Finally Home || Camren

Chapter 12: Father and Daughter

The next morning,

Mike is getting ready for today’s errands.
He walks to the kitchen and then something caught his attention, he saw the new espresso machine on the kitchen counter, he walks to the counter and bend his knees to examine the machine.

He found a note on the cup it says “Good morning Dad, if you’d like to try a cup press here”. He follows the arrow Lauren draw on the note, he presses it and waited for his coffee. Once done, he sips it and nodded at the taste of coffee.

Mike is enjoying his new coffee while staring outside the window of their kitchen.

He notices that Lauren is in their backyard particularly at her Mom’s rose garden.

She is cleaning and cultivating the area. Mike flashes a smile while looking at her daughter. Way back, Lauren and her mom used to plant and clean the area, it is one of their favorite past time aside from music.

Mike quickly head downstairs and get a shovel on the storage room, he went outside to help her daughter.

Lauren notices the presence of a shadow behind her and turns her head.

“Hey dad! Have you tasted your coffee yet?” she flashes a smile to her father.

“Yeah, you definitely got me there huh? Those coffee is really good! So what are you up to now?” he asks, as he scans the garden.

“I want to restore Mom’s rose garden and I want Clara to know about her grandmother’s favorite past time. Well for sometimes, it was my favorite too.”

“All right then, Let’s make this garden beautiful again. Have you buy roses to plant?”

“Oh shoot! I forgot.” Lauren frowns and face-palming herself. “I should drop by at Camila’s shop they have it there and maybe I could invite her and Clara you know”

“So Camila… Still love her don’t ya? She’s wonderful lady Lauren, don’t hurt her again okay? as well as Clara, you are gaining the trust of that kid Lauren. Don’t leave her. Both of them. Understood?”

“I still love her Dad, I’m not the same person as I am before, I know I fucked up big time before but I’m not gonna do it again, I’m not gonna leave her or Clara this time. I know this for sure.” Lauren said in a very serious tone.

Mike saw her daughter’s sincere eyes. And he knew that her daughter is saying the truth.

He is happy to know that Lauren is still in love with Camila. He like the girl, but not only because she was the mother of her grandchild but he knew Camila is very polite and kind person. He watched the girl grew together with Lauren and the others.

So when he found out that Lauren and Camila are dating back in high school, as much as he wants to protest because they were so young back then, he supported the couple and he just set guidelines for two such as open bedroom doors whenever they at their house, no late night parties and etc…

They shared laughter. They shared old stories. Some were new stories about the town when Lauren was still away from them.

The two spends hours of cleaning and cultivating the entire garden.

After having lunch together at their house.
Mike says good bye to her daughter to run some errands at the church, and he’ll be back later that afternoon.

Left alone and nothing to do, Lauren grabs her old guitar and her old notebook. She went to their front porch and sits on a chair, starts playing random melodies and composing words.