Page 28 of Daddy's Little Patient

That was better than zero more minutes of cuddles and just going to the icky part of the sandwich. She still wasn’t happy about it, though. She huffed a sigh. “Okay, Daddy. If we have to.”

“We have to, babygirl. But cuddles first.”

He set a timer on his phone and then stroked her hair while he held her. How was it possible to feel so safe with him after such a short time? It wasn’t smart because he hadn’t seen the worst parts of her yet and he could still kick her out or run for the hills. Something inside her was confident he was different and she could trust him but she didn’t know if that was a solid gut instinct or just wishful thinking.

Then the timer went off. Ugh.

“Can you sit up, Cricket? I want to see you when we talk about this.”

That probably meant it was serious, and for the most part she didn’t care for serious things. But she did as her Daddy asked, and honestly, there were worse things in the world than looking at her extremely handsome Daddy. He felt too good to be true, and Cricket felt a pang of fear in her chest. He was real, though, right?

Right now he looked very real with his serious expression and a hole in his black and red flannel shirt. Surely a fantasy Daddy would only have perfect shirts.

“So the bad news is that I got your results back and you have severe sleep apnea. The number of times you stop breathing each hour is really high. Which doesn’t surprise me given what I’ve heard and how you’ve described your symptoms, but it’s still not good news.”

“Severe” didn’t usually mean good things, no. And from what he’d told her before about why sleep apnea was bad for you… Yeah. That was not good.

“Is there a cure? Can you fix it?”

“Oh, love bug. I wish I could but there’s not really a cure.”

Cricket felt her throat closing up and the tears rising. “That’s not bad news. That’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad news!”

A tantrum was definitely forming inside of her, and she didn’t think she was going to be able to stop it. A maelstrom of ugly feelings was swirling in her head and her chest and her tummy, and her voice was shrill and shaky and loud as she pelted Doctor Pierce with questions.

“Why did I have to do that stupid test that made me so nervous if you can’t do anything about it? Who cares what’s wrong with me and how bad it is if you can’t make it go away? Why did you make me do that?”

She was close to screaming wordlessly or throwing herself onto the floor or even hitting her Daddy—everything was so terrible and awful and she couldn’t control all those very big feelings inside her. They were going to have to come out!

“Hey, hey. Slow down for a second,” her Daddy said, gripping her biceps in a way that got her attention. “There’s not a snap-your-fingers-and-it’s-gone cure, but there are treatments, and they work really well.”

It took her a second to process that, but then the overwhelming tide of her tantrum started to roll out. “Oh.”

“Yeah, babygirl. We can’t cure it, but we can treat it. Which is where the other piece of the good news sandwich comes in.”

He said there was good news, but Daddy didn’t look excited to tell her. That was sus.

“That sounds like maybe pumpernickel or rye bread. I don’t like those.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, and she appreciated that he didn’t try to tell her it was super delicious brioche or focaccia. “But the good news is that one of the treatments is a machine that can help you breathe overnight, and I was able to get one for you. It usually takes a lot longer than a couple days. Sometimes people have to wait months.”

Cricket didn’t like the idea of being a cyborg—having a machine to help her breathe? What the hell?—but she was grateful for her Daddy getting her help, and so quickly.

“Hey,” her Daddy said, using a crooked finger to tip her chin up so she had to look at him. “I know it’s a lot to think about. I don’t need you to be excited, I know it’s probably disconcerting and overwhelming. But I do need you to try it, and I do need you to have good manners. That’s something I’m strict about as a Daddy. If you can’t have good manners, you’re going to write lines to help remind you.”

She didnotwant to write lines, but more so, she didn’t want her Daddy to feel like she wasn’t grateful or that she didn’t appreciate him. She did. So Cricket hugged him, and laid her head on his shoulder. She fit so perfectly that it made her sigh.

“Thank you, Daddy.”

“You’re welcome, babygirl. And I’m going to help you with all this. We’ll try it out, and hopefully this works really well. If not, we’ve got other options but we’ll deal with those if we get there. You don’t need to worry, Daddy will keep track of all that.”

Now that was nice to hear, and more of the panic in her died down. She wasn’t alone, she didn’t have to deal with this on her own. Daddy wanted to help her and he was going to be here, filtering out stuff that would be too much but making sure she had the information she needed to know.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she told him again, and decided to at least try to shush the worries that were still tromping around in her brain. “I really do appreciate it but I’m scared.”

“I know, and that’s okay. It’s all new and kind of a big deal but I promise we’ll figure it out. For now, though, can you help me check the kitchen to see if we’ve got ketchup and honey?”

Oh, right! She got to have her favorites for dinner tonight. That was kind of like an extra piece of bread on the bad news sandwich.

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