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Part 31 of Motion Practice
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2015-07-03
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What I Learned on my Summer Vacation, an Essay by Hope Summers

Summary:

When she’s ten, Hope goes to Disneyland with her dad and her dad’s boyfriend Wade.

When she’s fifteen, she writes about how that trip changed her life.

Notes:

This story is primarily set during June 2014, which places it during Chapter 10 of “Harmless Error” and near Chapters 4 and 5 of “Sua Sponte.” There’s no real overlap, but I’m a big fan of context.

I recognize that Hope might be too good at lip reading in this story. Consider it both proof that she inherited her father’s big brain and also creative license.

In other news, I’ve never been to Disneyland. I apologize if my few brief references to the park or other geographical landmarks are imperfect.

And thanks as always to my beta-readers, Jen and saranoh. I don't know if this one surprised them, but they liked it.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Hope Summers
Tenth Grade English — Period 3
Practice Essay #4
January 22, 2020

Prompt: Write a personal essay on the topic “a lesson I learned on my summer vacation.” There is no requirement that the summer vacation be your most recent summer vacation. Instead, focus on the lesson itself. It can be from a camp you went to, a trip you took with your family or friends, or even from television. Please put your thesis in bold.

Unlike most of my classmates, I am lucky enough to have two families: one with my mother, her husband, and my half-brothers; and one with my dad and Wade. Since they first started dating, my dad’s never excluded Wade from any of our family events, including summer trips together. That’s probably why my most memorable summer vacation—and the one where I learned the most—happened when my dad, Wade, and I all went to Disneyland. Even though I was only ten at the time, it was on that trip that I realized for the first time that knowing your dad loves somebody and seeing it in person are two different but amazing things.

 

==

 

»If we’re doing this, we’re doing this,« Wade signs as he talks, the second half of his sentence almost poking Hope in the eye. She pushes his hands away from her, and he stops signing to muss up her hair until she scowls. »I’ve never been to Disneyland, Hope’s never been to Disneyland, you were hatched in a laboratory and only learned human joy as a grumpy-cat adult—«

Her dad glances up from his iPad to glare.

Wade opens his hands, not because he’s signing but because he’s shielding himself. »Telling it like it is,« he replies, and her dad rolls his eyes. »Nate. Nathan. Nathan—« He signs something about melons and turkeys, probably another guess at her dad’s middle name. »—Summers. This is our first trip together. A trip of joy and relaxation. Therefore, it needs to be epic.«

Her dad sighs. »We can’t go to three sports games, the ocean, all the places you listed in this e-mail, and the park.«

»And why not?« Wade demands.

»Besides the fact that hockey season’s long over? There are only twenty-four hours in a day and five days in our week.« Wade waves a hand at him, and her dad glances over in Hope’s direction. »Tell him he’s wrong.«

She shakes her head. »That’s your job. You’re his boyfriend.«

»And you’re his favorite.«

»Right now, since you’re talking about me behind my back even though I’m right here, neither of you are my favorites,« Wade breaks in even though he’s grinning.

He laughs when Hope and her dad roll their eyes together.

When Wade first burst into Hope’s life like a firework, all energy and brightly colored gel pens and huge grins, they’d only ever talked to each other through squinty lip reading, occasional grunts, and messy little notes. Wade hadn’t known any sign language, mostly because he’d never needed to.

»Wade’s not lucky enough to have a daughter like you,« her dad’d explained on a rainy Saturday. »Otherwise, I’m sure he would have learned.«

She’d sort of sighed at him. »Yeah, except most people don’t have deaf daughters.«

Her dad’d smiled. »That’s their loss.«

»Not the right word,« Hope’d sniped back, and her dad’d stayed quiet for the rest of the afternoon.

But Wade knows sign language now, and he always signs like he’s excited, his hands flappy and too fast. Of course, they’re also that way when he’s not signing—including right now, when he reaches across the table for one of the brochures her dad ordered off the internet.

