Aria's throat was doing something she was managing carefully.
"She gets her stubbornness from me," Alexander said. "Her mother would like me to note that she disagrees with this." He glanced at Mei. "Her mother is wrong." A small laugh around the table. "She gets her certainty from her mother. She gets her courage from herself." He paused. "I can't take credit for any of the best parts of her. But I intend to spend the rest of my life being grateful that she let me show up anyway."
He looked at Damien.
"You love her correctly," he said. Simply. "That's the only thing I was ever going to ask of anyone." He held Damien's gaze. "You love her correctly."
He looked back at Aria.
"I'm proud of you," he said. "Not for surviving everything. For choosing joy anyway." He raised his glass. "To my daughter. The best thing I spent twenty four years looking for without knowing what I was looking for."
The table was very quiet.
Then Richard said from the end: "Hear hear."
