Page 64 of Written with Regret (The Regret Duet 1)
“What the heck is an emu?”
“A really big bird.”
I leaned back on the bed, spreading my arm wide in invitation, and she didn’t delay in curling into my side. “I thought you were scared of birds. You once dove into shark-infested waters to escape a seagull at the beach.”
“There weren’t any sharks.” She popped her head up, worry crinkling her nose. “Were there?”
“Nah. I’m kidding.”
She lay back down, draping her arm across my stomach, going straight for the scar on my side.
She’d had an obsession with the two scars on my abdomen since she was a baby. She would lie on my chest or at my side, rubbing her chubby little fingers back and forth over the puckered flesh.
I’d hated it at first.
I hated those scars and the nightmares that accompanied them.
And I’d hated that something as pure and good as my Rosalee would even touch such filth.
But God was doing something right, because my baby girl loved them. Over time, I’d stopped associating them with how I’d gotten them and instead connected them with the perfection and comfort I felt as she fell asleep in my arms while stroking them.
And still, four years later, it didn’t matter if I was wearing a shirt or not. That was where her hands always went.
“Did you know Hadley had a guinea pig when she was little?”
I kissed the top of her head. “Really?”
“Yeah, her sister named it Bacon. She thought that was a funny name, but I don’t know why because she said it didn’t eat bacon or anything. A guinea pig isn’t a real pig. Did you know that?” She didn’t take a breath long enough for me to answer. “It’s a little guy with lots of hair. Well, not all of them have lots of hair. Hadley showed me a picture of one on her phone and it had no hair at all. It looked kinda gross. But I told her if she comes and visits me on my farm that I’ll let her keep a guinea pig there.”
“Wow, you are racking up some serious animals. Maybe you should start a zoo instead of a farm.”
“Zoos have snakes. I hate snakes.”
“But it will be your zoo, so you can have whatever animals you want.”
She stopped rubbing my scar and contemplatively tapped her chin. “But then where will Hadley keep her guinea pig? I bet the elephants would step on it.”
“Ah. Excellent point. Maybe stick to the farm.”
“Yeah. Okay.” She went right back to rubbing the scar. “Daddy?”
“Right here, baby.”
“I love Hadley.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the all-too-familiar squeeze in my chest. I had to clear the emotion from my throat before I could reply. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. She’s kinda weird sometimes. Like, she told me she dips her brownies in ranch dressing and she wraps her chicken nuggets in pickles.”
“Say what?” I laughed.
“But she’s really funny and good at art. And she always has her toenails painted. She told me that maybe soon we could ask if you would let her paint my toenails as long as we did it outside. And she told me not to let Jacob kiss me on the playground at school anymore because he might have cooties.”
I sat up enough to look down at her. “Jacob kissed you?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry. Hadley gave me my cootie shot.”
This time, I bolted upright. “She gave you a shot?”
My girl took my hand, serious as a heart attack, and traced her fingers over my palm. “Circle, circle, dot, dot, now you’ve had your cooties shot.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and fell back against the bed. “Don’t scare me like that.”
She was quiet for a second. “Hadley was scared tonight.”
“Yeah. She’s okay now though.”
“What was wrong?”
I ruined her life. “She just doesn’t like blood.”
Rosalee and I had these types of conversations a lot. Not necessarily about Hadley, but since she was old enough to talk, we’d lie in her bed and shoot the shit. The conversation would start at point A and then jump to Y before heading back to J. Majority of our chats zigzagged through every letter of the alphabet before she got bored of cuddling with her old man and got up to play. This one would be no different.
I just didn’t realize she’d jump to point Z so fast.
“Why don’t you like Hadley?”
My chin snapped to my chest, where I found her peering up at me. “What? Who said I didn’t like her?”
“When she came to my birthday party, you yelled at her. And then when she came to teach me art, you used to sit at the table and give her the mean daddy face. Now, you look sad when you look at her from the couch when you pretend to work.”
Jesus. Kids noticed everything.
I rolled to my side and dragged her up to share the pillow. “I don’t hate Hadley, baby.”
