“Sure, baby. We can be lazy bunnies and watch some Paw Patrol after you have your bath.”
“Daddy, I’m not a baby. I don’t watch baby stuff.”
“Ouch. Okay, we can watch CSPAN. Find out what’s going on in Congress today,” he said. I snickered.
“Even I’m not that grown-up,” I said.
“Neither am I,” he admitted. “But if she wants to watch a grown-up show, it’s gonna be government operations. That should cure anyone of wanting to be an adult.”
“I think I’d need some serious sugar to keep me awake through CSPAN. How ‘bout one of those boring History Channel shows?”
“Those are excellent. Either you love the History Channel or you’re—”
“Under the age of seventy?” I teased. He laughed. Max had a great laugh, deep and rumbly. I felt my cheeks flush.
“Fine, so maybe I watch TV like I qualify for Medicare. I’m an old dad. I’m required to grill all summer, complain about the weather no matter what it is, and yell at kids to stay off my lawn.”
“Daddy, you watch outside man shows,” Sadie proclaimed.
I looked to Max for clarification. “Survival shows, hunting shows, that kind of stuff.”
I looked at Sadie who shrugged. “He yells at the TV when they chop down trees wrong. When I’m trying to sleep, he’ll go, ’you wasted so much wood.’”
I laughed, “So you heckle Bear Grylls?”
“You can’t watch it without heckling. Trust me,” he said.
“I’ll take your word for it. I don’t get to watch a lot of TV.”
“Masha and the Bear is really, really good,” Sadie said. “And Elena of Avalor —or it would be if we had Disney.”
“Solid burn, kiddo,” he said, clearly amused. “We’re not getting Disney. We already have Netflix, and my goal in life isn’t to get you to watch more TV.”
“Baby Yoda’s on Disney!” she protested.
“You are not watching that show. It isn’t a kid’s show.”
“Maggie’s mom let us watch it,” she said.
“And that’s why you don’t go play at Maggie’s anymore,” he said. “Because her parents have different ideas than I do on what’s okay for you to see.” He didn’t sound annoyed, just tired.
“Sadie, there’s two more bites of pie. Go for it,” I said. “You guys drive safe.”
“Thanks, Miss Rachel,” Sadie chimed in. “Don’t forget to watch Masha and the Bear!”
“Thanks,” he said, watching his daughter scoop a huge bite of pie into her mouth, crust and all.
I didn’t really want to walk away. I wanted to stand there and stall them, get them to linger in the diner and talk to them longer. I wanted to slide into the booth next to Sadie and fix that ponytail. I was careful with that though. I didn’t want her to feel like there was anything wrong with her messy hair, and I didn’t want him to think I was judging his parenting. He was just crap at doing little girl hair. She probably hated having it brushed, I thought. And I felt a little twinge, because it would be so fun to brush out her hair and braid it, paint those little nails, do the girly stuff with her. But it wasn’t my place. I wasn’t a close family friend. Best I could tell, Max didn’t really have any close friends, and Lord knew he didn’t have family here. No wonder he looked tired. He was trying to do it all on his own.
2
Max
Sadie slid between her “too-babyish” sheets in her Elsa pajamas and handed me a book.
“This one, please,” she said, her sunny voice not tired at all. I suppressed a yawn and managed to smile.
“You love this one, don’t you?” I asked, snuggling in beside her.
Sadie nestled into my side and looked up at me. “That’s because it’s the best one, Daddy,” she said.
“Okay, then we’ll read it again,” I said.
I read her the mermaid fairytale. We’d read it every night for nearly a month. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope she picked a new favorite book soon. We needed to hit the library, get some fresh books in this place in the next couple of days before I had read that book so many times, I started calling everyone Ariel.
“That was good. I like when you do the lobster voice.”
“Thanks. It’s a crab, not a lobster.”
“He’s red,” she said reasonably as if to prove her point.
“So are crabs. And that’s what he is. I swear.”
Sadie looked at me like she wasn’t so sure, but she let it drop.
“Do I get to sing to you? Or are you too big for that suddenly? Maybe you should start reading to me,” I teased her.
“Daddy, I can only read kindergarten stuff. The dog sits. The cat sits. The dog runs. The cat runs. That’s not much of a story,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll let you off the hook for now, but when you can read a longer book, it’s your turn. We practiced your sight words after school. Should we do them again? So you can learn to read faster and take the load off your old man?”