While I was looking through cards for my dad, I thought of Lindsay looking through cards with Lucy for Danny (because I was too old for most of the cards – so sad). Then I started to think through the story and realized that Danny will spend Father's Day on the floor of a bar, possibly … nope, no possiblies. Not even considering a possibly.

Poor Lucy is going to spend Father's Day alone without her father!!! But forgetting that … or at least leaving it for another somethin'-somethin' that may be in the works right now, we'll just pretend the last few moments in PU did not happen. (has anyone else thought that it sounds like "P-ewe?" Like a big stink? Not that I'm sayin it is, just saying that's what it looks like.) Now that the note is longer than the story itself, I'll move on.

Anyway, own nothing. And if I did …

Carded

Lindsay took a side step down the isle of the small mid-town card store and reached for another card as she waited for Flack to come pick her up. Everyone was giving him small jobs, to keep him busy and active, but he seemed to just float through the days, one after the other; little emotion, little of the Flack that had opened his arms to her from the beginning.

She knew there were few words to say. Even time would never take away the pain.

Lucy cried out suddenly, drawing her mother's eyes back down toward her. She rode in her front carrier, sucking on her pacifier, her eyes focused on Lindsay's leather strapped necklace--a present from her own mother on mother's day.

Lindsay turned back to the cards and smiled a little at the plain card she had pulled from the slot. It's simple message "Missing you on Father's Day" was perfect for her own father. He was not a man to dabble with sentiment or cartoony-pictures. She knew what he would be wanting with his card. Pictures of Lucy, pictures of the family, and more pictures of Lucy. He would sit back in his old recliner, pull out the pictures in the quiet of the evening, and smile over them. Then he would tuck them back in the envelop, set it on the side table, and repeat the ritual the next evening—never would he think to take them out and find a frame.

That, Lindsay supposed, was for her mother. She made a mental note to email a few more pictures a few days after she sent the card.

"All right," Lindsay adjusted Lucy in her pack with a little bounce. "Now for your daddy. Something funny or serious?"

Lucy only looked up at her, her small hand still tugging on the necklace.

"Right—we should go for funny, right? Hmm." She pulled out cards from under labels of "Father's Day: Just for Fun" and "Father's Day: Humor."

She laughed over the first card. "No—your daddy hasn't worried over giving out money to you yet. I'm not even sure he knows how much we spend on you. He just goes and does it. He loves you that much. But there will come a day when he's going to have to say no. And no again. And learn to do it without it hurting him so much. Then … maybe … he'll just say no. So a little while after that this card will be funny."

Lindsay slid the card back into the slot, and pulled out another labeled top ten reasons you deserve a relaxing Father's Day. Lindsay read the reasons and realized they were all too old for Lucy. She hadn't had a recital, she'd never been on a date—and wouldn't Danny love that—and Lucy had not been sick yet for her daddy to take care of her that way. No … but it gave her an idea to make her own card. She could change the word deserve to warrant …

"Looks like a job for you and me while daddy's on the late shift tomorrow."

Lucy lifted up her eyes and Lindsay leaned down to nuzzle their noses together. Lucy gurgled around her pacifer, like the edge of a laugh.

Lindsay decided that she would take that as a yes.

Balancing the card on the plastic holder, Lindsay managed to pull out her cell phone. She took a picture of the card and the list, then tucked the card back into its slot.

She found a serious one about a new daddy, and a funny one about daddies and bunnies, another card for her own father that was for a grandfather, and then a final little princess card that would make Danny melt.

Smiling, Lindsay took the stack of cards to the cash register.

"First Father's Day?" the clerk asked as she started to ring of the cards.

Lindsay nodded. "I couldn't resist. I suppose there's a little insanity in this."

She smiled down at Lucy, and watched as Lucy curled her fingers around one of her mother's fingers, than another.

"You did pretty good. Some mothers leave with three times as many."

Well, if other mothers bought more ...

For a moment, Lindsay considered going back, then stopped herself. It wasn't the card or the cards that counted. It was the daddy, she thought, and didn't Lucy have the perfect one.

Besides, she had a few more ideas, and a list of things to do.

She couldn't wait for Father's Day.

That's all. :) No room for notes down here. I wrote them all up top.