Her dad pins the brochure to the table and says something that she can’t quite read. Wade huffs. “I wanted to see if you ordered anything about those princess events,” he says, and he winks at Hope when he realizes she’s watching.

She grins at him.

Her dad sighs and replies, but he’s still too focused on the iPad for Hope to really see his mouth.

“And as somebody who’s never been to Disneyland,” Wade retorts, “I want the whole experience. That includes princesses. All the princesses.”

He grabs for the brochure again, his elbow almost knocking Hope’s smoothie into her lap, and she catches her cup at the same second her dad catches Wade’s wrist. He shoots Wade one of his annoyed looks, but his hand’s gentle. He and Wade stare at each other for a long time, playing chicken until Wade’s face turns all soft and—

»Stop being gross,« Hope complains, sticking out her tongue. Her dad smirks, but Wade wrinkles his nose and steals her smoothie. »Hey!« she protests, squeaking, and Wade grins at her. »Give it back, or I’m telling Dad I want to do all the things you hate.«

“I hate nothing,” Wade says, because he’s holding her smoothie way over her head and can’t sign.

She reaches for it, misses, and scowls at him. »You hate teacup rides,« she reminds him.

“I hate anything with endless circles. It’s leftover from what happened on the county fair—” He says words she’s not used to, probably the name of ride. “—in 1992. Your shoes will not survive a repeat performance.”

»You could puke on Dad,« Hope suggests.

»You could both leave me out of this,« her dad replies. Wade and Hope grin together, and her dad sighs at both of them like he’s very tired. He hates it when they work together. »We’ll be there five days, « he reminds them both. »We can’t do everything you want to do. You have to choose.«

Hope realizes all at once that he’s mostly talking to Wade—and that the face he’s making is the same one from when she begs for the same impossible thing a hundred times in a row. She wonders how much Disneyland planning she’s missed, living with her mom. Especially since, now that she’s paying attention, she notices how a bunch of the brochures and maps are all marked up with colored pens and how Wade’s chewing nervously on his lower lip.

»Rides, « she finally signs. They stop paying attention to one another, and she shrugs. »As long as I get to go on rides, I’m happy.«

Her dad raises his eyebrows. »This is your big trip. You begged me for months.«

»Because I’m tired of going on vacation with Mom and Brett,« she replies. He frowns, but not in a disapproving way. More like he’s never thought about that answer. »The fun part’s being with you and Wade. And riding rollercoasters and carousels and teacups.«

»I will puke on the teacups,« Wade reminds her.

»No, you’ll puke on Dad,« Hope replies, and her dad and Wade both laugh.

 

==

 

Dad and Wade first started dating around my ninth birthday. According to my dad, he and Wade both wanted to date for a long time but kept missing each other. “Ships passing in the night,” my dad calls it. He introduced me to Wade a couple months before they started dating, and I knew right away Wade was special. By the time my dad actually told me that Wade was his boyfriend, I knew my dad loved him. Maybe not romantically, but the way he loved me or the rest of our family, the kind of love that’s deep and never fades.

 

==

 

»We can’t stop now!« Hope complains. »You said yesterday that we have to avoid the lines, and that means running!«

In front of her, Wade flaps a hand and bends over to grab his knees and pant like a little old man. When she flicks her gaze at her dad, he raises his hands. »What can I do?« he asks. »Not all of us trained for this.«

“I didn’t know my daily runs wouldn’t be enough for Disney,” Wade wheezes. His face is red and splotchy, but Hope thinks it’s mostly his sunburn. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand before he glances up at her dad. “Can’t we . . . and meet princesses before . . . ”

Hope scowls, ready to complain that she’s missing half of whatever Wade’s asking, but her dad jumps in and starts signing. »Wade needs lunch,« he explains, ignoring Wade’s offended face, »and I think I at least need a water.«

»We’re going to get stuck in long lines,« she protests.

