Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 18476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
How many story times have I missed?
How many more before it’s too many?
How many more before they don’t want these anymore?
Before they’ve outgrown them?
Outgrown the want to be around me like this?
Once the books are returned to their respective shelves, the girls meet me at their dresser where their prayer candles are waiting to be lit.
Rather than immediately removing the lighter from my jean pocket, I lower myself to my knees to be face to face with both. For a moment, I silently study their features. Their blue eyes they get from me. The long brown wavy hair they get from their mother. Their own unique freckle patterns as well as their slightly differing features like Lu’s smaller lips and Lair Bear’s thicker eyebrows. Staring at these two bite size bundles of happiness, these two scoops of all that’s right in the world, causes a thrumming in my chest that I can’t deny.
I have to keep doing my job.
I have to keep training people so that other parents like me never have to suffer the way mine did…so that other kids never have to go through the atrocities I managed to survive.
The girls may resent me for it now, but I just hope someday…when they’re old enough…they find a way to resent me less.
Lovingly, I brush hair off of Lu’s slender shoulder. “What do we light candles for each night?”
“For the angels to potect us,” Lair Bear answers as I adjust her pajama shirt.
“And to potect everyone we love,” adds Lu very firmly.
“That’s right.” Taking in a deep breath is followed by me continuing. “Wanna know the reason why?”
“Okay!” they squeal in tandem.
“See, when I was jus’ a little bit older than the two of you, some very bad people took me away my mommy and daddy.”
Their jaws hitting the floor has them looking more like Arley than me.
And I love that.
I love how much they look like the other person I adore most in the world.
“I was gone for a very, very, very long time, and while I was Abuela lit a candle and said a prayer for me every. Night.”
Their expressions remain the same.
“She knew someone would come to my rescue and wanted the angels to protect me until that person could find me.”
“That’s so sad, daddy!” Lu states, bottom lip poking out.
“So scary,” Lair Bear quietly claims, grabbing her sister’s hand.
“It was very sad and very scary, and it’s the reason why Daddy used to go all around the world before you were born returnin’ little cowboys and cowgirls back to the people who missed ‘em so much. People who loved ‘em. And teachin’ people to do that is the reason why Daddy sometimes misses things like cake pop parties and soccer practice and-”
“Nochebuena,” Lair Bear says on an understanding nod.
“Sort of…I missed Nochebuena because a little boy – the same age as you two – was taken from his mommy and I had to get him back to her.” The headshake they’re delivered is slow. “I didn’t wanna miss out on all the fun. I wanted to eat the cookies and do the dancin’ and feed the reindeer, but that little boy needed to get back to his mommy and that bad man needed to be stopped so he couldn’t do that to any other kids.”
“You’re a superhero!” Lair Bear exclaims tossing one hand in the air.
Lu sassily waggles a finger. “I knew it.”
You know that’s twice today I’ve been called super.
Maybe I should lean into it?
Not get a cape but maybe…a t-shirt?
“I am super sorry I missed that time with you and your cousins and your aunts and uncles and grandparents.”
“It’s okay, Daddy…” Lu cups my face with both hands the way she does her sister when making sure she’s okay. “You have to save the world.”
“You two and your mom are my world, princess.”
“The other world, Daddy,” she sighs in obvious exasperation.
Yeah, she definitely gets that shit from Angel Cake.
“You both know that jus’ because I have to save the other world doesn’t mean I love you and our world any less, right?”
Without prompting, two pairs of arms wind around my neck and squeeze tight. “We love you, too, Daddy.”
Like hugging their mother, the second I see her, everything else in existence momentarily vanishes.
All that matters are the two tiny thumps I can feel knocking into my chest.
Giving my heart a reason to beat.
One more purpose to open my eyes for each morning.
When they pull back, Lair Bear asks, “Can we pray for the boy and his mommy too?”
“Absolutely, princess.”
Finagling the lighter out of my pocket precedes me lighting them. Once the flames are burning, the three of us take turns to say prayers. In typical kid fashion, they start with us – their parents – move onto their grandparents and pets and cousins and eventually random other things, yet both girls make sure to not only pray for the little boy whose Christmas was saved but all the other kids in the world to stay safe too. We blow them out together, place them back on the dresser, and rush over to their beds due to me pretending I hear Santa on the roof.