Daddy To Be Determined

“I’ll get Starla for her!” Roxie said, clearly pleased to have come up with a solution that did not involve parting with Betsy. Starla was a large stuffed bear who’d lost his right button eye. Julie had covered the large hole with a star-shaped piece of yellow felt stitched into place. Roxie loved the bear’s new personality and had even renamed it appropriately.

When Ben had suggested that the name was feminine and not masculine, Vanessa had taken her sister’s side. “Only girls have stars in their eyes, Daddy, so she must be a girl.”

Well, he’d learned something new.

He lay Natalie down on the flannel sheet and the blanket she’d been wrapped in. Vanessa arrived just in time to put a pillow under her head. Roxie put Starla beside Natalie and made sure that Ben covered her, too, when he opened out the top sheet, then a pink thermal blanket and spread them over the bed. Not certain one blanket would keep her warm enough, he sent Vanessa to the linen closet for another.

Natalie stirred restlessly as Ben spread the second blanket. Her brow furrowed and she moaned as though something hurt.

“What’s the matter with her?” Vanessa asked worriedly.

Instinctively, Ben put a hand to Natalie’s cheek. “Probably just a bad dream,” he guessed. He noticed with a start that her skin was like satin to the touch.

She smiled, just a very small curve of her lips. Then she reached out, as though groping for something, her fingers spread wide.

Again, instinctively, he caught them in his. Her hand tightened around his with a strength that demonstrated how desperate she’d been for that contact. At least in her sleep. Loneliness, he knew, was a powerful enemy.

“She likes you, Daddy!” Roxie whispered loudly.

Vanessa looked at him a little worriedly, and he was just wondering himself if he was going to have to lean over this bed for the rest of the night when Natalie made a contented little sound, freed his hand and rolled onto her side.

He felt enormous relief as he readjusted her blankets.

He ushered the girls out into the hallway and pulled the door halfway closed.

“Can we have our ice cream now?” Roxie asked.

“We had ice cream at Grandma’s,” Vanessa ratted, to Roxie’s chagrin. “And cookies, too.”

“Then I think we’re finished for tonight.” Ben picked up Roxie under one arm and Vanessa under the other, to their squealing delight. He had to keep reminding himself to play with them more often, to remember that they needed him to be cheerful and hopeful.

He tended to get bogged down in work and memories and forget that a child learned a lot by having fun.

He dropped Roxie onto her bed and, with Vanessa still tucked under his arm, leaned over her to kiss her good-night. The girls collided and giggled hysterically.

He carried Vanessa out with him across the hall to her room and dropped her in her bed.

“Can she stay for dinner tomorrow?” she asked, sitting up in bed.

“Roxie?” he asked, fluffing the one pillow Van had left. “Yes, we have to let her stay for dinner. It’s part of the family deal. You have to feed the kids.”

“Daddy!” Vanessa slapped his arm. “I mean the lady. Can she stay for dinner? If she isn’t awake when I go to school, I won’t even hear her talk or anything.”

That confused him for a moment. “Hear her talk?”

She hunched a shoulder. “Yeah. You know. I bet she has a pretty voice, ’specially if she’s on television. And I miss Mom’s voice.” She looked at him from under thick dark lashes. “Is it okay to say that?”

He sat down on the edge of her bed, anguished by that question. “Van, it’s okay for you to say whatever you’re feeling. I asked you to tell me when you miss her and feel lonely.”

She nodded quickly. “I know. And I do. But I had just turned six then. Now I’ve been seven for a while and it doesn’t make me cry anymore when I miss her, and I know I have to make believe everything’s okay.” She gave him a look that told him she understood far more than he realized. “That’s what you do, ’cause you’re the dad. So, I do it, too, ’cause I’m the big sister. But it would be nice to hear the lady’s voice, if we can’t ever hear Mom’s again.”

Her perception always amazed him. He didn’t know why he was surprised that she’d understood he pretended cheer and hope when he didn’t feel it.

“Sometimes,” he said, ruffling her short, shaggy hair, “if you pretend something awful is really okay, it eventually makes it okay. Or at least makes it hurt less.” He pinched her chin. “But you don’t ever have to pretend what you don’t feel, Vannie. You can always tell me what you’re thinking, even if you’re afraid I won’t like it.”

“I know.” She lay back against her pillows and smiled up at him. “I’m not afraid to tell you anything. I just don’t want to make you sad if you’re not by talking about me being sad.”

He drew her blankets up and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “But I’d be really sad if you were sad and didn’t tell me.”

She smiled. “I’m not sad right now. I’m anxious to wake up in the morning and see what the lady’s like. Promise if she isn’t awake when I go to school, you’ll ask her to stay for dinner so I can talk to her.”

That didn’t sound like a good idea, but he couldn’t deny her. “I promise.”

“Okay. Good night, Daddy.”

“Good night, baby.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“You’ll be my baby until you’re ninety.”

Vanessa smiled tolerantly, appreciating her precious status, though still offended by the name. “Roxie’s the baby.”

“I am not!” The protest came indignantly from across the hall. “I’ve five! And I’m gonna get pierced ears!”

Vanessa sat up, competitive edge honed. “She is?” she demanded of Ben. “When?”

Ben shouted across the hall. “When, Roxie?”

There was silence for several seconds, then Roxie replied grudgingly. “When I’m grown up. But I’m gonna get three in each ear!”

Pleased that she hadn’t missed a rite of passage, Vanessa fell back on her pillow. “She’s such a fibber!” she said.

“I am not!”

“She was just anticipating,” Ben said. “You know what that is?”

“It’s like thinking about it, only before it happens.”

“Very good.”

Ben covered her again, kissed her cheek and turned off her bedside lamp. “Good night, woman of great wisdom,” he said grandly.

She giggled. “That’s better, Daddy.”

He kissed her again and went across the hall to where Roxie sat up in bed, her expression pugnacious, her arms folded. “I’m not a baby,” she declared clearly. “I’m the littlest, but I’m not a baby.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he said, gently pushing her back and pulling up her covers.