“Dada, can you squeeze the toothpaste for me?” Delaney asked. I looked up, interrupted in our extra bedroom, caught napping before it was time for actual bedtime. I had put the twin 6-year old boys to bed and found myself with a half hour, which I put to good use falling asleep on top of the covers. I lumbered into the bathroom.
“Where is it?”
“Did you buy any today?” she asked, already disappointed.
“No, I forgot again.”
We both scanned silently. I searched for what I knew was a scorpion-like shape of the kid toothpaste, hidden somewhere on the countertop crowded with hair brushes, lotions, and bottles I could not identify without my glasses. “There it is,” she said as she nabbed it behind a water tumbler. “Can you get it out?”
The tube showed the image of a swashbuckling girl wielding a sword in a position that looked flashy but that probably had no value in a real sword fight. Bold letters told me it was “Fluoride Anticavity Toothpaste” in the flavor of bubblegum. What substance do they use to flavor toothpaste like bubblegum, I wondered. I was sure whatever it was, we would find out it was poisonous sometime in the next decade, after we had completed 8,000 brushings. She had to have this toothpaste because if she used mine, her mouth would burn. I guess there was an actual reason for kids’ toothpaste, other than to sell more toothpaste in a different package and flavor.
I smoothed it out, using both my thumb and forefinger to coax out all I could, and a satisfying dollop appeared at the end, enough to smear on the bristles and still more for four or five more servings. I didn’t absolutely have to buy more tomorrow after all. I started to walk away, then Mia said, “Dada, me too.”
After I eked out another serving for Mia, I laid down in Delaney’s bed because she said she was scared, scared of something below her in the trundle. I laid down, waiting for them both to finish in the bathroom. I waited not because they needed me to tuck them in or read them stories any longer, but because the last remnants of our bedtime routine – the hug – was still hanging on. Delaney’s soft, polyester blanket with two unicorns on it smelled like her brand of 10-year old pure happiness. I fell asleep again after a few breaths.
“Coco pees blood when he gets nervous.”
‘Huh?,” I said, waking up surprised a second time.
“Coco. He pees blood sometimes.”
“Did he pee blood tonight?”
“No,” Mia said, brow scrunched, as though I was crazy to even ask. She walked over and stroked our brand new kitten on her bed as Coco hissed from the floor.
“Little Misty, you so cute!” said Mia in a funny voice.
“Dada, I’m not scared anymore. You can go if you want,” said Delaney. Mia took out the deck of the cards the girls played with each night after I left their room. They played before bed at their own slumber party of two, staving off the night just a little longer – the same night I wanted to pick me off my feet as if I was four years old again, asleep and in my dad’s arms, bone tired at the tail end of a road trip that rolled through dusk.
“Back and bye bye, Daddy. Huggies!” Mia said. I crouched and gave her pig-tailed, braided head in her baggy Hello Kitty sweater the deepest hug I could give. “Me too, Daddy,” said Delaney in her black tights and “Let’s Avo-cuddle” shirt with the avocado on it.
“You going to be ok tonight, then?”
“Yeah, I’m not that scared anymore,” Delaney repeated.
I nodded. “Alright then, sleep good my girls. I love you both back and bye bye.”
“Never go bye bye,” Mia threw back at me as I gently closed the door to walk myself to sleep.