Clara and I arrived at the store. I parked the car.
“Okay, sweetie. We need to go inside and pick up my tuxedo. Then we can go to lunch.”
“I’ll wait in the car,” she said.
“What?”
“I want to wait in the car, Daddy.”
I couldn’t believe it. She was reading a Clifford the Big Red Dog book and had no desire to exit the vehicle. It was the first time she had ever asked to remain in the car alone.
She sounded more like her mother than any other time in her life thus far.
I admit that for a moment, I considered granting her request. I figured that if I entered the store and remained by the door, with one eye on the car while the salesman retrieved my tuxedo, she would be fine.
This is why mothers exist. I knew that Elysha would kill me if she ever found out what I had done.
And it turned out pretty great for Clara, who discovered the mirrored platform used by the store’s tailor, which she mistook for her own personal stage.
It took me about fifteen to extract her from “the stage” and exit the store, and only after agreeing to dance with her in front of an audience of salesmen and customers.