»Which is better than the morning news talking about how your dad’s boyfriend fell over and died of heat exhaustion and hunger in the middle of the happiest place on Earth,« Wade reminds her, and she crinkles her nose in defeat because he’s right.

The summer sun beats down on Disneyland, hot and blinding, and her dad plants his hand on her head as he steers her toward the food court they’d passed a little while ago. Even outside of the rides, there’s a million things to look at: kids in princess dresses and Mickey Mouse ears, little booths selling toys and giant turkey legs, the snaking lines of people waiting for their turn on the next ride.

When they first showed up at the park, Wade’d flinched and said it was louder than he expected.

Hope thinks it’s perfect, a sea of colors and smiling strangers. The best vacation of her life, she decides, and she’s only halfway through her first day.

Even though she’s ten, her dad hoists her up above the crowd of people in line at the food place until she’s able to squint at the menu and ask for a burger and fries. They crowd into a booth built for either four tiny people or two normal-sized ones, and Wade steals her pickles when she scrapes them off the bun.

»I want to see princesses,« Wade informs them once they’ve inhaled half their lunch. There’s mustard smeared on the corner of his mouth, and her dad smiles about it. »Rides are great, but a dream is a wish your heart makes and my heart wishes for face time with Aurora. And Cinder.«

»Ella,« Hope tells him. He stops smothering his onion rings in ranch to blink at her, and she shrugs. »The cinder part is because she’s all dirty from working in the kitchen. Her real name is Ella.«

Wade scowls. »Don’t bring your weird alternate universe head canons into this.«

»I assure you that Hope’s theory is fully supported by canon,« her dad replies with a tiny smile.

Wade huffs and crosses his arms, like either thing really hides his own great big smile, and Hope rolls her eyes at them. »You’re so weird,« she says, and scowls when Wade offers her dad a high-five across the table. »And I want to see princesses, too. But Ariel. And Belle.«

»A full year to turn you to the light of Disney classics, and you still stab me in the heart with all that Belle action,« Wade complains, shaking his head. »Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me that Mulan kicks more butt than Merida, and I’ll have to wonder whose daughter you really are.«

Hope grins. »I’m Mom and Dad’s daughter.«

»Shot through the heart again!« Wade exclaims, and mimes stabbing himself with his plastic knife. Hope laughs, all of it bubbling up through her chest and out into the world, and when she recovers enough to finally grab her soda, she catches her dad watching them. Not just her, like when they’re alone, but the way she squeaks when Wade steals one of her fries, and the big grin on Wade’s face when he starts rambling about how Merida belongs with all the old-style princesses, not with Belle, Ariel, and Jasmine. Her dad’s not grinning or laughing, but his face stays soft and dreamy, like he’s reading the happy ending to one of his favorite books.

Hope stretches out just far enough to nudge his shin under the table. He jumps and blinks at her. “What?” he asks, not bothering to sign.

She shrugs. »You went quiet,« she points out.

“And weird,” Wade says, an onion ring in his hand. “I mean, I’m used to weird Nathan Summers silences—took a correspondence course on them, actually, and aced the class with flying colors—but as those go, these are at least a code b—”

He jerks a little when her dad plants two fingers on top of his lips, but Hope just grins. “I like watching you two together,” her dad promises, and if Wade’s face turns all mushy after that, they definitely never talk about it.

 

==

 

Wade spent a lot of his weekends with my dad, including the weekends my dad had custody of me, but seeing them together all day and night on our trip really changed my perspective on their relationship. Wade cracked my dad up with jokes about Disney princesses, he kept him from worrying too much, and most importantly, he inspired my dad to be spontaneous. My dad is the least spontaneous person in the world, and seeing him change our perfect plans to drive to the beach really taught me how much he loved Wade.

