It's a Miracle

It had been a big surprise to him to see quite a few other, more experienced police officers wearing badges and name plates that were cockeyed or off center. It looked like they'd just stuck them on the uniform with the only concern being that things get close to where they should be. Not Rick. He even used small pieces of cardboard as backing underneath his name plate to make it look completely smooth with no material 'gapped' between the two pins that attached to his shirt.

Satisfied, he went to get Emma who was sitting and waiting patiently for her dad.

"You have your lunch money?" he asked as he grabbed his wallet and keys.

"Yes, Dad."

"Of course," he replied, making sure to smile. "I only have THE best daughter in the whole entire world."

Emma laughed and told him he didn't know all the daughters in the world.

"That's okay. I'm sure I'm right," he told her as they got into their family car.

Just five minutes later, Rick gave his daughter a kiss on the cheek, told her he loved her, then headed for the precinct for another day of pulling over speeding motorists. That thought made him laugh, but as someone who'd been shot at on two occasions, he'd be okay with never hearing the snapping sound of a round zipping by his head again.

He'd only spent three months in Afghanistan, but in those 90 days he and his fellow Marine MPs had provided security for several convoys, and one of them had been ambushed. It was over in less than a minute, but the intensity of the brief gunfight made an indelible impression on his brain. So had seeing the dead bodies of the three outgunned jihadists who'd foolishly opened fire on the heavily-armed Marine unit.

With that very pleasant thought behind him, he pulled into the parking lot and got ready for Day 2 on the Bloomington police force.

He was met with a variety of greetings from, "Hey, Rook!" to "Semper Fi, Marine!" and a couple of others that made him chuckle. Rick knew that every new guy (or gal) gets razzed no matter the job. He was new, and this was a part of the rite of passage. That said, he knew he wouldn't be razzing 'newbies' when he had some seniority, because that wasn't his style. But he was in the minority where that kind of thing was concerned, and he took it all in stride, smiled, and let it roll off his back.

His second day was very similar to his first. The only difference was responding to a call from a very large man who was a merchant in town. He had an accused shoplifter sitting quietly waiting for the police to arrive, because he was too afraid to try and bolt past the man who was built like the proverbial brick shit house.

Or maybe 'outhouse' was the better word. Rick was working hard to put his Marine Corps vocabulary behind him, but as they say, old habits die hard.

His partner was a 53-year patrolman named Norm Davis who'd been content to never even try moving up the ranks. He wore two stripes on his sleeves, but after nearly 30 years on the force, was still just a patrolman like Rick. He was clearly burnt out, and he was more than content to let the young officer interact with the public. So when he'd let the older man know he let the beautiful blonde off with a warning on his first-ever stop, all he got in response from Norm was, "Whatever works."

Norm rarely ever spoke except when it came to his upcoming retirement. He had dreams of buying a trout farm, and whenever he had the opportunity to talk about it, Rick knew he was in for a long, boring, oneway conversation. But he didn't judge because he had no idea what he'd feel like when he was 50 or even 40 for that matter. Norm had been divorced twice, had a daughter who didn't speak to him, and he was a good 30 pounds overweight. And going bald.

Rick actually felt sorry for the man, and did his best to pay attention, and whenever the opportunity presented itself, make a positive comment. A comment that was almost always ignored as Norm barreled on about his future career in fish.

He forgot all about Norm, fish, and the day when he got to his mom's house to pick up Emma. But the moment he walked in, his mom grabbed him and took him aside.

"What's going on?" Rick asked when he saw the concerned look on her face. "Is Emma okay?"

"Something happened at school today," his mother began.

"Did Emma get hurt?"

"No. Well, not physically."

"Mom, what is it?"

"Evidently these two other girls, who were her best friends, Sophia and Olive maybe?"

"Sophie and Olivia," Rick said trying to hurry his mom up.

"Yes. That sounds right. Anyway, they told Emma they don't like her anymore and that they're now best friends. Poor girl hasn't stopped crying since she got in the car!"

"That...that doesn't make any sense," her son replied.

"Honey? That's how girls are. I don't know why, but they can be vicious. And sometimes for no apparent reason. I've seen this happen over and over where some girl decides she no longer likes her best friend, pairs up with a new girl, and someone gets hurt. This time it's Emma."

