“Well, why didn’t he go ask Mrs. Wharton for directions?”
“He did. And she said he should have listened the first time, so she wouldn’t help him,” she said over a mouthful of pancake.
“I do believe you are supposed to wait until you finish chewing before you speak, Little Miss Manners.” I smirked. “And maybe Cooper should have listened the first time.”
“He couldn’t.” She set her fork down. “He got sent to the nurse’s office at recess ’cause his nose was bleeding. And Mrs. Wharton gave the directions when he wasn’t there. And that’s not fair, right, Daddy?”
She made a good point. She rarely got in trouble, and the few times her teacher had talked to me, my daughter had given me a reasonable explanation.
“Did he tell her that?” I asked as I sipped my coffee.
“Nope. Because she told him, ‘No talking.’ That’s the rules. But that’s not fair, and you told me if something isn’t fair, I should say something.”
I reached for both of our plates and headed to the sink.
“I did tell you that.”
“See? I’m following the rules. I just like your rules better than Mrs. Wharton’s,” she said as she polished off her glass of milk and walked it over to the sink.
I roared in laughter at her comment.
Mrs. Wharton had to be pushing eighty, as she was my teacher back in the day, and she was old as dirt back then. I’m sure she didn’t even remember that Cooper had left the room.
But Harper was an observer. She was always watching everyone around her and making sure they were okay.
I loaded the dishes in the dishwasher and dried off my hands. “All right. Well, you lost recess privileges. Was it worth it?”
“Cooper stopped crying. It was worth it.” She smiled up at me. “Plus, I got to sit on the bench and think about my birthday party. I want to have a Pinkalicious party.”
My daughter loved talking about her next birthday party. She’d start months in advance, but seeing as it was only six weeks away, it was a good time to start thinking about it.
I mean, what the fuck did I know about birthdays for little girls?
I’d never had a birthday party in my life. So, I let Harper call the shots about what she wanted.
“Come on, kiddo. Let’s get your coat on and get over to the jobsite, and you can tell me all about this Pinkalicious party on the way over.” I helped her slip her coat over her shoulders and zipped it up.
She ran down the hall to get her backpack with her coloring books and crayons. She knew the drill. This was how we spent our Saturdays. We worked for a few hours, and then she got to pick what we’d do in the afternoon and evening.
Once we were both in the truck and buckled, I pulled down the driveway and glanced out the windshield. The snow was falling pretty good this morning.
My daughter filled me in on her birthday party on the short drive to Violet’s house. She wanted to invite everyone in her class, along with some adults she’d known for most of her life. She wanted everything to be pink. The balloons, the cake, and the sandwiches.
How the fuck does one find pink sandwiches?
But I nodded and listened as I pulled in front of Violet’s house, then groaned when I saw her car parked in front of the two work trucks that were also there.
“You growl too much, Daddy,” Harper said as I helped her out of the car.
“I didn’t growl. I groaned.”
“Both make you sound grumpy.” She turned to see the car parked a few feet from us. “Yay. That’s Violet’s car!”
“Yep.” I tried to hide my irritation because the woman kept showing up at her house to check on things, which was distracting my guys. Why the fuck do you hire a general contractor if you’re going to be micromanaging everything?
“I like her,” Harper said as she started running toward the house.
That makes one of us.
