Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 94716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Her little tiny hand was splayed out over Jack’s chest directly on top of the tattoo he’d gotten the day he got his cast removed from his leg. It was a series of heartbeats across his chest that looked like they’ve been ripped from his chest.
I’d been confused at first, but then he explained that they were Cat’s first heartbeats. The first ones we’d ever heard. The beats had been on the sonogram photo that we’d received before leaving the office. He’d then taken the picture to the tattoo shop and had them permanently inked into his skin.
Walking quietly back to my room, I grabbed my phone so I could capture the Kodak moment.
“You’re going to need to stop. It’s already getting old.” Jack rumbled with his eyes still closed.
“Never.”
***
Jack
Four years later
“Daddy.”
I turned over in bed when I heard Catori say my name. She was standing at the foot of the bed, and I raised up on an elbow to get a better look at her.
Her hair was a curly mess around her face. You could tell that she’d been sleeping hard because half of the curls were plastered in drool on the side of her face.
The black curls stood out starkly against her porcelain skin, and my fingers itched to move it back away from her face. Even more, I wished to cut it, but Winter refused.
“What, baby?” I asked her softly.
Winter was at work, and I knew what she really wanted was to come sleep in the bed, which was often the case when mommy was gone. Secretly, I loved it. We did it every night Winter was working, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Her tiny little body crawled up carefully into the bed, and I held the covers aside so she could crawl underneath.
“My sisters said to tell you hi.” She said as she snuggled close.
My body froze.
Not because her icy toes were buried under my stomach, but because she mentioned her sisters.
Winter and I’d discussed this at length, and agreed that we wouldn’t be telling Catori about this until she was old enough to understand. Which wasn’t going to be for quite a while yet.
If my asshole brother told her, I was going to kill him. “What do you mean your sisters said to tell me hi?”
“I dream about them all the time. Sometimes they talk to me. Sometimes we just play tea party and watch La Oopsey.”
La La Loopsey was her favorite show. She had a ‘La Oopsey’ nightshirt that she had to have on every night or she’d bug the absolute daylights out of you until she had it on. Then she had to be in her ‘La Oopsey’ sleeping bag, with her ‘La Oopsey’ pillow underneath her head, and she was perfect.
She’d never been the type of child to make up imaginary friends, so I knew she was serious. Or at least thought she was.
“Tell me about these sisters of yours, baby.”
“Tanis is older than Meli by seven years. Meli is my age, and has hair exactly like mine. She says she’s not cutting it because mommy would be mad at her if she did. Tanis has mommy’s red hair, but it’s straight like yours. Why can’t they stay with us, daddy?”
Nothing would come out. I was speechless. My four-year-old daughter had surprised me so much that I literally could think of nothing to say that would make this situation any easier.
“A long time ago, both of your sister’s went to heaven to stay with your Grandpa, your Aunt Catori, and Uncle Adam. I made that dream catcher over your bed for that very reason. I wanted your family to be able to visit you in your dreams. To know you as I know you, and what better way to do that than while you’re sleeping?” I whispered against her silky hair.
I ran my beard against the side of her face and she squealed. Which, in turn, woke her baby brother up, who was sleeping beside the bed in a bassinet.
“You’ve gone and done it now.” I laughed and Adam started the grunting and whimpering thing that was the opening act to his drama-filled show.
He was the total opposite of Catori. When Catori was a baby, she was so laid back and mellow compared to Adam. Adam was a momma’s boy through and through, whereas Catori would go to anyone and everyone as long as they held her and never let her go.
Which is why she always slept on my chest. And why she still did so at four years old.
Adam, however, was very independent. At two months old, he wanted nothing more than to be on the floor exploring, and he wouldn’t sleep anywhere but in his bed. Not that I didn’t try to pull him into bed with us. Sometimes I even succeeded in getting him to fall asleep, much to Winter’s chagrin.
She didn’t think it was as cute as I did when Cat slipped in between us in the middle of the night.
I picked Adam up and groaned when I felt how big he was getting. The boy reminded me of the Michelin Man with his rolls and rolls of fat. The doctor loved to say that Winter needed to cut down on her calories so we could put Adam on a diet as well, seeing as he breast fed with the voracity of a Hoover Vacuum Cleaner.
Glancing at the clock, I decided to wait the fifteen minutes it would take for Winter to get here. She got off shift about five minutes ago, and if I could find something to occupy the boy with, he could have it straight from the source instead of the bottle.
Ten gruesome minutes later, Winter walked into the bedroom shrugging off her uniform top and kicking off her shoes.
“Oh, boy! You shouldn’t have waited.” Winter laughed as she eased Adam out of my arms and snuggled him up to her breast.
She flipped the top down and the boy latched on so fast that she winced. “Jesus, he’s got a stronger suction than you!” She laughed.