Daughters for a Time by Jennifer Handford Page B

father before this evening.
    Davis and Delia’s generous manner and easy lifestyle had yielded a wonderful son, albeit one who was a tad naive. Tim believed that there was goodness in every person. I wasn’t convinced—a belief bred not of pessimism or cynicism, but pragmatism. Most people had been hurt at some point. Most people had had their faith—in humankind as well as anything divine—tested. But Tim’s private-school, loving-and-doting-parents, always-in-a-safe-environment upbringing had left his belief intact.
    I recalled one evening in late August when Tim and I were dating, having recently returned from our travels abroad. We sat poolside at Tim’s parents’ estate, our feet dangling in the cool water, a bottle of Riesling sitting empty between us.
    “What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?” I asked. Though Tim and I had been together for four years, there was a feeling of newness to our relationship now that we were stateside.
    Tim thought, looking up at the marbled sky, as though he wanted to come up with something good. “I once invested in this IPO that went sour the next day…”
    “No!” I protested, punching him in the arm. “I’m not talking about business. What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you ?” I considered helping him out, filling in the blanks, offering suggestions. Hurt by someone you loved? Father left? Death in the family? Heart broken? Hadn’t he ever been devastated by something, someone? Hadn’t he ever felt the earth shift beneath him? Hadn’t he ever felt utterly alone?
    “I’ve had a nice life,” Tim said with a shrug, rubbing my thigh in a way that told me that he knew I hadn’t navigated my first twenty-seven years with a similar ease.
    I was dumfounded and yet pleased by my new boyfriend’s purity. Yes, next to pristine Tim, I felt so marred, so seasoned , yet I was right where I wanted to be—planted firmly in the middle of a family devoid of chaos, absent of hurt. I only hoped that by association I, too, would be purified.

     
    Tim slipped through the front door at midnight. Tonight I was wide awake and eager to see him. He kissed me, said hello, and then headed to the bathroom to take his shower.
    I stood on my vanity chair and peered over the top of the shower. The damp steam billowed onto my face. “How was the dinner crowd?”
    “Busy—we served two hundred,” Tim said, scrubbing his body with a loofah.
    Tim’s back was lobster red from the heat. He rubbed the bar of soap under his arms, down his back. I used to do this all the time—talk to Tim as he took his after-work shower. I smiled at the familiarity of it.
    “But we ran out of the veal,” Tim said. “I underestimated how many would want it.”
    “Did you substitute pork or take it from the menu?”
    “I subbed pork,” he said. “It worked okay.”
    “What else went on? Any juicy gossip from Sondra or Philippe?”
    Sondra was our knockout hostess, a stunning twenty-five-year-old brunette with high, sculpted cheekbones and pillowy, ruby lips. We’d hired her when we were getting ready to open the doors to Harvest and she was newly graduated with a degree in hotel management. In the space of a few short years, she had grown into a beautiful woman who radiated confidence like she held a thunderbolt.
    “You tell me,” Tim said. “You talk to Sondra more than I do.”
    “She told me that she broke up with another boyfriend. I told her that she needs to date a guy her age.”
    “She likes the guys with thick wallets.”
    “What about Philippe?”
    “Nothing much,” Tim said. “He’s really learning a lot, though. In a few years I can definitely see letting him run the show.”
    “You said that a couple of years ago,” I reminded him.
    “What about you? What’s new?”
    “Well,” I said, a smile stretching across my face, “I went shopping tonight. Got all sorts of stuff for our trip. Whether we, or the baby, happen to have constipation,