Throughout dinner I heard Clare’s words from that morning echoing through my head: The man who saved your life.
I had managed to not think about it all day because I was busy cleaning the house from top to bottom with only one helper and a dog who decided that it was time to play Bite Taylor’s Pants Whenever He Moves. Not to mention a baby who found that day old wrapping paper is more fun than the baby doll she was supposed to be playing with in her playpen. I didn’t quite know exactly how wrapping paper got into her playpen but I supposed it had something to do with the help of a certain five year old.
I tried to concentrate on dinner with my daughters but the time flew past so quickly that in no time I was handing over money to our waitress and signing an autograph for her and her sister.
“Zoë, can you get that?” I asked the child nodding towards Anya’s carseat in the back of the car. Zoë lifted the top so I could stick Anya in and buckle her down. Zoë climbed into the front of the car and buckled her own seatbelt. I started the car and drove out of the parking lot.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Zoë said excitedly from her seat as soon as I turned onto the road. “Can we put in you and Uncle Ike and Uncle Zac?”
I chuckled, “sure, kiddo.”
Zoë flipped the switch to turn on the CD player. “CD two,” she told the player. “Track one.” The CD started and I shook my head. Two years ago my baby brother had convinced me that this new Voice Controlled Radio was the coolest thing on the market and he had gotten the prototype version before it came out and loved it. So we went out and bought one for my car. Since October of this year he was trying to convince me that Video Phones were the new “in” thing. He had gotten one for his twenty-fifth birthday and wanted to use it with me, but he couldn’t use the video part of the Video Phone without the other person having one so he had been pestering me ever since. Isaac caved in and bought one but Zac still had more convincing to do. I was happy with the old fashioned touch toned phone with the optional voice control.
Zac was always trying to convince me to try out new technological advances, but sometimes he just got annoying. Like when he tried to tell me to get an Internet hookup throughout the whole house for only one ninety-nine a month- who needs to check out a website while they are in the bathroom? Not me, that’s for sure. Zac says he couldn’t live with out it. I told him to have fun talking to people in a chat room while he’s on the toilet.
And of course to that he replied, “I will.”
“Fly with the wings of an eagle, no matter how high I’ll be thinking of you!” Zoë sang softly, looking out of the window.
I smiled at the child and patted her leg, keeping one hand on the steering wheel. I glanced at her quickly and then adverted my eyes back to the road.
“Repeat,” Zoë commanded the machine. The beginning of “Thinking Of You” started once again.
“You really like that song don’t you?” I asked. I glanced at her again. She was nodding eagerly.
“Uncle Zac sounds funny and I still don’t believe that you are singing lead.”
I laughed. “Why not?”
“Because you don’t sound the same.”
“That’s because my voice changed, Zoë.”
“What?” She asked in a confused voice.
I shook my head, “nevermind, kiddo.”
“No, Daddy,” she argued. “What does that mean?”
I swallowed hard. I had dug myself into a hole by mistake and I knew that telling her “I’ll tell you when you are older” just wouldn’t suffice. “Well,” I started, “when I was thirteen, as well as Uncle Zac when he was 13 and Uncle Ike when he was 13 and every other little boy in the world, my voice got deeper.”
“Why?” She interrupted.
“Because I got older.”
“Why?”
“Because the years went on.”
“Why?”
I sighed. The Why-stage was starting and I knew from experience that this was going to be a killer. I avoided the last “why” and went on. “I went from sounding like that to sounding like this.”
“I like my voice!” My daughter protested. “I don’t want it to change.”
“It won’t baby,” I assured her. “It only happens to little boys.” I swallowed. I’d definitely leave everything else up to her mother to explain in about five years. I smiled to myself thinking back to a show my brothers and I had been on when I was fourteen years old, the scene ran through my head as though I had just experienced it yesterday.
“Girl’s are lucky,” I had told the host of the show, referring to how girls’ voices don’t change like ours do, “girls don’t have to go through that.” The audience, which was all girls by the way, had “Oo-ed” at the deep hole I had dug myself into. To get out of it I said, “I know where that’s going! So I’ll stop it right here.” But of course I was made fun of endlessly for that one.
I cringed in embarrassment and laughed to myself.
“What, Daddy?” Zoë asked.
“Nothing Sweetie, I’m just thinking.”
“Oh.”
I pulled into our driveway and parked the car. “Stop,” I told the CD player. It didn’t listen. “Stop,” I said again. Zoë was giggling. “You think this is funny, eh?” I joked. She nodded. “Stop!” I yelled at the player. “Stop you confounded piece of machinery!”
“Stop,” Zoë spoke up lightly. The music came to a halt. Zoë giggled and ran out of the car and up the steps before I could grab her and tickle her.
I climbed out of the car and unbuckled Anya from her carseat. “Your Daddy used to be very into technology,” I told her closing the door. “So let’s pretend you never saw that.” I dashed up the steps and unlocked the backdoor. Zoë ran inside. “Quiet on the stairs!” I called after her in a whisper. I heard her feet pounding up the stairs to her room anyway. I closed the back door and locked it tightly. “Time for bed, kiddo,” I told Anya, taking her up to her room. I changed her diaper, put her into her night clothes, and laid her on her stomach in the crib. I sang quietly for a few minutes, rubbing her back soothingly. She fell asleep in no time.
I closed the door quietly and knocked on Zoë’s door. “Zo?” I said softly. “I’m opening the door.”
My daughter was in bed already with the covers pulled up to her chin. I reached around her and tucked her in tighter, sitting on the ground when I was done.
“Daddy can you read to me?”
“How about you read to me,” I suggested. My oldest daughter yawned. “Pick a book.” She reached over to her shelf and picked out another Berenstain Bears book. “Have you read this one before?” I asked. It was The Berenstain Bears And The Truth. Zoë shook her head. “Are you sure you haven’t read this one before?” She nodded.
“I have sides. One side is read and the other side we have to read.”
I looked over towards the bookshelf and sure enough there was a space in-between the collection of books. There were three on one side and about thirty on the other so I figured the three must have been the “read” books.
“OK,” I said, opening the front cover of the book. I started reading to her and somewhere in the middle her eyelids started drooping. I finished the book and placed it on the night stand. I stood and kissed her forehead. “Goodnight, Zoë Marie,” I said softly.
“Daddy? Can you sing to me?” Her eyelids were closed but I knew she was waiting probably all night to ask that question.
I smiled lightly. “I’ll sing a song from one of my favorite movies, but then do you promise to go to sleep?” Zoë nodded. I lowered myself back down to the floor and flicked off the lamp on the stand next to her bed. I leaned close to her head and stroked her hair gently, “Baby mine, don’t you cry,” I started singing softly. “Baby mine, don’t you cry. Baby mine, dry your eyes. Rest your head close to my heart, never to part, baby of mine. From your head to your toes, you’re so sweet goodness knows. You are so precious to me, cute as can be, baby of mine... Baby mine... Baby mine.... Goodnight Zoë.”