 

==

 

»You and Wade are going to get married, right?«

A cool wind blows through the open balcony door of their hotel room, tickling the back of Hope’s neck, and her dad squints in her direction. They’re all a little sunburned after two days at the park, and his hair looks extra-white against his lobster-red forehead. They’ve talked a little since Wade’d ducked into the shower, mostly complaining about how tired their feet are from all the running around, but her dad’s reviewing brochures again and not totally focused on her.

At least, not until right now.

He presses his lips into a tight line like when he’s nervous. »I think I missed your question,« he signs after a couple seconds.

Hope rolls her eyes. »Did not.«

He snorts, his shoulders jumping a tiny bit, and ducks his head back down to the brochures. When he keeps smiling, she knows that it’s because Wade’s singing in the shower again. Wade only ever sings two shower songs: one about a girl putting everything her bad boyfriend owns in a box and shoving it to the left, and one about somebody named Taylor ruining a wedding “in a dress that looks like a cheese Danish.”

»Because in the olden days, they let you burst into a wedding and tell the pastor to stop,« he’d explained once after one of their random living room dance parties. »And since this guy was not the type of boy who should marry the wrong girl, Taylor decides she’d better step in. Which is kind of noble, but also maybe something she should’ve said way before ruining a wedding, you know?«

Hope’s still not sure she really understands Wade’s explanation, but she knows that his singing is loud and always coaxes a smile out of her dad.

The same dad who rearranges some brochures to avoid glancing up at her.

»Dad.« When he ignores her on purpose, she slaps the floor with her hand. He barely blinks, just flips a page in their Los Angeles tour book.

She groans. “Dad!”

She knows the word sounds funny—clumsy and grunted, according to Brett, no better than one of her baby brothers—but her dad jerks his head up to stare at her. She never tries words at his house, mostly because they all sign, but sometimes—

»You didn’t miss my question,« she says glaring at him, »and pretending not to notice me doesn’t make it go away.«

He stares at her for a couple seconds before he smiles. »You’re too smart,« he decides.

»Your fault,« she retorts, and he chuckles as he shakes his head.

She thinks he might dodge the question again—or worse, keep staring at the brochures—but instead, he climbs off the couch and walks over to where she’s sitting in the middle of the floor. She raises her eyebrows, confused and a little scared, but all that changes into a funny, fluttery feeling when he kneels down in front of her and pulls something out of his pocket.

The box is soft and blue, but the ring’s gold. Like the wedding rings her mom and Brett wear, but wider and not as shiny.

»I know I haven’t talked to you about it,« her dad says after she stops running her fingers over it (but while she’s still grinning, because she can’t stop herself from grinning until her sunburn hurts). »I think I mostly brought this with me as a reflex, I’ve had it for so long. But I wanted . . . «

He trails off, his fingers sort of fluttering but not forming any signs, and Hope holds the box back out to him. »You know he loves you so much, right?« Her dad blinks at her, his face all surprised and soft, and Hope actually grins harder. »He talks about it sometimes, says he loves you like a love song—«

Her dad wrinkles his nose. »While stealing Selena Gomez’s intellectual property, apparently.«

»—and that he’s lucky to have us.« She pauses, biting her lower lip for a second. »Brett never says that. Or at least, not about me.«

Something changes in her dad’s face, turns him hard like a stone, and he shoves the box back into his pocket to reach out and nudge her chin with two fingers. She smiles a little, weaker than before, and they spend a long time staring at each other. They never really talk about her mom and Brett, Hope remembers all of a sudden, and the weird, sinking feeling they share between them is mostly why.

»I love you more than I could ever love another person,« her dad says, and she huffs at him. »No, Hope. You’re first. You will always be first.«

»Or we can all be first to each other, me and you and Wade,« Hope replies, and he spends one long second watching her before he reaches forward and wraps her up in a giant hug.

Later, when Wade trails out of the bathroom smelling like fruit and steam, he flops down onto the couch and stretches his legs across her dad’s lap. Her dad rolls his eyes, but he smiles, too. “I want to go to the beach tomorrow,” Wade announces after he’s comfortable. “I know we planned to go explore the city, but as they say, plans are meant to be broken.”

