Letters

Alan stood up, and silently walked to the kitchen. Nora was laying in his bed, awake, while he prepared their breakfast.

He was making coffee when the door opened. He turned to see Austin. He had a worried look.

"Sandra told me for yesterday. You OK?“

Alan nodded, not really in the mood to talk.

"You need to go after her! She’s great for you, man! We haven’t see you so happy since….!” Her name was too hurtful to be said. “Go after her!” Austin was pissed at Alan for not running after Nora.

That the moment Nora choose to open the door. “Alan?” She whispered.

Alan smiled, extending his hand to her. “Austin, meet Nora. Nora meet Austin.”

Austin was speechless. He really thought Alan didn’t go after her. Nora blushed, she was wearing just a big shirt over her panties.

“Breakfast’s ready.” Alan said as he sat at the table.

“Thanks.” Nora smiled and sat next to him, away from Austin.

“Well, now can we all meet your girlfriend, Alan?” Austin asked with a smile. He knew he had cornered Alan: he couldn’t say no with Nora right next to him.

Alan threw him a dark look. “Yeah, sure.”

"Then, how about everyone at Carol’s? Or at a bar?“

He turned to Nora. "Do you want to meet Katelynn?”

She looked down, thinking. “Yeah.” She whispered.

“At Carol’s it is. In a few hours. See you!” Austin smiled before running away. Alan groaned.

They ate in silence. None knew what to say.

"I know it must be… Really weird" Alan started, “And so… I understand if you need some time. Don’t listen to Austin, if you want some time before we continue, I would understand. And if… If you just want to go,” he was looking away from her. “You can, I understand.”

Nora didn’t answered. It was a lot to take. Yes, last night she had thought it was
completely okay, but she had not faced it. Now… She didn’t know.

“I’m gonna go shower, so… If you want to go just do it. It’s okay.” He was sad and didn’t really try to hide it. He wasn’t blind, he knew how uncomfortable she was. He was just letting her the choice.

He went to take a shower, and did his best to take as much time as he could. He refused to catch her as she walked out. He wanted to be sure she was out.

When he was finished with his shower, he dressed, before walking out to the living room. He found Nora sitting on the couch, on her phone.

"Hey" he whispered. Was she still there because she wanted to meet Kat?

"I’m coming.“ She said in a deep breath.

A big smile grew on Alan’s face. He hugged her close. "Thank you” He whispered in her ear.

They got ready, and finally, he drove then to Carol’s house. He was really nervous. His leg kept jolting up. He had a hard time breathing. He walked out of the car, and caught Nora’s hand as she walked out. He lead her to the door. He breathed deep, and opened.

"Hello!“ He yelled.

"Daddyyyyy!” He heard, and smiled as he saw his ginger girl running to him. He went down to his knees. She wrapped her arms around him. “ I missed you.” She pouted.

"Me too.“ He kissed the top of her head. "I want you to meet someone.” He told her, standing up, her in his arms. “Here’s Nora.”

Katelynn smiled wide. “You pwetty.”

Nora smiled, a little uncomfortable. “Thank you. You are too.”

Carol walked to them. She smiled wide at Nora. “I’m glad to finally meet you, I’m Carol.”

Nora blushed, “Nora, nice to meet you too”

Alan pulled Katelynn in the floor, and took Nora’s hand to lead her to the living room.

Sandra walked to her. “Glad to meet you. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.” She smiled.

Nora noticed how much she was looking like her brother.

After meeting everyone, she noticed how glad they were. It wasn’t happiness she saw in their faces, it was thankfulness.

It took her a long time to fully understand why they were so glad.

They were thankful he had a girl again, thankful he was able to go on.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

With time, she became a part of the group. It was obvious to her how much they all missed the dead girl. Every once in a while, one would say something that made them think about her, and they would go silent for a minute, to then re-start the discussion. But none ever compared Nora to her, or even said a rude comment, and for that Nora was glad.

With Katelynn, it was different. Nora always kept a little distance between them. She didn’t want to be too close from her. It felt really weird.

She didn’t want to take the place of the mother in Katelynn’s eyes. Yes, she wanted Alan to love her, and she wanted to stay, but she didn’t want to impose herself.

After a couple of months, they were good, only one problem staying. Nora didn’t liked staying at Alan’s place. Why? Because of the baby bed right next to the bed. That was too much for her.

She was trying to tell him to get another apartment.

"Alan, I’m telling you, it would be better.“ She smiled. He was hard to convince.

"But this one is good enough.” He didn’t want to leave. The place held so many memories. He refused to let them go.

“We don’t have the space. You only have one room, with all the crap in the other.”

“And, that’s all we need.” He knew he was being stubborn.

"So Katelynn’s gonna share your room forever?“

He looked away. "We’ll see about that later. For now it’s okay.” With that he walked away, closing the discussion.

