“Baby Yoda’s on Disney!” she protested.
“You are not watching that show. It isn’t a kid’s show.”
“Maggie’s mom let us watch it,” she said.
“And that’s why you don’t go play at Maggie’s anymore,” he said. “Because her parents have different ideas than I do on what’s okay for you to see.” He didn’t sound annoyed, just tired.
“Sadie, there’s two more bites of pie. Go for it,” I said. “You guys drive safe.”
“Thanks, Miss Rachel,” Sadie chimed in. “Don’t forget to watch Masha and the Bear!”
“Thanks,” he said, watching his daughter scoop a huge bite of pie into her mouth, crust and all.
I didn’t really want to walk away. I wanted to stand there and stall them, get them to linger in the diner and talk to them longer. I wanted to slide into the booth next to Sadie and fix that ponytail. I was careful with that though. I didn’t want her to feel like there was anything wrong with her messy hair, and I didn’t want him to think I was judging his parenting. He was just crap at doing little girl hair. She probably hated having it brushed, I thought. And I felt a little twinge, because it would be so fun to brush out her hair and braid it, paint those little nails, do the girly stuff with her. But it wasn’t my place. I wasn’t a close family friend. Best I could tell, Max didn’t really have any close friends, and Lord knew he didn’t have family here. No wonder he looked tired. He was trying to do it all on his own.
2 Max
Sadie slid between her “too-babyish” sheets in her Elsa pajamas and handed me a book.
“This one, please,” she said, her sunny voice not tired at all. I suppressed a yawn and managed to smile.
“You love this one, don’t you?” I asked, snuggling in beside her.
Sadie nestled into my side and looked up at me. “That’s because it’s the best one, Daddy,” she said.
“Okay, then we’ll read it again,” I said.
I read her the mermaid fairytale. We’d read it every night for nearly a month. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope she picked a new favorite book soon. We needed to hit the library, get some fresh books in this place in the next couple of days before I had read that book so many times, I started calling everyone Ariel.
“That was good. I like when you do the lobster voice.”
“Thanks. It’s a crab, not a lobster.”
“He’s red,” she said reasonably as if to prove her point.
“So are crabs. And that’s what he is. I swear.”
Sadie looked at me like she wasn’t so sure, but she let it drop.
“Do I get to sing to you? Or are you too big for that suddenly? Maybe you should start reading to me,” I teased her.
“Daddy, I can only read kindergarten stuff. The dog sits. The cat sits. The dog runs. The cat runs. That’s not much of a story,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll let you off the hook for now, but when you can read a longer book, it’s your turn. We practiced your sight words after school. Should we do them again? So you can learn to read faster and take the load off your old man?”
“No, Daddy. I like when you read to me,” she said, exasperated. “I want a song. But only if it’s Twinkle Twinkle.”
“It’s a deal,” I said, switching off her lamp and singing to her.
It was the same lullaby I’d sung to her when I was suddenly a father with a screaming newborn in my arms, swaying and so scared I’d drop her. Smoothing back her hair, I couldn’t believe how big she had gotten, how smart she was. I swallowed hard, trying to fight getting sentimental. I kissed her on the head and tucked her in.
“I love you, Sadie,” I said. “Sweet dreams.”
“I love you, too, Daddy. Check on me!”
“I will, and you better be in dreamland,” I told her fondly.
I shut the door and then did up the breakfast dishes from the morning, cleaned up around the kitchen, and put in some laundry. I popped a beer from the fridge and turned on the TV to try and stay awake long enough to put the clothes in the dryer. Sadie was about out of clean socks that matched, so I needed to get the load done before bed, or she’d be at school in mismatched socks tomorrow. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but as a single dad, I tried to be extra careful about stuff like that. Make sure she washed behind her ears, a healthy lunch was packed, and I’d checked her school folder to see if I needed to sign anything. I didn’t want people thinking I didn’t try or that she needed a mother. A mother wasn’t something I thought about in connection with my little girl very often. We had each other and that was enough. She filled up my heart—the kid I hadn’t known I wanted until she was here. Nothing could come between us now.
I looked around my living room and felt a surge of pride. I was glad I’d moved to Rockford Falls to bring up my daughter. Our cabin right at the foot of the mountain ridge was close enough to town for her to go to public school but far enough away that it was quiet, peaceful. I’d gotten a hell of a deal on the place and fixed it up. I mostly bought it for the stand of timber in the back, acres of forest that stretched up into the foothills. But our little two-bedroom was snug and as tidy as I could make it with Sadie leaving about four hundred crayons everywhere.
I was happy with my choices in life. If you’d asked me ten years ago what I wanted, I’d have said I wanted to be a partner in the investment firm where I was a rising
