Page 31 of Friends to WHAT?!

“That’s not true!” she objects. “I do want to see her faster, but I also want you to be happier, and nobody makes you happier than Miss Leora. Except for me, obviously.”

My eyes soften. “You’re a sweet girl. You know that?”

“I do,” she says, lifting her chin. “My daddy calls me that all the time.”

I sigh, letting all her sweetness infiltrate my blood stream and warm my heart.

“So…” she drawls. “Are you going to let me go to bed?”

I watch her as I deliberate.

Do I want to let her go to bed? Absolutely not. Also, absolutely yes.

Leora is unlikely to be at the bar this early, but I’m anxious to get there anyway. I don’t want to miss a second of our time together. My stomach’s been in riots since I sent the letter telling her I’d be there. I’ve been vacillating between anxious nausea and jittery excitement all week. The idea of being there when she walks into the bar so that I can slurp up every moment she so graciously gives me is enticing, and tempting, and alluring.

I want it, badly.

However.

Just as badly, I do not want to miss a second of my time with Amia. Every day, I’m reminded in big ways and small that she’s getting older. Sure, sometimes she brings it back in—like with the confirmation that she still finds me special—but sometimes she doesn’t. Sometimes she starts to pronounce a word right when she’s only ever pronounced it wrong. Sometimes she picksout a shirt with a character from a show she’s decided is “too little kid” for her now, and she asks me to donate it. Sometimes she lies atop me and recites, word for word, a life lesson she’s heard enough times to memorize.

Sometimes I blink, and she’s grown two sizes bigger, and she’s gotten two seasons smarter, and my heart beats two times faster wondering how many more twos I’ll get before it adds up to eighteen and she’s gone.

“Daddy,” she prods. “Seriously, Miss Leora isn’t going to wait forever. You can be with me anytime. Youlivewith me.” Her big, brown eyes roll. “Plus, I’m just going to be in bed whether you go or not. I have some coloring I want to do before I sleep.” She turns, stretching in my arm to reach the video monitor on the side table. “Here, you can watch me the whole time, so it’ll be like we’re together, but you can be with Miss Leora, too. You can show her the video and I can wave at her!”

“If you really want to go to bed, you can go to bed,” I allow. “And I’ll watch you on the monitor.”

Her face alights.

“But.”

Her facefalls.

“I’ll be upstairs until at least eight o’clock. I don’t think Miss Leora will be at the bar any earlier than that, especially when she knows that your bedtime is at 8:30, and that I’ll need to be here to get you safely tucked away. She would never try to steal my time with you. And sincemybedtime isn’t for hours yet, I have plenty of availability for the both of you. We’ll let Miss Leora worry about her own bedtime, though, okay?”

Amia’s lips turn down in a pout as she realizes that she really, truly is not going to get me out of this apartment and downstairs at the bar until I decide for myself that it’s time to go. The parent is, shockingly, in charge of the situation, and the child is, even more shockingly, appalled at the hierarchy.

And by the way, the sky is blue, too.

“For the record, I think this is the wrong thing to do.”

“I’ll note that,” I tell her seriously. “Would you like to go get our list?”

She runs off to retrieve the spiral-bound, college-ruled notebook we keep in a drawer in the kitchen, right next to our scissors, capless pens, rubber bands, tacks, dice, paperclips, keys to nowhere, and various forms of tape. Among other things.

When she returns, I open the notebook where we jot down anything Amia decides should be “for the record”, take her proffered pen, and add the newest offense to her sensibilities to the list.

“Number four-hundred and thirty-seven,” I murmur as I jot down a semi-detailed version of the sequence of events that led us here. Amia hangs over my shoulder, ensuring I leave nothing out.

“And don’t forget to mention how Miss Leora is going to miss her bedtime because of you!”

With a twitch of my lips, I regale the page with tale of my atrocities. I do it slowly, under the watchful eye of my daughter as she pokes and prods me into adding more detail here, or adjusting a sentence there.

I place my final period right as the clock strikes 8:00 PM.

What a coincidence, that.

Chapter Fourteen