The summer passed quickly: Alan on tour, Nora home, talking with him through internet. She hated it, but Alan wanted to tour, so she had no word to say.

Through the whole summer Katelynn kept asking for people to come play with her. She refused to play alone. She wanted to be with people all the time. So they understood she needed to be with other kids. So they decided she would go to pre-K. But they decided to wait for Alan to be home more than a week, because he wanted to be with her at that moment.

And so they decided that would be the perfect excuse to work on the next album. They almost had the songs, but they still had work to do, and then the studio.

"Hey little girl.“ He smiled at her morning smile. She was standing on the bed, wearing her giraffe pajama. She wanted Alan to wake up. It was after all her very first day of pre-K.

Alan smiled and sat up, reaching the same height as her. She jumped.

"Daddy!! Come! I wanna go to school!”

He laughed, knowing she wouldn’t say that forever.

He stood up, and got the two of them ready. That was a really hard task, because Katelynn kept not obey what he told her. She would do whatever she wanted not caring about her dad.

He finally managed to get her ready, and he buckled her up in her car seat. She was jumping in excitement.

Once there, he led her, holding her hand, to the school. He was expecting her to run to the other kids, but she indeed hid behind his legs. She was impressed by all the other kids. She had never ever seen so many kids.

He smiled to the teacher as the young girl walked to him. She was around Alan’s age. With long blond hair and almond eyes. She seemed really nice and calm.

"Hello Mr.Ashby.“ she smiled. Alan had already talked with the headmaster of the school, so the teacher knew he was coming, and the master had probably told her what he looked like. "And hi Katelynn.” She looked down at her. “Come, all your classmates want to meet you.”

Katelynn’s eyes went big, and she looked at her dad, in a permission-asking way. He nodded to tell her everything was okay.

Slowly she walked around his leg, to be in front of the teacher.

"I’m Miss Andrews. Welcome to prekindergarten.“ She smiled sweetly.

"Have a good day at school, princess.” Alan smiled.

He stayed at least half an hour in his car, observing the school. Was it a really good thing? Did she need this so early? Could he trust the teacher? He remembered the shitty teacher when he was in high school. You couldn’t leave small kids in their hands.

He finally shook his head and started the car, driving away.

He went directly to Austin’s to work on songs. He had a meeting with the teacher at the end of the day, because he was so stressed. All day he couldn’t concentrate. He was so worried. The guys were laughing at him the whole day, while he was thinking about Katelynn. There was so many subject that worried him. What if someone was mean to her? What if she hurt herself and he wasn’t there? What if she didn’t liked the other kids? He was worried sick. He knew it was stupid, and that most kids actually liked going to school. But what if she didn’t?

Around 2, he drove back to the school. He was there early, so he waited in his car. When the bell rang, he shot up out of his car, and almost ran to the front door. He saw mothers, waiting for their kids. They turned to him and eyed him up and down. He swallowed his saliva, waiting for the door to open. Thankfully, the teacher soon came and let the children run out of school.

Katelynn ran to her dad, and he bent down to catch her. He pulled her up against his chest.

"How was your day, princess?“ He knew the mothers were still watching but he didn’t cared much. He was with his baby, so it was okay.

"It was great, daddy!! We painted!” She told him, like it was the most amazing thing on earth.

Alan laughed. “Wow, what did you paint?”

"A butterfly!“ She smiled big.

He smiled and kissed her forehead. The teacher turned to him after she was done talking with some moms.

"Daddy has to talk with Miss Andrews, go play with the kids.”

There was still a few kids waiting for their parents to come. They were playing in the playground. She happily ran to them.

He walked to the teacher. She smiled and shook his hand before leading her to the classroom. They sat at the only chairs available: children’s ones.

"I’m sorry there’s no desk in there.“ She smiled, and Alan nodded.

"How did it went?” Alan asked, nervous.

“Good. Better than most kid’s first day.” Alan smiled proudly hearing that. “Most of them cry all day because their parents are gone, but Katelynn barely cried.”

“I’m not home a lot, so she is used to stay with other people.”

She nodded. “That explain why she is so mature for her age. I know you’ve already talked with the headmaster, but I would like to ask a few questions, if it is okay.”

“Of course. What do you wanna know?”

“She had a really weird reaction and reflection this morning.” She threw him a look pondering if she could ask. “She didn’t understood why a kid was crying, so I told her he was crying because his mother wasn’t there…. And she was so surprised.”

Alan took a deep breath, he remembered Zoey’s smile in his head. “I told the director the mother wasn’t in the picture.” He said with a weak voice.

“But she didn’t even knew she had one.” The teacher frowned.

Alan looked away. “That’s because I still haven’t talk to Kat about her.”

"She has never seen her?“ Miss Andrews’ eyes went huge.

He sighed. "She died in labor.”