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“I heard that, and I will take that as a compliment,” she answers sleepily.
“Yeah, yeah.” I come around the back of the couch, bending over and giving her a quick kiss on her head while she is already halfway to snoring the night away and striding over to the room where my main girl is sleeping soundlessly.
Careful not to wake her with the squeaky doors, I go inside and kneel by her bed, and if you think it’s a princess one, you got it right. But apparently, the only acceptable Disney princess for my daughter is Ariel from Little Mermaid; everything else she doesn’t even bother to watch. But unfortunately, her room décor is minimal, with a few Ariel things here and there. And even those, she doesn’t ask me to get her all that much. Not like other kids her age I know.
Sometimes, I wonder if my little girl knows—feels—more than she lets on. If she somehow is trying to protect me from spending extra money, we don’t have.
“I promise, very soon, all will be great, and you won’t have to protect me,” I whisper into her soft, caramel hair, giving her a kiss like the one I left on my sister’s head, only this time my lips linger on her hair a bit longer, inhaling the comfort of my child. The knowledge that she is here. She is mine.
Safe.
I could sleep here all night. Just like this, crouched over by the bed, but I need a shower. Desperately. I need to wash off the Ursula stench from my body and somehow command my brain to go into rest mode after the hell Kira put us through this dinner service.
After a few more beats, I walk over to the tiny closet in our room, grabbing some fresh clothes. Everything is tiny, cramped, and old as hell in this apartment, but there is a bed and a shower with mostly hot water, so it’s a win in my book.
I quickly wash the day off, pull on my sweatpants, and quietly climb into my twin bed, letting out a tired exhale and rubbing my stubble with a heavy hand. How did we get here? Our family was always happy and positive. There wasn’t a weekend where my mother didn’t host the whole street in our backyard for fresh gyros and sweet baklava dripping with honey. There wasn’t a day that my father wouldn’t help anyone who asked whether to fix a car or pick up someone’s kids from school.
My family is good people. Good people deserve good things, yet life disagrees. The universe disagrees, and whatever higher power is out there, it also disagrees. Because in what hell would a healthy man drop dead at fifty years old? In what life does a woman without a bad bone in her body suffer from soul-crushing cancer?
No, I won’t add myself to that list because although I came from good people, I don’t think I really am one of them.
Not after everything she said. Not after the slashes she left all over my body. Viola made sure I knew I wasn’t a good person. I was a deviant, a careless husband, and an absent father.
I know I shouldn’t take her words close to heart because havinghertell me I was a bad parent is like pot calling the kettle, but no matter what I am trying, I am trying to right all the wrongs I’ve caused in the last five years.
I should have never let it get that far. I should have known better. Seen more. Pay better attention.
Maybe I will forever carry the burden of one horrible loss on my chest, unable to move forward from all those what-if questions.
Chapter three
Vassar
“Good morning, my Angel.”
“Daddyyy, you keep forgetting I’m a mermaid. Not an angel.” My five-year-old daughter rolls her eyes as she hikes up to the bar stool we have next to our sort-of countertop.
Sort of because there is only maybe fifteen inches of space on it and no room for legs, but Vee loves to sit there and calls it her throne.
“Sorry, Miss Mermaid.” I clutch my hand to my chest looking remorseful and she giggles. Her sweet, carefree tunes fueling me up for the torturous day ahead.
“Ew,” she squeaks out and pushes the plate of eggs and homemade sausage I made and set in front of her.
“What do you mean, ew? This is your favorite.”
“That’s old news, dear brother,” my sister informs me as she walks out of the bathroom she’s been hoarding the whole morning. But what else is new?
“Daddy, I’m a vegetaterian. I can’t eat sausage.” Then she bends lower, putting both of her tiny hands around her mouth asif she is letting me in on a secret, and whispers, “Did you know they make it from little cute piggies?”
“Vegetaterian?” I lift one eyebrow at her, and she nods vigorously. “And when did this happen?”
“Loooong ago,” she draws out. “Like a fifty hundred days ago.”
“Oh, I seeeee,” I mimic her. “So, like yesterday?”
“Yep.” She pops her P, and I grin her way. It always amazes me how she perceives time and truly believes that living one day is like a hundred of them. So innocent and I won’t ever do anything to kill it.
“Is it only piggies you don’t want to eat?” I ask, mimicking her hushed tone.