"Is she in her room?" he asked.

"Yes. She might have cried herself to sleep by now. I haven't heard anything for a good 15 minutes or so."

Rick walked to the back of the house with his mom and there was his little girl. She was asleep, but her cheeks were a bright red, and her eyes were still puffy and red, too.

"She didn't say what happened?" a bewildered Rick quietly asked.

"No. As far as I can tell, there wasn't any...event. It's not like they'd be fighting over a boy or something at this age."

As her son ran his hand through his thick, dark, closely-cropped hair, his mom put her hand on his arm and said, "Girls really are like this, Rick. It might be nothing more than one of them deciding they like the other girl better than Emma and want her out. And just like that, the other two team up and...."

"Break her heart."

"I know it hurts, but she will get over it. And maybe you could check with the school and see if Emma's teacher knows anything. Just in case."

"I hate to wake her up," Rick said after saying he'd do that.

"I understand, but she'll be very glad to see her father," his mom said supportively.

He knelt down by her bed, then looked at her, said, "Sweetie?" as he gently touched her shoulder.

He saw one little eye open up and then the other. And once she recognized him, she threw her arms around his neck and that's when the crying started again.

"I know. I know," he said as she tried to explain what happened even though Emma had no idea why it happened.

Emma cried most of the night in spite of her father's best efforts to distract her. It killed him to see her like this, and he called Norm to let him know he might be a few minutes late in the morning.

"No problem. God knows there's nothin' worth hurrying in here for," the veteran officer said glumly with a heavy sigh.

Emma asked to stay home the next morning, and when her dad told her she had to go to school, the crying started again. It was times like this that he knew Emma needed a mother. His mom was a good substitute, but she couldn't be there all the time.

But Rick didn't even have a girlfriend let alone someone he was serious about. So for now, it was up to him and him alone.

Emma almost smiled when her dad he was going to walk her to class as they pulled into the parking lot.

"Can you stay with me at school today?" she asked, on the verge of crying again as they approached her classroom.

Ms. Peterson was at the door when they walked up, and when she saw Rick she smiled, said 'good morning' then told him she thought she knew why he was there.

"Oh, so you saw something?" he asked, hoping she had an answer.

"No. I only noticed that after recess Emma was very quiet. But when I saw Sophie and Olivia holding hands a little later, I assumed there were hurt feelings."

"My mom says that's normal for girls, but I've never heard of such a thing," Rick told her.

"Oh, she's 100% correct. It happens all the time, and almost always between girls. Boys tend to fight it out but girls just...well, they get mean. I planned on talking to Emma this morning, but now that I know what's going on, I'll be better able to help."

"What can you do, though?" Rick asked quietly as Emma stayed by his side.

"I'm no miracle worker, but I have some ideas," she told him with a smile.

She then bent down, smiled at Emma, and asked, "How would you like to be my special assistant today?"

Emma looked at her dad then back at her teacher and finally smiled.

"Really?"

"Yes! You'll be my #1 helper all day today. How does that sound?"

When Emma flung her arms around her teacher's neck, Rick got a lump in his throat.

"You're good," he told the attractive teacher when she looked at him.

She smiled at him, then said, "I don't know about that, but I do love children, and Emma already has a special place in my heart."

"Yeah, I kind of like her, too," Rick said as he looked down at his daughter.

"You love me!" Emma said, correcting her handsome father.

"I do indeed, and I think Ms. Peterson does, too. So something tells me this is going to be a very good day."

When he bent down to hug Emma, she squeezed his neck and told him she loved him, too.

When he stood back up, he thanked Ms. Peterson who only smiled before saying, "I must say you look very handsome in your uniform, Officer. I was too afraid of getting another ticket to notice when you pulled me over."

The very attractive, older woman was wearing a light-gray sweater over a white blouse with a pair of dark-gray pants, and looked even prettier than she had the two other times he'd seen her.

"Coming from someone as...beautiful as you...that's quite the compliment," he told her.

She laughed and told him he needed to get his eyes checked.

"No. I see just fine, thank you very much," Rick told her with a smile and a little laugh.

"If you say so," she graciously replied before asking Emma if she was ready to go inside.

"Okay!" the young girl replied.

"Bye, honey! Have a good day!" her dad said.

