her butt. She smacks a kiss to my cheek and I smile, turning to return the favor.
I look down at Zoey when she clears her throat. With a hand on her hip, one leg out in front of her, she looks like she’s about to read me the riot act. I try not to smile, knowing that only makes her mad. She has a thing about being taken seriously.
“So what are you gonna do about it?”
“What do you think I should do about it?”
“I asked you. It was your idea in the first place.”
“It was a good idea!”
She shakes her head and throws her arms up in the air, clearly done with me. “Not without consulting me first!”
I bark out a laugh. Consulting. How is she only ten?
“Daddy! This is serious!” She stomps her foot and then adds her other fist to her waist.
It might be, but she’s adorable when she’s in a huff. And when she calls me Daddy or Dad, it doesn’t matter how many times I hear it, I still get a little weak in the knees. It was on the one year anniversary of when I made Addy my wife that she gave me that gift. I didn’t adopt Zoey because while she’s my daughter, she’s also Chris’s daughter. I’ve just been given the gift of being the one to raise her. I’d never take that away from him and neither Addy nor I pushed for Zoey to start calling me anything other than Uncle Beau.
When she said, “Happy Versary, Mommy and Daddy!” we stopped breathing for a few seconds. Even Zoey. And when she followed it up by apologizing before saying “Is that okay?” in a soft voice, there was no way I was going to deny her — or me — of calling me Daddy.
We weren’t sure if it was because her baby brother Cruz was with us and we’d been saying mommy and daddy a lot or if it was already settled there in her heart. Neither of us questioned it. Zoey’s a smart kid and we figured she knew what she was doing.
Cruz’s name comes from a combination of two of the most important people in our lives who we’ve lost. Chris and Suzie.
By the time our first Thanksgiving came around, my ring was on Addy’s finger.
By our first Christmas she and Zoey were living with me.
By our first Valentine’s Day, my baby, Cruz, was growing in her stomach and in May, I gave her my last name.
Things moved fast for us.
Thank goodness.
I hitch Drydon up on my hip. “I’ll talk to him like the rational men we are and he’ll understand.”
Zoey shakes her head, so sure of herself. I pray that I get to prove her wrong. “Nuh uh. He’ll be mad you didn’t ask him first.”
“Orrrrr maybe he’ll be so honored and blown away that he’ll give me a big hug.”
“Yeah. Let’s go with that,” she says, rolling her eyes.
She glances in the area she’s all in a tizzy about, shakes her head like I’m an idiot, then marches into the house calling for her mother.
Cruz comes bounding down the steps, Macaroni trailing behind him along with our new adopted pup, Snickers. Yeah, Zoey named her, too. There is absolutely no doubt whose kid Cruz is. From the moment he was born, he looked exactly like me. It’s not just his looks, though. He’s got a short temper, quick fists, huge appetite, bulky build, and a love for his mother that knows no bounds. He’s a mama’s boy through and through but the second I announce I’m heading to the barn, he’s my shadow.
I’ve learned a lot over the years on how to care for the animals we raise. Of course, we couldn’t have — or I couldn’t have — done it without Richard. But that’s the entire reason why I did what I did.
“I wanna see inside, Dad!”
“Do you think Pop is gonna be mad, too?”
“No way. He’s gonna be happy!”
“That’s my boy,” I say, giving him my fist to bump.
He cheers and I hear the screen door slam shut behind me. I wait, knowing Addy and Zoey are coming after Zoey tattled to her mom. Not that Addy wasn’t fully aware of what I did. It wasn’t a surprise here. Hell, people have been here for the past several weeks doing the work for it. But now that it’s finished, apparently Zoey has feelings about it that she feels the need to express.