Theo and I exchanged another look.
The bed was definitely not designed for three people, especially when one of them was six-foot-two and built like a professional athlete.
But the hope-filled expression on Debbie’s face was impossible to resist.
“All right,” I said with a sigh. “But if I fall out and break something, your daddy will have to explain it to the emergency room doctors.”
She giggled again and pulled my hand until I moved forward. I carefully lowered myself onto the narrow strip of mattress on Debbie’s right side, immediately realizing that this was going to be an exercise in creative geometry. My feet hung off the end of the bed, and I had to angle my body sideways to avoid taking up the entire thing.
Theo settled on the other side with considerably more grace, though I noticed he was clinging to the edge of the mattress with the desperation of someone trying not to fall into a tiny, very crowded canyon.
“There,” Debbie said with satisfaction, snuggling between us. “Now tell me the story about the dragon princess.”
“Which dragon princess story?” Theo asked, automatically shifting into his bedtime-story voice.
“The one where she saves the library from the mean wizard.”
I felt rather than saw Theo smile in the night-light’s glow. This was clearly a well-established favorite.
“Once upon a time,” he began, his voice soft and rhythmic, “there was a brave dragon princess who lived in a castle made entirely of books . . .”
As he spoke, his hushed tones between a whisper and mumble, I found myself stroking Debbie’s hair, the silky strands slipping through my fingers as her breathing gradually slowed and deepened. The story was clearly one he’d told her many times—something about a princess who could breathe rainbow fire and whose best friend was a talking bookworm named Professor Peapod Greenbeaningham.
Theo’s voice grew softer as the story progressed, and I could feel Debbie’s tiny body relaxing between us. Her breathing became deep and even, punctuated by the occasional soft sigh that indicated she was well on her way to sleep.
“And the dragon princess and Professor Greenbeaningham lived happily ever after in their library castle, where every book had a happy ending,” Theo whispered.
“The end,” Debbie mumbled, then turned toward me and burrowed her face in my shoulder.
We lay there in the quiet darkness, listening to her breathe, neither of us wanting to move and risk waking her. My arm was starting to go numb, and I was pretty sure Theo was going to have permanent indentations from the mattress edge, but I wouldn’t have moved for anything.
This was what family felt like, I realized.
It wasn’t just the big moments or vacations or celebrations, butthis—lying in a too-small bed, listening to a child breathe,feeling like every uncomfortable, awkward, perfect moment was exactly where I belonged.
Wherewebelonged.
After what felt like forever, Theo carefully extracted himself from the bed, moving with the stealth of a ninja who’d had years of practice navigating sleeping children. I followed his lead, carefully moving Debbie’s head from my shoulder to her pillow before easing myself up and off the mattress with pretzel-like dexterity that would have made a Cirque du Soleil performer proud. We crept out of her room, Theo closing her door behind him, and stood in the hallway, both of us probably looking like we’d just completed some kind of elaborate heist.
“Well,” Theo whispered, “that was . . .”
“Heaven,” I finished, and meant it with every fiber of my being.
He smiled, and in the dim light from the hallway, I saw the same contentment in his expression that I was feeling.
“She called usbothher daddies,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, I heard that, too.” I wasn’t sure how Theo would react to that. I mean, neither of us went there. That was all Debbie. And she was five. We certainly couldn’t be held to her unattainable standard, not at this point in our relationship—if you could even call something so young a word that implied so much. Hell, I didn’t even know what to call us.
But she had.
My daddies.
I gulped down my terror and asked, “How do you feel about that?”
He thought for a moment and smiled. “I like the sound of it. I’d hoped . . . someday . . . someone might . . . you know?”
“For a man whose life work is immersed in words, you sure struggle with yours.”
