Brian Haner Jr

Despite the fact that she'd only had four hours of sleep the night before, Nicole was in her office by seven. She had a couple of things to do before she made her way to the hospital to check on her paitents, especially Corina.

Nicole set her purse on her sekd, then settled in her chair. She stared at the phone for a long moment before picking it up and dialing a familiar number. With the two hour time differenct between Huntington Beach and Minnesota, she should catch her father right as he came to work.

"Paster Milencovich's office, this is Betty."

"Hi, Betty, it's Nicole. Is my dad around?"

"Nicole!" The old woman's voice rose with a note of both surprise and pleasure. "How are you? Your father says you work to many hours. Is that true? You have to take care of yourself. You're not a teenager anymore. you need your sleep and lots of fruits and vegetables. Did I send you my lentil vegetable soup recipe? It's wonderful. I served it at the ladies prayer lunch just last month and it was a hit. I'll e-mail it to you. Did you know we have e-mail at church now? Very modern. Horace and I are thinking of getting a computer of our own. The things people can do on those machines. It's just amazing. So why are you calling, dear?"

Despite her exhaustion, her worries and her questions, Nicole couldn't help smiling. Betty never changed. According to town legend, she'd been born talking.

"I'd like to speak to my father."

"Oh of course your would. He's right in his office. Just got here a few minutes ago, but then you'd know that. Paster Milencovich is as regular as the church clock. He walks through that door every day at exactly eight fity-eight. In the past ten years I don't know that he's been late more than once, and that was because he stopped to help old Mrs. Winston with her car. It had a flat tire, or was it out of gas? Anyway, he's quite punctual." She paused to draw a breath. "I'll let him know you're on the phone."

There was a click as she was put on hold. Nicole knew that it would be a couple of minutes until her father could get Betty off the intercom so that he could pick up the phone. The only woman was a trial at times, but she was as much a part of Nicole's world as the town where she'd grown up. Betty and Horace had never had children. Despite that, and their differences- her talking constantly and him silent as a tree- they rarely went anywhere without eachother and when they were together, they always held hands. Once when Nicole had been all of fifteen or sixteen, she'd even come across them kissing in a corner of the choir room. It had been the only time she'd known Betty to be quiet.

"This is an unexpected please," her father said a few minutes later. "Good morning."

"Hi, Dad. How are you?"

"Fine, and accoring to Betty, I was here right on time, which is a good thing. Otherwise I would have missed your call." He chuckled. "That woman."

"I know she makes you crazy, but you can't get rid of her. She's the only one who understants the filing system."

"Exactly. So what's going on in your life?"

She appreciated that he asked questions rather than assuming a surprise call ment trouble. Her father had always thought the best of her, she reminded herself. He'd always been there for her. Which made the reason for her phone call more difficult.

"I have to ask you somehing," she said slowly, holding onto the receiver and cloing her eyes. She pictured her father, in his shirtsleeves, sitting behind his large desk. "It's about when I was in high school." She clearned her throat. "More specifically, when I got pregnant."

"All right. What would you like to talk about?"

She drew in a deep breath. Her eyes began to burn, but she refused to cry. "I never wanted to disappoint you," she whispered. "I knew what you expected ofme and I wanted to do that, but things got out of hand. It was just the one time."

She heard him sigh. "I can't decide if I should tease you about it only taking one time, or if I should remind you that I love you. I always loved you. And I don't mean that with a silent 'even while you were pregnant' at the end of the sentance. I think I loved you most then because you're my daughter and you were in pain. I suffered with you. In a different way, perhaps, but no less profoundly."

"THen why did the light go out of your eyes?" she asked. "Until then, whenever you looked at me, I could see this wonderful light shinging from your eyes. I knew that i was the center of your world. But when I told you, the light died. It's never come back."

"Oh, Nicole, I wish you were here instead of several thousand miles away."

She gave a soft laugh that was half a sob as well. "So you could beat me?"

He chuckled. Paul Milencovich had never once spanked her. The threat of a beating was a private joke between them. "Maybe," he teasted, then grew serious. "I'll admit that I was shocked to find out about your pregnancy and a little chagrined. After all, you were the pastor's daughter. But that was more about me than you. I thought I knew where you were all the time and what you were doing. It was startling to realize you'd grown up so much. Somewhere along the way my little girl had turned into a beautiful woan and I hadn't noticed. Probably because I didn't want to see. Once you grew up, you would go away and I didn't think I could bear that."

Two tears escaped her tightly closed eyelids. Nicole groped for the box of tissue on her desk. She wiped her face and sniffleed. "I'm sorry, Daddy."

"No. Don't you dare be sorry. I'm proud of you, Nicole. Not because you're a doctor, but because of who you are. You're the best daughter ever. Nothing changed for me. The light didn't go out of my eyes, it went out of you. And when it died inside, you couldn't see it in me anymore."

Her eyes popped open. Nicole stared unseeingly at the wall across the room. "What?"

"It's true. I've wanted to say something for years now, but it never seemed like the right time. I've watche dyou punish yourself over and over for something that was never your fault. You were seventeen whenyou got pregnant and barely eighteen when the baby was born. You had a wonderful dream of being a doctor, and the brains and opportunity to make that happen. Yes, you gave your child up for adoption. Is that so horrible?"

"I don't know."

"I've spoken with Jenna's grandparents just as you have, Nicole. Their daughter was desperate to have a baby. In many ways, you saved Sara. Did it ever occur to you that was the reason you got pregnant? Did you ever stop to think about the gift you gave that family? You can have more children i fyou choose, but Sara couldn't have any. Every life touched by that child has been blessed. Even yours."

His words swirdled around in her head. She'd never thought of her circumstances this way before.

"You are a gifted healer," he continued. "You've always said that you could have made it if you'd kept the baby. And I'm sure you woul dhave. You're smart and determined. But what would you hadve done with your life? Would you have gone to medical school?"

"I don't know," Nicole admitted. "It would have taken so ong just to get through college, what with working full-time, taking care of a child and taking classes."

"You made a choice. You weren't selfish, you wern't bad, you just made a choice. You gave your daughter to a warm, loving family. There is no evil in that decision. Let it go, Nicole. Firgive yourself. You have been blessed. Stop turning you back on those blessings. Instead, be greatful and move on."

Tears flowed down her cheeks, but they wern't painful or sorrowful, instead they healed her. She felt the empty spots in her heart filling with love and compassion. She felt her spirit lighten, perhaps for the first time in nine years.

"You're right," she said simply. "Why didn't I see it before?"

"Because you wern't ready. You had to take the journey to get to your current destination. I love you and I'm proud of you."

Even across half a continent, she felt the warmth of her father's love. It wasn't as if he was with her, holding her close, just as he had when she'd been young. "I love you, too, Daddy."

He was right. The light had always been in his eyes. But she'd been too ashamed to see it shining there. She'd spent years beating herself up for something that deserved to be forgiven a long time ago. If she'd been blind to her father's love for all the time, what else was she having trouble seeing?