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epilogue
I closed and locked the front door, dropped my coat and bag in the hallway and pushed open the door of Karen’s apartment. It was early Saturday morning and I’d had an endless night of departure lounges and achingly long flight delays.
I went straight into Em’s room where she was sleeping soundly in her cot. She had thrown off the covers as she often did and was lying tangled in the sheets and blankets. I untangled her and straightened her out. She made a complaining noise but didn’t wake.
I sat and watched her a while. When I was away from her I often thought of her like this with her brow furrowed in concentration as she slept. Her eyelids flickered and I wished I could climb into her dream to make sure it was a happy one.
A half an hour later she was awake, clambering to her feet, holding onto the cot bars, shouting ‘dad, dad, dad’. Karen maintained that this was simply a string of ‘da’ sounds and not ‘dad’ at all, but Sam and I knew better.
I put my finger to my lips, “Ssh, don’t wake mommy.” She put her finger to her lips and said “Ssh” before giggling noisily.
I picked her up and hugged her. She submitted to the hug for about a nanosecond before struggling to get down. She could walk now and would rush about unsteadily but unstoppably. I let her run into the living room but caught her before she could go into Karen’s room.
“Hold it right there,” I said and swept her up into the air generating more giggles. I took her into the bathroom and put her in a fresh diaper but left her in her astonishingly garish Tigger pyjamas, which came with feet and a hat with ears. A gift from Donna, obviously. I got her a drink of milk and brought her upstairs to my apartment. On her feet again she rushed straight into the bedroom.
Sam was as tangled up as his daughter had been and looking equally adorable as he slept. Em came to an abrupt halt by the side of the bed and gave me a questioning look. She was beginning to understand that she lived in a house full of adults who took sleep extremely seriously. But I said, “Go on then, wake up daddy.”
She tugged at one of the sheets covering Sam. This didn’t work so I lifted her onto the bed and she climbed onto Sam’s chest. He woke, presumably when he couldn’t breathe anymore and the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Em smiling down at him. He broke into a sleepy smile too clasping his arms around her. His eyes wandered over to where I was standing. “Hey,” he said. Then he turned back to Em. “Where’s Em?” he asked. “I can see Tigger. But where’s Em?”
She laughed wildly as he pretended to look for her all over the bed, tipping her this way and that as he did so. Then eventually, when he found her he tickled her ruthlessly and set her down in the middle of the bed. I gave her the bottle and she drank while sitting and watching.
I peeled off my suit down to shorts and Tshirt before sitting on the edge of the bed. Sam and I kissed. I had been travelling for five days and I wasn’t used to being this long away from him.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked. “You should have been home hours ago.”
“Charles de Gaulle mostly.”
“That sucks. You know, we’re supposed to be in by ten for the Agriculture thing.”
“Man, I forgot.”
Sam brushed his fingers across my cheek. “Skip it, you mustn’t have slept at all.”
“Nah, I’m okay.” But it was all beginning to catch up with me.
“Seriously, you look tired.”
Sam pulled me down next to him wrapping an arm around me and I put my head on his shoulder. I reached over and picked up the bottle that Em had discarded, half finished and tried to get her to take it again.
“No,” she said. Which was the word she was most able to clearly articulate. I took the bottle away and put it to one side.
Sam reached out his free arm to her and she crept back on top of him. Lying as still as she was able she put out her hand and touched my face and then Sam’s. Sam pulled sheets over us, his hand rested in my hair and he kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes while Sam and Em quietly played ‘Where’s Em?” and as I fell, at long last, asleep I heard Em unexpectedly whisper, “daddy.”
End
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