After dinner and half of the movie, Willow dragged out her art box. For a while, I scrolled
mindlessly through my phone but then I noticed her looking back at me. “What’s up, Willow?”
“Will you color with me?” she asked in a quiet, almost insecure voice. I sure as shit knew I’d
never refused to get down and play with her, so this had to be more lingering bullshit from her time
with Lisa.
“Absolutely, sweetheart!” I slid off the couch while she moved all of her supplies to the low
coffee table. This was the best part of having Willow here with me. There was something about being
able to leave adulthood behind and follow her down whatever rabbit hole her imagination decided to
explore.
Because this wasn’t my normal night to have her, I didn’t have an alarm set on my phone to remind
me when it was time to get ready for bed. Another reason I loved it when she was with me was the
two of us could get lost in having fun playing after dinner. Tonight, that meant she stayed up until I
noticed her rubbing her eyes and yawning.
“Hey munchkin, why don’t we get you ready for bed?” She pouted but didn’t argue as she started
neatly putting away her crayons and markers. I placed a hand over hers. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll
get it. It’s way past your bedtime.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she said with a big yawn. Willow climbed into my arms and I carried her to the
bedroom. When I picked up her pajamas to help her change, she snatched them away from me. “I can
do it myself.”
Okay then. I took a deep breath, trying to calm the ache in my chest. While it was totally normal
for her to exert her independence, part of me had hoped we still had a year or two before she started
proclaiming that she was a big girl.
After she dressed for bed, I watched as she brushed her teeth, ready to step in if she wasn’t doing
it right. She did allow me to help braid her hair so it wouldn’t be a tangled mess in the morning, so
there was that.
Willow didn’t even make it through five pages of the picture book she’d begged me to read. As I
lay there watching her sleep in my arms, I envied her. Yes, I was fucking jealous of a four-year-old
and I knew how pathetic that made me. I wished like hell I could roll back to a time when I felt safe
enough in someone’s arms to drop off to sleep as if I didn’t have a care in the world.
Instead, I knew I’d be up tossing and turning half the night, worrying about how in the hell I was