"Bye, Daddy! You, too!"

"Thank you," Rick said to her teacher.

"Anytime," Karn said with a smile.

After a long day with Norm, Rick was really looking forward to seeing his daughter and had largely forgotten about the previous day's drama until he walked into his mother's house.

"Hi, Daddy!" were the first words he heard, causing him to recall the sad affair of the day before.

"Did someone have a good day?" he asked as he gave her a hug.

"Dad. I had THE best day EVER!" Emma bubbled.

"Tell me about it," he said as he saw his mom smiling at him.

"I got to sit next to Ms. Peterson all day. And she let me decide all kinds of things!"

"Like what?"

Emma ignored the question because she had even better news.

"At recess, Sophie told me she wants to my best friend again!"

"That's great, honey!" her happy father said.

"She wanted me to not like Olivia, but I told her we should all be friends instead."

"Wow! You're like a little grownup!"

"So now all three of them are friends again," Rick's mom proudly announced.

"I think I need to thank someone's teacher," her son replied as Emma gave him one more hug and told him he was the best daddy in the whole world.

"What a difference a day makes," Rick said as Emma skipped away.

"Girls. What can I say?" his mom replied with a smile.

"Should I expect them to hate Emma again tomorrow?"

"Maybe. But it will probably take at least a week or two," his mom replied before giving her son a hug and telling him she agreed with her granddaughter.

"Thanks, Mom. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Maybe it's time to start thinking about finding someone...."

She stifled a laugh when she had to stop herself from saying, "Someone to do it with," because, although she was no prude, her son wouldn't have laughed because it was his mother saying it. Still, she thought it was true, and wished he'd make more of an effort. Then again, she wasn't willing to take her own medicine and look for a new husband, so she couldn't make too big a deal out of Rick's not being ready yet.

"What would be an appropriate way to thank Ms. Peterson?" Rick asked.

She nearly laughed again when she thought about saying, "Try saying 'thank you'."

She gave it a little thought then said, "Maybe a little plant for her desk?"

"Yeah. That's...perfect. Thanks, Mom."

"You could add a nice card if you wanted to make it even more special."

"Hmmm. I may just do that," her policeman son replied, a little grin on his face.

In fact he stopped on the way home and had Emma help him pick out both the plant and the card. Just seeing his daughter happy again was its own reward. Knowing he was doing something nice for the person who'd made Emma's happiness possible was icing on the cake.

Rick couldn't afford to take any more time off, so he let Emma deliver the thank-you gifts after dropping her off at his mom's before heading to work the next morning.

After learning more about the mating habits of trout, Rick was ready for anything else when he went to pick Emma up, but he wasn't ready for the very nice, handwritten note she gave him as soon as he walked in.

"What's this?" her father asked.

"It's from Ms. Peterson. She got teary-eyed when I gave her the little plant and the card."

"Really?" her father replied as he opened it.

It took all of the restraint Bonnie had no to try and read over her son's shoulder, but she kept her distance as he read.

"Rick—thank you SO much for the beautiful plant! I love orchids and it looks so nice on my desk. And the card was very touching. Neither one was necessary, but you truly made my day. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart. Karn."

She'd drawn a heart near that word and that made Rick smile.

"So? What did she say?" Rick's mom asked the moment he put the note down.

"She said 'thanks'."

"That's it? Just thanks?"

"Pretty much," her son told her.

"If only she was say...31," his mother mused.

Emma was dialed into the conversation, and in spite of her youth, she understood.

"My dad is going to ask my teacher out on a date?" the nine-year old inquired with a kind of hopeful look on her face.

Her grandmother only shrugged then told Emma she'd have to ask him that.

"Daddy? Are you?"

He almost said 'yes' but hedged his bets.

"Oh, I don't know, honey. She's very pretty, but we're not really the same age, so...."

"That doesn't mean you can't love someone," Emma replied without hesitation. "Grandma is a lot older than me, and I still love her."

Bonnie's feigned look of shock was accompanied by a smile as she said, "Well, that is true!"

"See? So you and Ms. Peterson could fall in love, too!"

"Well, we'd probably need to go on a date or two first, don't you think?" her father asked with a laugh.

Emma thought for a moment then said, "Probably a whole bunch of them!"