Her dad sighs. “That’s not the saying.”

“Well, of course it’s not the saying, but since the saying is about breaking rules and I broke a rule by ruining it, I think—”

Hope yawns out of nowhere, her sunburn stretching in all sorts of uncomfortable ways, and her dad and Wade stop bickering to look at her. »Beach,« she votes, and leans her head against her dad’s shoulder. »I’ve seen lots of cities, but I’ve never been to the ocean.«

Wade grins and punches the air. »I knew there was a reason I liked this kid so much!« he declares, and her dad smiles.

 

==

 

But driving to the beach is only one of the thousands of ways my dad showed Wade he loved him over that week in California. I woke up some mornings to catch them kissing on the hotel balcony or sharing coffee—two things I could never imagine my dad doing before he met Wade. And even though I already knew about the ring, I think that being part of the moment where my dad’s boyfriend became my stepfather changed my life as much as theirs.

 

==

 

They drive to the ocean first thing the next morning, all the windows rolled down in the car as they rush down what her dad calls the Pacific Coast highway, the saltwater smell everywhere. Hope and Wade both crane their necks out the window like puppies, and even when he rolls his eyes, her dad smiles. The day’s gray and windy—blustery, like from Winnie the Pooh—but it feels like the way she always imagined, crisp and fresh. Wade twists around every once in a while to sign about the clouds or the water, but Hope mostly keeps her eyes trained outside.

The beach they end up at is probably an hour away from their hotel, maybe more, and it’s mostly deserted thanks to the weather. Wade kisses her dad on the cheek and then charges toward the water, not worried about the weather or the fact that he’s not wearing swim trunks. Hope tries to follow, but her dad snags her by the tank top.

»Sunscreen,« he signs. She rolls her eyes. »Don’t argue.«

»I didn’t say anything,« she reminds him.

He smiles. »Your face did.«

He spends forever slathering the sunscreen on her shoulders, arms, neck, and nose (he laughs at the face she pulls for that), and by the time he’s finished, she’s too busy watching him to care about following Wade. Wade’s in up to his knees, grinning and waving, and her dad—

Her dad’s face is far away, like he’s totally caught in his own brain. She’s caught that look on her mom once or twice, all distant and dreamy. She usually saves it for Hope’s brothers, but her dad uses all of his on Wade.

Hope wonders if she’ll ever love a person so much that her heart swells up and shines all over her face.

She reaches out and tugs on her dad’s pocket—particularly the left one, because she’d noticed him fiddling with it that morning—and he glances down at her. When she tugs again, more meaningfully, she offers him a tiny smile. “I know,” he says, slow and deliberate. His big hand is warm on the top of her head.

She hugs him so tight around the waist before she finally runs off into the water with Wade.

They splash around for what feels like hours, their clothes dripping with water even though they never go in all that deep, her dad watching from a safe, dry distance. He’s barefoot and wearing shorts and a t-shirt, a whole different version of the dad she’s used to, and she realizes all of a sudden how much she loves him. Because he drives her to dance and Girl Scouts and never misses a school play, yeah, but also because he’s here. He brought her to Disneyland just because she asked.

She waves at him, grinning, and he waves back.

Then Wade drags her off her feet to spin her, and she shrieks until the shrieking turns to laughter.

When she’s finally too tired to chase Wade around anymore (because he’s fast and her shorts are wet and she’s lost a flip-flop to the tide), she trots over to her beach towel and collapses onto it. »Okay?« her dad signs, almost like he’s afraid she’s too tired to read lips. She nods, and he bends down to brush wet hair out of her face. They stare at each other a long time before he asks, »What do you think?«

She frowns. »About?«

He glances quickly at Wade, who’s now standing at the place the water meets the sand, his feet buried. Hope immediately grins, and her dad smiles back. »I figured,« he says, and crouches to kiss her on the forehead.

