He chuckled. “Don’t say you don’t know it’s true.”
I couldn’t contradict.
“But when you were a bit older, and I started to see the first hints of the woman you would become…” He sighed. “Good Lord, if ever being a parent is terrifying…”
“And now?”
He thought about that for a moment. “I suppose now I can only hope I raised you well enough to make sensible decisions.” He paused. “And, of course, if anyone even thinks about mistreating you, I shall still have that stick.”
I smiled, then scooted over slightly, so that I could rest my head on his shoulder. “I love you, Father.”
“I love you, too, Amanda.” He turned and kissed me on the top of my head. “I love you, too.”
I did marry Charles, by the way, and my father never once had to brandish a stick. The wedding occurred six months later, after a proper courtship and slightly improper engagement. But I am certainly not going to put into writing any of the events that made the engagement improper.
My mother insisted upon a premarital chat, but this was conducted the night before the wedding, by which time the information was no longer exactly timely, but I did not let on. I did, however, get the impression that she and my father might also have anticipated their marriage vows. I was shocked. Shocked. It seems most unlike them. Now that I have experienced the physical aspects of love, the mere thought of my parents…
It is too much to bear.
Charles’s family home is in Dorset, rather close to the sea, but as his father is very much alive, we have let a home in Somerset, halfway between his family and mine. He dislikes town as much as I do. He is thinking of beginning a breeding program for horses, and it’s the oddest thing, but apparently the breeding of plants and the breeding of animals are not entirely dissimilar. He and my father have become great friends, which is lovely, except that now my father visits quite often.
Our new home is not large, and all of the bedrooms are quite near to one another. Charles has devised a new game he calls, “See how quiet Amanda can be.”