Page 16 of Single Dad's Christmas Cookie

“Do you live with your dad? Or do you live with your mom and come to visit?”

“I don’t have a mom. Sometimes,, I stay with Grandmother. She dropped me off this morning. This is where I live. Let me show you my room.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the pantry with a surprising amount of strength packed into such a tiny little body.

She dragged me through doors and up stairs. There was a wide, carpeted hall. The carpets were full-sized, not narrow runners. They were lush and deep red and looked very expensive.

“This is my room.” She pushed into a fantasy land of princess dreams. Everything was pink and fluffy and sparkly, and I would have loved to have a bedroom like that when I was six.

“Wow,” I said. I wasn’t joking or being sarcastic. This was an absolute dreamland. “This is a fantastic room.”

“I love my room. We can have a tea party here.” She dragged me to the far corner, where a little round table with tiny little matching chairs was all set up. A couple of dolls were already sitting lopsided at the table as if they were guests patiently waiting for their host to arrive.

I don’t know how much time we spent as she introduced me to each and every one of her stuffed animals. I finally had to stop her.

“As much as I adore meeting all of your friends, I really do have to get back to work. I’m cooking for you while your cook is on vacation,” I reminded her.

“You’re here to cook. But Daddy didn’t get anybody to play with me yet.”

Play with her yet? I hadn’t known about her until she introduced herself. She was not part of the job description. But I wasn’t about to leave her on her own.

“Why don’t we go back down to the kitchen and you can keep me company while I figure out what to make for dinner?”

The route she took me back to the kitchen was different. I noticed there were no holiday decorations of any kind.

“Would you like to help me decorate the kitchen a little bit?” I asked.

“Oh, can we do arts and crafts?” Amelia asked. Her face lit up with excitement.

“Do you have any craft supplies anywhere?” Of course, they had craft supplies. There was a cabinet with crayons, glue, scissors, construction paper, and even coloring books.

“This is perfect.” I pulled out a stack of construction paper and scissors and glue. “Have you ever made a paper snowflake, Amelia?”

8

BRYAN

“Nova,” I started as I pushed my way into the kitchen. “Have you seen my daughter?”

“Daddy!” Amelia yelled. She wiggled her way off the chair she was sitting on and ran across the kitchen. “Come look at what we’ve been doing.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the kitchen table.

The kitchen looked more like a kindergarten classroom, decorated with paper snowflakes and paper chains and general kid crafts, than it did Emma’s kitchen. Emma wasn’t here right now. I would have to make sure that this was all gone before she came back or saw any evidence of it.

“What are you doing, kiddo?” I asked. I reached into the big bucket of popcorn sitting in the middle of the table and began munching.

“Hey, that’s for my gartlant, gartland.”

“Garland,” Nova corrected.

“That’s for my garland,” Amelia said. In front of her chair was a long strand of popcorn and cranberries on a string. “I’m sewing Christmas decorations.”

“I thought this was the kitchen,” I said with a smirk.

“Yeah, and I thought I was supposed to be a cook, but there’s this kid here,” Nova said as she nodded her head toward Amelia.

“I’m not a kid. I am Amelia,” my daughter corrected in her precise tone, the one that she always used after she had spent too much time with Mother.

“So, you two have already met, I see.”

“You could say that,” Nova said.

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