In movies—or at least, in Hope’s favorite movies, she knows there’s plenty she still needs to watch—there’s always that moment where everything changes for that one character. Belle figures out that the Beast isn’t all bad and falls in love with him. Mulan realizes that she can’t beat the Huns by pretending to be Ping. Simba learns that he needs to protect his pride, not hide from them.

Turns out, most of Hope’s favorite movies are Disney movies.

Either way, Hope’d always figured that those everything changes now moments only happened in movies, not in real life. At least, she does until she watches her dad walk up to Wade and touch his hip, steer him until they’re facing each other in the spray (ocean all over their feet), and dig into his pocket. Not until her dad says something to his boyfriend, his eyes trained down at the little box he’s struggling to open, and wets his lips.

Not until Wade’s eyes bloom huge, his whole body vibrating and jittering, and he wraps his hands around her dad’s.

For one really scary second, Hope thinks he’s saying no.

But then, she realizes that he’s helping her dad, helping him and smiling and laughing, and her dad laughs too before he grabs Wade and kisses him.

They lose the box in the ocean, but not the ring.

And when they both remember her, and wave her over to hug them, she runs so fast that she thinks she’s flying on the ocean wind.

 

==

 

My dad and Wade have been together for almost seven years now, and married for almost five, but it’s still that trip to California that taught me everything I know about their relationship. It was the first time their love felt real to me, and as a ten-year-old, that can really change your life. Looking back, I know I learned that knowing someone loves their husband and seeing it in person are two different things that summer. I’m glad I did.

 

==

 

“Wait, back up and repeat what you just said.”

The doughnut shop Wade loves almost as much as he loves her dad is tiny, but it always smells like sugar. Better than that, the ladies behind the counter love Hope and load her full of free doughnut holes every time they stop by on her way to her dance class. She sucks powdered sugar off her thumb as Wade’s handsome friend Clint, his hair messy and his shirt wet from running, stares at Wade.

Wade grins. “I didn’t throw up on the teacups until the sixth time?” he asks.

Clint shakes his head. “Not that.”

“We have pictures of Hope sticking her hands in all the handprints at that famous handprint theater?”

“Still not that.”

“Nate proposed, and since there’s no waiting period in California, we decided to bite the bullet and—”

“That one,” Clint cuts in with a quick finger-jab, and Wade grins hard enough to show off all his teeth. It’s warm like the sun, and Hope feels bubbly enough that she almost laughs. Clint squints again. “Seriously? You?”

Wade shrugs. “Yeah.”

»I was the best girl,« Hope chimes in, and Clint blinks helplessly at her until Wade translates. »I couldn’t sign as a witness, but I helped them pick out ties. Mostly because they sucked at it.«

Wade scowls. “We did not suck.”

»No, you really did,« Hope promises, and she’s not sure what part she loves more: the way Clint laughs at her and her new stepdad, or the way Wade grins at her like she helped hang the sun.

Or maybe, she’s allowed to love both. The same amount, at the same time, the way her dad loves her and Wade.

The way they all love each other, she thinks, and smiles.

Notes:

The next long-form MPU story, Sua Sponte, starts posting next week! It features Clint, Phil, and a return to classic MPU themes. Also, I might have another one-shot coming up shortly. Here's a teaser for being part of this adventure:

 

To be fair, Tony’s standing in front of the list with a pen in his mouth and his reading glasses balanced on the tip of his nose, but that’s not the important part. No, the important part is that marriages rely on support, and right now—

 

“I know you want to help entertain them over the summer,” Tony’s woefully unsupportive husband continues, “but between their competitiveness and your competitiveness, I’m anticipating a fair amount of disaster.” Bruce pauses, clearly considering the situation. “Unless you’re trying to descend this household into chaos.”

 

Thank you all for reading, and let me tell you: it's good to be back!

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