“Yes, honey?” I asked as I reached for my purse.
“Are you working tonight, too?”
I sighed. “Yes, sweetheart, I am. Why?”
“So, Auntie Chloe’s getting me from school?”
I slid my purse up my shoulder. “More than likely. Mommy needs the rest before her shift.”
“You know, if I had a daddy, then Daddy could do all of this stuff while you sleep.”
The guilt practically crushed me. “I know, honey. I know.”
The story I fed my daughter whenever she asked was that her father had died. It was the only thing I could ever spit out without crying or breaking down in front of her, so it became my default story. Even when she asked to see a picture of him, it was too much on me. Though, I promised her that one day, when she was older and a bit more grown, I’d show her every single picture I’d ever kept of that man.
Because maybe then, I wouldn’t be as angry as a hornet at that motherfucker.
Thankfully, Natasha never asked how he died, so I never had to elaborate on how it happened. I let her think whatever she needed to in order to feel less abandoned. I mean, what the hell was I supposed to tell her? That her father went off on a deployment and never came back? That for all I knew, he had been dead? Or captured? Before he just showed up at the hospital last night?
Natty was the one that asked one day if her father was dead, and I didn’t know any better at the time. So, I told her that yes. He was dead. But, now that I knew Dean was clearly alive, I realized how much of a lie I had been living all of these years.
I realized how little Dean actually loved me.
And I felt a need to shield my daughter from the pain I knew he’d bring into her world.
“Mom?” Natty asked.
I held out my hand for her. “Ready to head to school?”
She slid her little hand into mine. “I’m sorry if I made you sad.”
I crouched in front of her and cupped her cheek. “You could never make me sad. I’m just so sorry that you don’t have a daddy like some of the other kids in your class.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me close. “It’s okay, Mommy. I have you to love me double times, and Auntie Chloe is awesome. I have the best family ever.”
I blinked back tears as I hugged her tightly. “Come on, let’s get you to school so you don’t miss the bus for the zoo.”
“Yay, puffins!”
We sang songs in the car all the way to school, and when I dropped her off, she rushed around to my side of the car and gave me one last kiss. Her little lips stole my breath away every time they touched my cheek, and as she rushed into school with her little backpack bouncing against her body, I thought about all of the moments Dean had missed.
Her birth.
Her first steps.
Losing her first tooth.
The first night she ever cried for a man that didn’t exist because she was burning up with a fever.
And as the cars behind me in the car-rider lane honked their horns to try and get me out of the way, all I thought about was how much I wanted to put my fist through Dean’s face.
Which made for a restless day’s sleep.
Seven
Frost
After getting a good night’s rest, I headed back to the hospital. Normally, I would’ve abided by someone’s wishes to not have me around. After all, I understood why she wanted nothing to do with me. I put her through hell because of my military career. I dropped off the face of the planet due to the kind of covert job I had taken with a team, and it wasn’t until after I was able to resurface that I realized she had moved on. I blamed no one but myself for that.
