“I HATE the pink dress!”
“You picked the pink dress!”
“I WAS WRONG!”
I bit back a smile. There was something healing about watching this. A father who loved his daughters. Who showed up. Who was present even when it was hard.
Everything my father never was.
“You need help?” I asked, stepping into the kitchen.
Justice looked at me like I’d offered him a million dollars. “Please. Storie, tell your sister she has to wear the dress.”
“Dream, wear the dress.” Storie didn’t even look up from her phone.
“NO!”
Justice sighed. “That’s… not helpful.”
I crouched down to Dream’s level, catching her mid-sprint. She stopped, her little chest heaving, her face scrunched up in defiance.
“Hey, pretty girl. What’s wrong with the pink dress?”
“It’s scratchy,” she said, her bottom lip trembling. “And Madison said pink is for babies.”
“Madison sounds like a hater.”
Dream’s eyes went wide. “What’s a hater?”
“Someone who’s jealous because they can’t look as good as you.” I smoothed down one of her pigtails. “You know what I think? I think you’d look beautiful in the pink dress. But if it’s scratchy, we can put a soft shirt underneath. Would that help?”
Dream considered this with the seriousness of a Supreme Court justice. “A purple shirt?”
“If you have one, sure.”
She looked at Justice. “Daddy, do we have a purple shirt?”
Justice was already moving toward the laundry room. “Yep, I got you.”
Crisis averted.
I stood and caught Storie watching me, one earbud out, a curious expression on her face.
“You’re good with her,” she said.
“I’m the youngest of a lot of siblings. You learn how to handle the little ones.” I shrugged.
“Plus, Dream’s easy to love.”
Storie gave me a dry “uh huh,” and was already looking back at her phone. Conversation over, apparently.
“Hey. Have you seen Yusef this morning?”
“Guest room.” She didn’t look up. “He’s being weird. Just sitting there staring out the window.”
No concern in her voice. Just observation. Like she was reporting on the weather.
My chest tightened. “I’m going to go check on him.”
