic sentence; me, the supporting data. Him, the hook that pulled the clients in with a great story, and me, the formatting of the margins.
    My professional limitations extended to my personal life. I researched myself out of every big decision, charted my way out of meeting friends and going on dates, weighed the risk over my every opportunity, and if the possible outcome fell beyond two standard deviations, I ruled it out. I hadn’t been on a date in over a year, and before that, my love life was sketchy at best.
    If I were a company, I wouldn’t buy my stock. Metaphorically speaking, I had failed to generate earnings, and could therefore go under at any time.

    In Dad’s office, I sunk into his leather chair and squeezed his sofa pillow to my chest, letting the velvety fringes tickle my chin. Had he had moments of forgetfulness lately? Now that I really examined him, I considered that maybe he wasn’t his jovial self. When had a furrow etched itself between his brows?
    “You feeling okay?” I asked.
    “The old man’s better than ever.”
    “How’d you sleep?”
    “Like a dog. You?”
    “The seminar went well,” I said. I looked at Dad expectantly.
    “Been better, but it was great to see the clients.” He smiled.
    But you lost your place, forgot what the heck you were talking about, I wanted to say. I should have said. My heart sped up and my mouth dried to cotton. I lost my courage, like always. All these years later, and I still just wanted him to be happy with me.
    “It’s your birthday,” Dad said. “You don’t have to be here today. I was hoping you’d take the day off—a spa day, a shopping spree with some girlfriends.”
    “What’s on the schedule?” I asked, noting the irritation in my tone. Dad knew better. I didn’t do spa days, I loathed shopping, and I certainly didn’t have a gaggle of girlfriends to hang out with. If I had taken the day off, I would have stayed home and read a new book, drank a few glasses of Merlot, and rolled out homemade lemon-pepper fettuccini. Dad knew that. It bugged me that he pretended otherwise.
    Dad issued a sigh of resignation. He looked down at his diary, a leather calendar that he still used, even though his computer was rigged with all the same information. “I love you, Missy, you know that,” he said. “I just want you to be happy.”
    True enough. Dad did want only that.
    Dad pulled a birthday present from his desk drawer. “Open it now, open it later. Whatever you want.”
    I smiled my best daughter smile and blew him a kiss. I needed him to know that I was happy, as happy as one could be, I imagined. How could one measure happiness, anyway? Truly, I was contented. I was satisfied. I wasn’t a person who flew high on the fringes of life. I was the safety girl. The girl who stayed behind the line; I accepted the demarcation. I was happy, tucked securely in my groove. “I’ll open it tonight, I promise.”
    I activated our firm’s calendar on my tablet, and Dad launched into our day. “We’ve got a new couple at ten. The Andersons are coming in at eleven. We need to review his buy/sell agreement. The Kayes are coming in at noon to update their estate planning. After that, I’m hitting the golf course with Jimmy Jorgensen. What about you? Maybe you’ll come along, hit a few balls, play some tennis? The club’s a great place to meet eligible bachelors, right?” Dad flashed me an encouraging smile. “We could eat dinner on the veranda—the nice crab