3

“I don’t know what to do,” I told her. “I don’t know how to make you feel better. Until I can figure out what time it is and wake your grandma up and have her come over here, I need to somehow care for you.” I continued to look at her, hoping the answer would come to me. “Are you cold?” I closed the blanket, bunching it up to her neck. “Hungry?”

I waited for the answer to hit me.

For the realization of what I was actually holding and what my eyes were staring at.

For a picture to form in my head of what my life was now going to look like versus the direction I'd believed it was going in.

I didn’t know how long I stood there.

Frozen.

My feet should have been taking us inside, where it was warm, where I could go through the bag and see if there was something in there that could soothe her, see if Rebecca’s notes told me how to stop the baby’s crying.

But they weren’t moving.

For some reason … I was locked.

My knees didn’t want to hold us anymore, and they started to bend until they hit the pavement, the sharp slap of hardness jolting something inside me.

I held the baby up to my chest, patting her back. As I rubbed small circles, my body shifting, swinging, a feeling entered. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know what it was, but it made me hold her tighter.

It made my arms build a wall where nothing could get in.

“Hey, hey,” I whispered into her face. The heat from her crying thick like steam. “I know you don’t know my voice or the feel of my arms, but I’m going to tell you something.” I pressed my lips against her forehead, breathing her in, her scent so clean and powdery. “I’m never going to let anything happen to you.” I held my lips there, my eyes closing, my heart pounding away. “I promise.”

One

Ford

I

 sat on the edge of Everly’s fluffy pink bed, holding her heavy, long, freshly washed curls in my hands so she wouldn’t feel the tangles as I brushed them. Hair time followed bath time—a ritual we did every night.

“Here I go. Wish me good luck,” I said.

She snorted. “Good luck, Daddy.”

With her wet hair all combed, I separated it into three sections, starting the painful process of weaving. “I swear, your hair gets thicker and harder to braid every day.”

“It’s ’posed to be easy. You been doing it foreveeer.”

I laughed at her remark. “Cut your old man some slack, little one. Hair isn’t my specialty.”

Braids were something I still couldn’t grasp. Even though I applied equal tightness to each layer, maintaining a steady pattern, it always came out fucked up.

Crooked. Partially unbound.

But I tried.

I tied the elastic around the bottom and kissed her cheek. “I survived.”

“Barely.”

I shook my head. “I think you’re going to be a comedian when you grow up.”

“No, Daddy. I’m going to be an animal doctor—you know this.” She turned around and faced me, wiggling her body until her back was against the pillows. The moment she was settled, she pointed to her right. “Now, their turn since you won’t be here to kiss them good night.”

The stuffed animals.

All twelve of them, taking up an entire side of her bed, which had to be arranged in a specific order and pecked or she wouldn’t go to sleep.

A task, like her hair, that had become one of my favorite parts of the day.

I reached across her to line them up, making sure they were balanced and upright, just how she liked them. I finished by placing the lion in front of the pack and asked, “How’s it look, boss?”

“The hippo doesn’t go in back. I tell you that every night. She needs to be in the front by the giraffe.”

“Right, right.” I moved the hippo to the side, straightening the pink skirt we’d bought for the animal, and then adjusted the pink tie that hung from the giraffe’s neck. “How’s that?”

“Muuuch better. Now, kiss each one good night.”

“Each one?”

“Daaaddy, they’ll have bad dreams if we don’t kiss them and say I love you.”

“Whatever you say. You’re the boss.” I quickly pecked the animals and stopped when I reached my baby’s forehead, where I left my lips as I said, “Are you going to be a good girl for Hannah when she watches you tonight?”

“Of course, silly.”

The words that came out of this four-year-old’s mouth constantly made me chuckle.

“I’m the silly one?” I tickled her belly. “I think you hold that title, Miss Eve.”

She snorted. “I’m always a good girl, Daddy.”

“You are. Most of the time.” I tucked a loose strand behind her ear. “You know, I’m going to be with Uncle D and Uncle Jenner tonight.”

Dominick and Jenner weren’t just my older brothers and best friends; they were like second fathers to my daughter.

She crossed her arms and pouted. “Tell them I’m mad at them.”

“Mad?” I smiled. “Why?”

“Uncle D promised me pancakes, and I’m waiting. That was, like, foreeever ago.”

“I just made you pancakes yesterday for breakfast.”

“Not your kinda pancakes, Daddy. The kind Uncle D gets me with gobs of chocolate and whip—” She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oops. I wasn’t ’posed to tell you that part.”

She thought she was hiding the biggest secret, that I couldn’t tell she was hyped up on sugar and covered in chocolate whenever Dominick brought her home.

“I’ll let Uncle D know that you’re extremely disappointed in him and that he owes you big.” I pushed more loose strands off her forehead. “What about Uncle Jenner? What should I tell him?”