Page 157 of Broken Daddy
After he brushed her hair, he braided it.
“There you go, baby girl,” he told her. “Time for a nap. I’ll pull the curtains.”
“No nap. Devi big girl. Big girls don’t nap.”
“How old is baby Devi?” he asked as he got off the bed. “What age do you regress to?”
She didn’t like losing the feel of him against her. She wanted him back with her, touching her. But she resisted begging him to return and hug her.
That wasn’t his job.
So she rested back against the pillow. She really was tired and just from a simple shower which was silly.
“I don’t know.”
“Hmm, are there things you like to do? Or things that interest you?”
“I used to hide with Coco under my bed when Derick was on a bender,” she said without thought. “I’d pull everything in around me under the bed to hide me. So maybe I’d like to make forts.”
“You would hide from your father under the bed by yourself because he terrified you?” he asked in a low, scary voice.
“I wasn’t alone,” she said in a small voice.
“You weren’t?” he asked.
“I had Coco.”
“A soft toy. How long would you stay under there?”
“I don’t know. Until I woke up and felt safe to come out.”
He started pacing up and down the room, swearing.
“You’re going to put a hole in the floor with all your pacing.” It was a sad attempt to make him smile.
He paused and turned to look at her. “That motherfucking bastard.”
“Do you think . . . I mean . . . have you heard whether the police have found anything out?”
“Not yet, baby.”
She could tell that he had attempted to soften his voice, but it still sounded tight, tense.
Then he walked over to her. Reaching out he lightly massaged her head. “Close your eyes, stop worrying about all of this.”
“You’re so bossy. You can’t just tell me to stop worrying. That never works.”
“It doesn’t? We’ll see.” He gathered her up into his chest and held her against him as he lightly rocked back and forth. “Go to sleep.”
Yep. Not going to happen.
Yawning, she snuggled into his chest. This felt so nice.
“That doesn’t work either! You can just order me to sleep. What if I don’t wanna sleep . . . Devi might wanna play . . . Devi . . . don’t . . . wanna . . .”
Gradually, her eyes closed and she stuck her thumb into her mouth.
Hayes smiledwith no small sense of satisfaction as she drifted off to sleep. He laid her down, watching her suck on the thumb of her good hand. Then he tucked the blankets around her.
