Page 43 of Sunshine
“I sure did, but I think the goat almost rode you.” She’s sweaty and her red hair sticks to her forehead in the most adorable way. She reaches for the popsicle, but I hold it up and nod toward the handwashing station. “You know the rules.”
She giggles.“I forgot. My hands are vile.” She holds them out in front of her and wrinkles her button nose. God, she’s precious.
“I think you mean gross, cruddy or even grody.” I smile as she giggles more. One of our favorite games is synonyms. I tease that her vocabulary is above my head and find words more common for her age while she comes up with even better ones than before. I love that my little girl has an immense vocabulary and yet is still a child in every other way.
“Repulsive, detestable, and—" She looks up, thinking hard, her little tongue poking out of her cherub lips. “Gruesome!”
“Scuzzy!” I holler as she bounds over to the station, her red curls bouncing with her. She washes her hands only slightly more thoroughly than the other kids, because she knows I’ll send her back if she doesn’t. She loves this park, and we come here often enough she knows the routine.
“Did you sing it?” she asks as I hand her the rocket popsicle.
“I did. Good old Yankee Doodle.” It’s the song I taught her to sing while she washes her hands, so she’ll know how long to do it for. “Did you?”
She giggles, “Of course Daddy, how else would I have stopped just as you finished the song?”
I smirk at her logic.
“Is that for Janet?” she asks pointing to the cola in my hand. I nod and hand it to her so she can trot it over. As I watch her, I see prim and proper Janet, is reading a familiar book. I laugh under my breath. Harley and Hearts. Which once again reminds me of Tessa and has my focus wandering as my little girl chats it up with the worker.
By the time Reece finishes her chat, her treat is done, and she runs off to play on the jungle gym. And I’m still thinking about my naughty neighbor and worrying about Mack and the crew. At least when she storms back into her house after climbing the fence and murdering Mack, she won’t trip on the lifted deckboards. I chuckle to myself at the thought. It was an easy fix, and I had the spare boards, so it was nothing. Not that she had thanked me or anything, but at least she hadn’t sabotaged my worksite since then.
At least not as far as I know.
But if she had, Mack would have texted.It was only Saturday though. Plenty of weekend left to makes things hard for me.
“The weekend always goes too fast,” I say when we’re getting ready to leave Monday morning to take Reece to school. Lulah gives me a sympathetic look and grabs her belly as it moves like there’s an angry alien inside.
She looks down poking her belly with three fingers. “If you want more room you’ll have to slow down in there. At this rate, you’ll break the world record. And if you do, you’re grounded when you’re thirteen and want to go to your first school dance.”
“You’re silly, Aunty Lulah,” Reece says as I help her out of her backpack to load her into the van.
“Do they estimate that this early?” I ask.
“I’ve still got over two months left, and they’re telling me this one’s much bigger than average. And they usually gain most of their weight in the last month.”
“Isn’t the record twenty-two pounds or something?” I reply.
Lulah gasps. “Case Callen, take that back.”
I only chuckle as I help Reece with her seatbelt.
“I can do it, Daddy.”
“You totally can, sweetheart. But Daddy needs to feel needed. Can you just go with it?” I click in the lap belt and kiss her head.
She places her palm on my face, looks me in the eye and says, seriously, “I’m nothing if not reasonable.”
I bark a laugh. “Kid, you are fantastic, you know that?”
“Nana says it all the time,” Reece states and then, as if she’s morphed back into a five-year-old, she squeezes her juice box too hard, spraying us both. “Oh man.”
“You can say that again,” I add, unbuckling her and scooping her into my arms. “Stay!” I order my very pregnant friend trying to unwedge herself from the front seat. “We’ve got this.” I wink at my daughter and she, again showing her childlike self, winks back with great effort, her tongue out in concentration.
“Daddy, tell me about this tattoo again.” Reece points at the Celtic triskele tattoo and frowns as she traces it. She asks me this at least once a month.
“It’s a symbol to show the world I’m taken.”
“Taken by who?” she asks, an almost invisible smile on her face.
