Two days later we're on a plane to Rome. The engines hum a steady, monotonous lullaby as we climb through the cloud cover, leaving the familiar weight of the terminal behind. The flight is long. Fourteen hours of recycled air, narrow seats, and the slow, rhythmic drift of altitude. We talk about everything and nothing. He recounts a story about a delayed train in Vienna that has nothing to do with our current trajectory, and I find myself nodding, tracing the condensation on my water glass. He asks about my work, about the manuscript I’m trying to finish, about the way the morning light hits the kitchen table in the quiet hours. I answer, but my attention keeps drifting to his hands resting on his knees, to the way his tie has loosened just enough to reveal the pale column of his throat. The cabin pressure shifts, and the air grows thin, but the space between us has never felt so thick, so charged with unspoken gravity.
Then turbulence hits. A sudden drop, a lurch to the left, and the little light above our heads flips to a steady amber. I gasp, my knuckles pressing into my thighs. Before I can brace myself, he grabs my hand. It’s not the gentle, paternal pat I’d expect, but a firm, deliberate clasp. His fingers slide between mine, interlacing with a certainty that startles me. His hand is warm, strong, unfamiliar in a way that makes my stomach flip. It’s a quiet, sudden vertigo, like missing a step in the dark. I look down at our joined hands, at the contrast of my softer skin against his weathered grip, and I don't pull away. I can't. He doesn't let go. The plane levels out, the captain’s voice crackles over the speakers, but his hand remains, anchored to mine like a promise, like an anchor. I watch him from the corner of my eye. He’s staring straight ahead, jaw set, but his thumb moves once, slowly, against my knuckles. A silent reassurance. I close my eyes and let the hum of the engines swallow me, but I don’t release him. Not until we land.
Rome greets us with a wall of humid, golden air that hits the cabin doors like a physical thing. We collect our bags, move with the slow, shuffling crowd, and step out into the terminal. The heat is immediate, wrapping around us like a heavy coat. We follow the signs to the hotel shuttle. It’s a sleek white coach that smells faintly of diesel and lemon polish. He carries both our suitcases up the ramp, his movements effortless, and I watch the way his shoulders fill out his shirt, the way the airport lights catch the silver at his temples. I’m so used to seeing him as my father, as the man who packed my lunches and taught me to tie my shoes, that it’s disorienting to suddenly see him as just a man. A tall, quiet, beautifully ordinary man. The shuttle ride is quiet. We don’t speak much. The city blurs past the windows in a haze of terracotta and olive green, and I find myself memorizing the side of his face, the way his eyes crinkle when he thinks I’m not looking.
The hotel is a palazzo, all marble and gold leaf, tucked away on a quiet street just off the Piazza della Rovere. The automatic doors slide open, releasing us into a cathedral of cool air and polished stone. The lobby is gorgeous. A sweeping staircase curves upward, banister carved with acanthus leaves, and a chandelier the size of a small car hangs overhead, casting prismatic light across the mosaic floor. It smells of beeswax, old paper, and something floral and expensive. We approach the reception desk, a slab of black marble veined with gold. The receptionist checks us in, her fingers flying across the keyboard, and then she looks up. She sees our shared last name, and she beams.
"Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs.!" she says, her accent rolling over the words like honey. "The honeymoon suite, as requested."
I open my mouth to correct her. To say *father and daughter*, to clarify the biology and the decades and the simple, unromantic truth of it. But Dad says "Thank you" before I can. He doesn’t look at me. He just gives a slight nod, and she turns, already sliding a heavy brass key across the marble. The word hangs there, uncorrected. I let it.
The elevator ride is short, glass-walled and silent. When the doors open, we step into a hallway lined with cream-colored paper and dim sconces. His key fits the first door on the left. He pushes it open, and the room breathes out around us. It’s vast, all high ceilings and arched windows overlooking a quiet courtyard. But my eyes go straight to the center of the room. The giant king bed. It dominates the space, dressed in crisp white linen, and arranged perfectly on top are the tokens of a cliché romance I didn’t know we’d booked: champagne on ice, sweating in a silver bucket, the bubbles catching the track lighting. A plate of chocolate-dipped strawberries glistens beside it, glossy and tempting. Rose petals on the giant king bed, scattered generously, leading from the door to the edge of the mattress like a path. One bed. Just one.
He sets the suitcases down, the soft thud echoing in the quiet. The room feels suddenly smaller, charged with the weight of our shared silence. He turns to me, brushing a stray piece of paper from his shoulder. "I'll sleep on the floor," he says. His voice is casual, but his eyes are careful, watching me.
I look at the bed. I look at him. The air conditioning hums, a low, steady pulse against the sudden tension in the room. I swallow, my throat dry. "Don't be silly, Daddy," I say. "We're adults."
The word Daddy hangs in the air between us. Different now. It used to be a reflex, a child’s shorthand for safety, for authority, for the man who could fix anything. Now it sounds different. Softer. Heavier. It echoes off the marble walls, bouncing back at me with a new resonance, stripped of its childhood innocence and charged with something quiet and deliberate. I watch his face. The corner of his mouth twitches, not quite a smile, not quite a sigh. He doesn’t correct me. He doesn’t reach for the key card. He just looks at me, really looks, and in that gaze, the last of the distance between us dissolves. The champagne bubbles in the bucket. The strawberries wait. And the single bed sits in the middle of the room, perfectly, impossibly, made for two.