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“I still can’t believe he’s some kind of big shot,” the girl in the back of the car laughed, almost giddy with something like nerves. She was talking mostly for the sake of her mother, or at least in theory. She knew her dad knew already, might have known for a while who her bio-dad was, in fact. They’d met at some point, that much she had figured out, but her mother hadn’t left Texas. Sandra, therefore, needed to know what her biological parents were like, since she’d never met them. “Meredith—that’s bio-mom—told me he offered us, like, half my college fund to help out.”
Noah kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him, watching interstate signs as he drove their family through one state into another. Everything they owned, little more than the clothes on their backs by then, was in the trunk of the car.
It was understandable that Claire felt the need to talk about her biological father. She’d finally managed to get permission to go see him in the hospital, after all. From what was understood, seeing him might have been almost as difficult as her previous fear that he’d died. Noah had spoken with Angela just enough to gather that much.
Not to mention the fact that they’d only just picked her up from the airport before they headed out on the road for California. So of course she wanted to talk about him, talk about what made him good in spite of the pain and the anger.
“He was running for Congress when I found him,” she explained. “And he won, too, right before everything happened. They were going to just send me to Paris, just super casual like that. It was kind of amazing. Not that I really wanted to go or anything. But the fact that they could, you know? Like it was no big deal they lived in some Manhattan mansion.”
“Oh my God,” Lyle interjected. “Would you stop talking about this guy already? You’ve been babbling about him for, like, an hour.”
“Shut up, Lyle,” Claire shot back, glaring at him.
“Claire,” Noah warned automatically. “Lyle.”
Both teens grumbled under their breaths, the sister folding her arms over her chest and flopping backwards, pressing into her seat.
The silence didn’t last long before Claire spoke up again, not done filling her mother in. She ignored her brother’s annoyed groan. She leaned forward, her hands on the back of her mother’s seat for a moment. “But did you know he can fly?”
There was a pause as her mother turned her head up, raising her eyebrows at the rear-view mirror. “Really? That’s possible?” she asked, and Mr. Muggles barked quietly at the startled question, squirming in her lap. Sandra glanced over at her husband, who nodded grudgingly. Yes, he knew it was possible.
“No, seriously!” Claire brightened. “I only saw him do it once, but it was like—like a jet. Left a trail behind in the sky and everything and he was gone, just like that. It was incredible. Or, actually only in retrospect. When everything stopped being so messed up and all.
“He used to be a pilot and everything. He could have been one of those guys from Top Gun. Which is really cool, like he’s got all this history and now he can do it for real.”
Noah’s hands tightened on the steering wheel instinctively. Sandra noticed, softly saying, “Claire.”
Claire was startled for a moment, before her eyes met her father’s in the mirror for an instant. She lowered her eyes then, and her smile turned almost shy as she shook her head. He finally smiled too, remembering how proud he would always be of his daughter, no matter how much of a handful she honestly was.
She spoke softly but firmly when she clarified one last thing, a gentle honesty in her voice. “But obviously he’s not as cool as my real dad or anything.”