You and Blythe stay up until midnight, watching stupid cartoons. You feed her way too much ice cream, and then you give her a bag of M&M's. She falls asleep on the couch, a satisfied smile on her face and you pick her up and balance her sleeping form carefully in
Cameron avoids your phone calls for a week, and you're debating just going over there and demanding your time with Blythe when Robert finally answers the phone.
"I want to see my daughter," you tell him, without preamble.
He chuckles, "I don't care, come get her. She and Allison should be back from the store in a couple of minutes. I don't care if you take your child."
You should be thrilled that it's that easy, but you can't help but be mad on Blythe's behalf. Robert should care more, Robert should be fighting you for time with her like a father, not handing her over like he doesn't love her.
"You don't care," you repeat, "You don't care if I come pick up the little girl you raised, who calls your daddy?"
"Come get her," he tells you and you wonder how Cameron ever fell in love with him. He's a better actor than you will ever be, "I never thought I'd date a single mom, much less marry one. It wasn't so bad at first, she's little and quiet. But now Nathan's here, and I have more important things to do with my time than baby-sit someone else's child."
Your knuckles are white around the phone and you close your eyes against the red haze you're seeing, "Fine," you manage to bite out, "I will be there in an hour and a half," and you hang up before he can respond.
You are tempted to whip the phone at the wall, but that's really not going to help anything so instead you dig out Blythe's birthday gifts and call the bakery. You were going to wait until her birthday next week, but you and your daughter can celebrate tonight. She deserves it, and you want to see her smile.
You pick up Blythe from a stony silent Cameron.
"If you want to see her," she says to you after Blythe is buckled in and the car door shut, "You call me, do you understand? I don't want you talking to my husband."
"Because he's not lying anymore?" you snipe, "How do you expect Blythe to grow up in that house with him, with that attitude? I would have called you, but you weren't answering your phone."
"He doesn't say anything around her," she says wearily, rubbing her eyes. You aren't surprised that she does not answer your implied question. i Why won't you talk to me? /i
"You look like shit, Cameron," you say before you think, "Are you getting any sleep at all?"
"What do you care?" she snaps, then seems to fold in on herself, "I'll be fine when Nathan starts sleeping through the night."
"I'm having a thing for Blythe," you tell her, "For her birthday. I got a cake and some presents and it's just me. But if you and Nathan want to come…" i it could be a family thing… /i
"I'll ask Robert," she says, and shifts the baby in her arms.
"Since when do you ask permission to do anything, Cameron?"
"Robert doesn't want me around you," she says, and she sounds resigned.
"Fine," you say, trying to stay calm, "You ask your husband if you can celebrate your daughter's birthday, and you let me know. We'll be home all night," you finish, and get into your car, driving away without looking back.
You stop at the bakery and pick up the little cake and you tease Blythe the whole way home because you will not show her what you got. You let her into the apartment and she goes straight for her room, checking to make sure everything is just as she left it. While she is in her room, you open the cake and put four candles on it and light them, waiting for Blythe to come into the kitchen.
When she sees the cake she claps and squeals and runs over to you. You pull her onto your good leg so she can make a wish and blow out the candles.
She's supposed to keep her wish to herself but you hear her whisper, "Please let me live with daddy forever," before she blows out the candles, and you swallow hard.
You need to talk to Cameron about longer visitation. More visitation, maybe every other weekend and some days in-between. It wouldn't be fair to make her have two schools, so you can't have her during the week...maybe you need to talk Cameron into leaving her husband and coming back to you.
When the candles are blown out, you move the cake off to the side and let Blythe rip into her presents. You've never done this birthday thing before, so you might have gone overboard, you're not sure.
Soon, your tiny daughter is buried in a mound of wrapping paper and toys. There are stuffed animals for the net that goes above her bed, there's a doll that's supposed to talk, and a Dora doll that talks and moves. There are books, and there is a box of stolen supplies from PPTH. You couldn't find a lab coat in her size, but you did steal a set of child-sized scrubs from the pediatrics wing. You bought her a Leapfrog reading pad and every single story that went with it, because your daughter is starting kindergarten already knowing how to read if you have to teach her yourself.
What's scary is that you are excited to. You are excited to curl up with Blythe and teach her words, you are excited to show her how that stethoscope works, you don't even mind that the Dora doll you got for her keeps saying "Hola, Amigos!" even though she's turned it off twice.
The smile on Blythe's face is contagious and you can't help returning it as you hand her cake. The slice of cake is twice what you would expect a child of her size to eat, but you're not really surprised when it disappears and then your sugared up daughter puts on the scrubs and drapes the stethoscope around her neck and puts three tongue depressors in her pocket.
"Sit on the couch, Daddy," she tells you, pointing, "because you are sick, and Dr. Blythe will make you better."
You don't know how to tell her she already has.