Mary Beth Sanders was walking down the concourse at the Atlanta airport when she saw him and waved.
The first thing she noticed about her father was how good he looked, especially compared to the last time she'd seen him.
For one thing, he'd grown a beard and let his hair grow a little bit. He was dressed quite casually, shorts, a golf shirt and topsiders with no socks. He had lost at least 20 pounds, maybe more, and he was tanned, like he'd been getting out a lot. Finally, best of all, he looked relaxed, at ease, like a huge burden had been lifted off his shoulders, which indeed it had.
Dave Jackson was tallish, maybe six feet tall, and quite slender after his recent weight loss. His red hair was streaked with gray, and getting thin in front, but he still looked years younger than his 64 years. He'd always been athletic, and had a crooked nose to show as a war wound, the result of its being broken playing high school football in the days just before face masks became standard equipment.
He looked almost sexy, and as the thought crossed Mary Beth's mind, she heard whispers of a forbidden desire from long ago. Then she passed through the gate and they embraced.
"Daddy, you look wonderful!" Mary Beth said as she hugged her father.
"Oh, Sweetheart, it's so good to see you," he replied. "You look great!"
Mary Beth wrapped her arm around her father as they walked down to get her luggage. They talked about her flight, and he asked about her children, who weren't really children any more. She updated him, and she asked him how he was making out.
"Oh, I have good days and bad days," he said, as a shadow passed over his face. "But I'm having a lot more good days now."
Yes, Mary Beth thought, her daddy looked more like his old self than he had in many years, and she got a great sense of satisfaction to know that she'd been right and her brother Michael had been wrong. That hadn't happened often.
Once they were in his car, and headed for the 90-minute drive to the town where he'd settled, she thought about the changes that had scarred their lives over the past few years.
It had been just over six months previously, just after New Year's, when her mother, Elizabeth, had finally succumbed to the cancer that had robbed her of all of her vitality, long before it took her life. It had been six long years from the first diagnosis to her death, and Dave had nursed her every step of the way. It was ironic, Mary Beth thought, that it took a deadly disease to finally bring her to reconcile with her mother.
Dave and Elizabeth had been an odd pair their entire married life. They'd met when he was in the Navy and she was a nurse. They'd been deeply in love from start to finish, but it wasn't easy. Dave was easy-going and fun-loving, and something of a liberal. Elizabeth was quite strong-willed, serious and very conservative. Of course, she was the one who enforced the rules in the house.
That hadn't been a problem for Michael, their first child, who was now 44. He was his mother's child, from whence he got his straight-laced attitudes, his drive to succeed and his looks, narrow with his mother's straight brown hair.
But Mary Beth? She'd been a rebel all her life. She inherited her father's ruddy complexion, his thick red hair, and his personality. She had been a problem child, or at least she was according to Elizabeth. She'd smoked, cigarettes and pot, she'd been a serious drinker for a long time, and she'd had abysmal taste in boyfriends, of which she had many. Needless to say, Mary Beth and her mother fought constantly from the time she was 12, after hitting puberty, until she moved out of the house.
In retrospect, Mary Beth had learned the hard way that maybe Mom had been right. Her first marriage at age 17 had been abusive, fortunately with no children, and her second marriage had foundered after 12 years, literally on the rocks, after producing her two sons, who were now 20 and 19 and in college.
Ten years ago, she had been arrested for a DUI after causing a wreck. Fortunately, no one had been seriously hurt, and since it had been her first offense, she was given probation. Nevertheless, it caused her to take stock of her life and realize that she was killing herself, one drink at a time. So she had taken a leave of absence from her job and entered a three-month residential rehab program. She had been sober ever since. But her husband wasn't willing to quit drinking or smoking pot or doing cocaine, and a year later she'd taken her sons and moved out. She'd moved to Texas and found work as a receptionist for a major corporation. It paid decently, but it had no future, and now she was taking her four weeks of vacation to spend with her father, and possibly find a different course to her life.
After his wife's death, Dave had made the decision to take early retirement from his company, sell the family home and start fresh in a new community. Michael had been dead-set against it, but Mary Beth had known it was the right thing to do. She knew that as long as Dave was in that house, he'd be haunted by memories of Elizabeth and the pain she'd suffered through the last years of her life.
Mary Beth suspected that Michael, a corporate executive, wanted to inherit the house after Dave was gone so he could sell it and pocket the profits, and Mary Beth had told him just that. It had sparked an awful row, but she'd stood her ground, and with her support, so had Dave.
He'd moved and gotten a two-room apartment in a beach town with lots of golf courses, and he'd eagerly gotten reacquainted with the game he'd loved before Elizabeth got sick.
As they drove and chatted, Dave occasionally stole a glance or two at Mary Beth and thought, for at least the millionth time, how beautiful and sexy his daughter was. And for at least the millionth time, he immediately castigated himself for the wicked thoughts those glances caused. He couldn't help it, though. The years had done nothing but enhance her appearance, like fine wine. She was tall, her flaming red hair worn long, just past her shoulders.