“Hey, Darla. How ya feeling, little superstar?” I looked at my daughter standing in a pair of what I presumed to be pajamas.
“I’m fine. Mom’s fussing.”
Jules ran her hand over Darla’s head and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Dar, if you need me, tell Drew to call me.” She looked up and handed me a plastic baggie with a bottle of liquid medicine in it. “She can take another dose of ibuprofen at six o’clock. The dose is marked in permanent marker on the disposable cup.”
She smoothed her hand over Darla’s head. “Go to sleep later, and I’ll come and get you.” Turning to me, her hand still firmly planted on Darla, she said, “I’m sorry to be in such a rush, but Bryce is short-handed tonight. Apparently, a stomach bug is whipping its way through the servers.”
“Go.” I gently put my hand on Darla’s shoulder and ushered her next to me.
Jules was halfway down the walkway and I was about to close the front door when she called back to us. “Dar, do you want me to put your hair up? I don’t know if Drew knows how.”
“Mom,” she said weakly. “It hurts my head. I’m fine with it down.”
“The fever makes her head ache,” Jules explained to me.
I nodded as if I knew this shit. “Go, take a load off. We’ll be fine.”
She turned and walked away while shoving her hair back into a tight knot.
“You know,” I told Darla, “when I knew your mommy a long time ago, she wore her hair messy. Pieces of it would fly out of her bun and she didn’t care.”
“Really?” Darla looked up at me with big blue eyes.
“Yep.”
We stood in the foyer, staring at each other for a few beats. Both of us seemed unsure of why the other was here and what to do next.
“Come on. Want to rent a movie?” I held out a shaky hand.
“Sure.” Darla stuck her small hand in mine.
“You can lie here.” I pointed to the couch, not giving a rat’s ass over how ridiculous it was to have a sick kid lying on a white sofa. “Let me get you a blanket and a pillow.”
She plopped down and curled into a ball. “Drew?”
“Yeah, Darla?”
“Do you have some lemonade?”
“I don’t. Wait ... I have a few cans of Arnie Palmers.”
“Arnees? What’s that?”
“It’s iced tea and lemonade mixed. You’ll like it, and it’ll be good for your throat if it’s sore.”
“It is.”
I came back with a lightweight blanket and a pillow, and said, “One sec.” Then I got the drink and poured it into a plastic Hafton U tumbler.
“Thanks,” she whispered. “I like this pillow. It’s huge.”
My heart ached in a way it never had before. I wanted to rub my daughter’s back and kiss away the pain. It was an instinct I didn’t think had been born into me. Especially with my family—cold, removed, step-this and step-that, ridiculous expectations I’d never wanted any part of.
“What type of movies do you like? Cartoons? Princesses?” I sat down by her feet, snatched the remote, and flitted through the on-demand offerings.
“Drew, Ms. Green said you look like my dad. Did you know him?”
All of a sudden, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Like a sad excuse for a movie, an eighties romantic dramedy ... I was that guy.