When her father and grandmother both laughed, Emma laughed, too, then forgot all about it.

But her father didn't. He thought about the beautiful cursive writing on the very nice paper and the woman who wrote it the rest of the evening and tried to decide how to best go about finding out if she might possibly be interested in going out with him.

For the next couple of days, he spent as much time as he could trying to come up with a plan for finding the right time and place to ask Karn out, but in spite of his best efforts, he kept drawing a blank. So that Friday evening he casually mentioned it to his mom when Emma was in her old room playing.

"Why don't you have a house warming?" Bonnie suggested.

"Seriously?"

"Yes. You haven't been there very long, and if she doesn't even bother to show up, that'll tell you a lot about whether or not she's even interested."

"But my house is...."

"A little bleak?" his mom suggested.

"I was gonna say 'plain', but yeah, bleak works."

"No worries! I'll spiff it up for you in no time."

"So how I do this?" Rick asked.

"Let me take care of the invites and the house. Once it's ready, we'll pick a date and send out the invitations."

His mom hesitated then asked, "Do you even know enough other people here anymore to pull this off?"

"Oh. Yeah. That might be a problem unless I just ask all the guys on the force to come over."

"If you do that, you better be ready to shell out a few hundred dollars in beer and snacks."

"Ouch," the cash-strapped police officer replied. "Got any other alternatives?"

"Yes. Keep it small. Ask maybe a dozen or so folks to come like Emma's teacher, your partner, and a few others. For less than a hundred bucks, we can do this."

"What if she doesn't show up?"

His mom smiled then said, "You pays your money and you takes your chances, right?"

Rick's father had often said that, and even though he'd been gone for nearly 15 years, he could still hear his dad saying those words like it was yesterday.

"I sure miss Dad," he said.

"Me, too, honey. Me, too."

Rick's father had passed away when he was just 40 years old. He'd had congestive heart failure but led a nearly normal life until it took a serious turn for the worse right after Rick turned 12. The decline was fast and furious and his father went from working full time and playing catch with his son in the back yard to being out of work and bedridden within six months. Three months after that he was gone.

"Okay," Rick said after a quick trip down memory lane; a lane that was a mixture of happy times and oxygen tubes and a beeping monitor in his father's hospice room.

"You just leave everything to me, okay?" his mom said just as Emma came in.

"Leave what to you, Grandma?"

"Grandma is going to help us have a house warming," her father explained.

The puzzled look on Emma's face wasn't because she didn't know what that meant. It was that her father was the person saying it.

"Is my dad okay, Grandma?" she asked, causing her grandmother to laugh.

"He's fine, sweetheart. In fact, he may be ready to start dating again."

Bonnie knew she shouldn't have said that, but it was too late.

"What?" a shocked Emma said as she looked at her father.

"No. I'm not. Well, maybe I am, I just don't know for sure. Yet."

The shock went away as Emma came over and hugged him.

"I am SO happy!" his daughter told him as she let go and looked up at her dad.

"You want me to start dating?" he asked, not sure he understood.

"Duh!" Emma told him, causing Bonnie to laugh.

"How else are you going to find a new wife if you don't start dating?" the almost-grownup nine-year old said.

"She has a point," Rick's mother added as she kind of tilted her head toward her son.

"Guess I better get busy then, huh?" an energized Rick Gates said as he put his arms around his two favorite girls on earth.

On their way home, Emma asked her father a question that surprised him.

"How about Sophie's mom, Dad? She's single, and she's really nice."

He'd forgotten all about their very brief conversation at the open house, and while he didn't want to tell his daughter that just wasn't going to happen, she was someone else he could invite to their own 'open house', so he told Emma he'd make sure to do that.

"And can Sophie stay with us that night?" an excited Emma asked.

Rick also remembered saying that Sophie needed to spend some time there, first, so he suggested asking her to come over after school one day the following week.

"Can Olivia come too? Please, Daddy?"

The battle was over before it began when Rick said, "We'll see, honey. But soon. I promise."

Knowing he could trust his mom completely, Rick let her run with getting his place ready for the house warming. The only question he had was when it would be. She told him she only needed two days on her end, but suggested he give people a week's notice. So they agreed on a day, Rick set the time, and all he had to do was give his mom a list of names, and in some cases, addresses.