Chapter 4

The day had come - the day I’d been waiting for. After three long months of recuperation and another month before that I couldn’t remember, I was finally going home. In three days, they would release me. Casey had been here almost the whole time, and I’d fallen in love with the little angel. After that one time when she cried for her parents, she had been calling me “Daddy” ever since. We had cuddle time every day, and she stuck to me like glue.

Casey was sleeping in the bed beside me, breathing softly. Turning back to the door, I saw Richard standing in the doorway. He was smiling and looking at me. “What?” I whispered.

“Oh, nothing. It just looks funny how you look at her when she sleeps.” His smile grew. “Like a father.”

I had to smile at that. “I’ve never had a child of my own. Never really had time for a family.”

“Oh, is that why you never married?” He walked up to my bed. “You’d think that after 33 years, you would have gotten to that.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, women weren’t really a big factor in my life. Sure, I did the dating thing in high school, but I wasn’t really serious with many women. I graduated high school and got a job in a retail store. Got tired of that and trained to be a firefighter.”

“Which brings to mind, why did you stop being a firefighter? You were pretty amazing when you rescued those people in the store.”

I lowered my head and it got really quiet. “I, uh,” I stammered. “I lost a good friend one day, and I just couldn’t go back.”

Richard laid his hand on my shoulder. “I know what it’s like.” He was hesitant to continue. “Who was it?”

“My brother.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay, you didn’t know.”

“What happened?” Richard pressed on.

Steeling myself, I told the tale like I had told it many times before. “Well, it was a regular day as a firefighter. There was a fire on 71st and Yale, at an apartment complex. It was a standard search and rescue thing to get the people in the building out. We got almost everyone out, but my brother went in to get an elderly woman out who couldn’t get herself out. He was in there too long and started slowing down. The fire flashed up again, and he was caught right in the middle of it.” With the least emotion that I could muster, I was telling it like a recounting of the facts, not something that had affected me deeply. It was hard to say the next few words. “He burned to death.”

He waited a minute before asking, “You okay?”

I nodded. It took me a minute to regain my composure. “Anyway, I headed back into the retail business. I worked for a few people, moved myself up in the business, and I’ve been doing that ever since. I was working that day as assistant store manager when it happened.”

“Anyone you know get caught in the explosions?”

I nodded. “A few.”

“Sorry.”

I just nodded again, unable to deal with it right then. “But now I have her.” I looked over to Casey. “I don’t want to lose her, Rick. I can’t.”

“I know.”

We sat in companionable silence as we looked at the little brown-haired girl that had captured my heart. As if on cue, she woke up a few minutes later.

“Daddae?” she drawled, still half-asleep.

“I’m here honey.” I slowly tried to get out of the bed. The scars from the burns still slowed me down, and as Richard tried to help me get up, I waved him off. “I can do it myself. I’m not an invalid.” He just smiled and respectfully backed away while I got up and walked tentatively to Casey’s bed on the other side of the room. “Good morning sweetheart. You gonna get up today?”

She mumbled, “I non’d wanna ged up.” I snickered at her still sleep-slurred speech. “Can I go do da zoo dadey?”

My smile practically reached my ears and I couldn’t help from laughing out loud. I decided to have a little fun. “No, honey. We can’t go to the zoo today. We’ve got to visit my friends, the aliens, on a spaceship this afternoon.”

She bolted up in bed, narrowly missing my chin with her head. “Really? You have alien friends? Can I meet them? Is their spaceship big? Do they have giraffes? What do they look like?”

I was nearly cracking up now. “No sunshine, I don’t know any aliens. But I did just get you up!”

She looked at me with mock anger and said between yawns, “Hey! Cheater!”

“Come here and give Daddy a hug already.” She leaped into my arms and I held her close to my chest. “So, what do you want to do today?”

She looked at me excitedly. “Can we go to the park today? There’s a lake there and it’s really pretty and I wanted to take you there for a long time. Now that you’re better, we can go there and I can show you how good I can swim! Can we, can we, can we?”

I looked over to Richard. “What do you think? A swimming outing with the best little girl in the entire world?”

“Sounds to me like you’ve got it made!” He was smiling right along with us.

I thought for a second before saying, “Well, I’ll have to clear it with the doctor-“

“I already asked,” she interrupted, “and Dr. Tiecher said it would be okay if we went out for a few hours, ‘only if you were careful,’” she imitated in his voice.

I should have figured she would be that thorough. “Well, if the doctor says it’s okay, I guess we get to go to the park today.”

She squealed, “Yay! Swimming!”

All I could do was smile.

* * *

Thankfully, the ride to the park was more or less uneventful. By the time we got to the park, I was already very tired. Richard drove us there, and he was having a very animated conversation with Casey while I sat in the front seat, trying not to fall asleep. I was not doing a very good job at it.

We got there and Richard found a great parking spot right next to the water, and we all climbed out. This time, I didn’t refuse the help that he offered, and he helped me walk over to the towel that Casey had already laid out for us. She was running around trying to get Richard and I to come into the water with her, but both of us opted to stay on the shore for now.

She ran into the water and was splashing around and playing with the other kids. I turned to Richard and said, “Look at her. She’s such an adorable little munchkin, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” he said, not turning away from watching her. “Hard to believe just three months ago she wouldn’t even talk. No one could guess that she lost her parents just a few months ago.”

My jaw clenched as I thought of what happened. “I just can’t believe there are people out there who would kill that many people. And for what? A political statement?”

He just shook his head. “ I don’t know, Sean. I don’t understand it either. How could someone stoop so low and be so cold and barbaric?”

Our somber mood was lightened when we both hear giggling, and looked over to Casey again. She was having so much fun; I couldn’t help but smile.

-- -- --

After a couple hours, we called Casey in from the water. “Casey, time for lunch!”

When she heard that, she came bolting out of the water and straight to us. She then proceeded to climb right onto my lap, getting me totally soaked in the process. She had a good laugh at that, and we ate lunch.

After lunch, Richard decided to call in to the doctors to tell them how I was doing. Casey went back up onto my lap, and we had our cuddle time. It was late, and the sun was starting to set.

“Daddy, when you go home, can I come live with you?” she said, out of the blue.

Inside, I was jumping up for joy, but I didn’t want to push her into a corner if she didn’t really want to live with me. “Well, is that what you really want, Casey?”

“Yes. I want to live with you and I want you to be my daddy.” I felt like I could jump a mile high. She continued, “I heard Uncle Rick talking about adoption, and how they would have to find me someone to live with and to take care of me. He was talking about some people who were waiting for a little girl, and I don’t really want to go anywhere else. I want to be with you.”

I was almost in tears. “Well, by golly, you beat me to it.” She looked a little confused, so I went on. “I was going to ask you today if you would like me to adopt you.”

She was beaming now. “So you want me?”

“Honey, of course I want you. I want you to be my little girl.”

She gave me the biggest hug I’ve ever had, and I gave her a hug right back.

“I love you Daddy.”

“I love you too, sweetie.”

* * *