Agnes
Part 2
Author's Note: This started as a one-shot and then continued to speak to me…. Please leave a review.
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Don Ressler, like all smart single men with families that lived a distance away, had a pull-out couch. He hadn't used it often, the odd buddy who stayed the night, his mom who came to stay while he was recovering with his leg, his brother who had come for an awkward short weekend... which is why the mattress still almost had that new smell. The queen-sized sheets he had were too big for it but he'd manage. He looked toward the closed over door and sighed, he hoped she was okay sleeping for the night, he didn't know much about girls having grown up with only a brother. He knew what it was like to be friend with a girl, work with a girl, date an girl, but parent a girl? Yeah, that was not within his realm of understanding.
Today they had first gone to the storage locker and he'd let Agnes pick the things she wanted to bring with her. There were some barbies, stuffies, books, some dolls, a couple of games, and a ukulele. He had looked around and decided that her bed, dressers, and other larger items would not fit in his apartment, so they stayed. He had found some boxes of clothes and wasn't even sure if they fit her when he pulled them out. He took one box and figured he could go back for more, if needed.
Then they had gone to the grocery store and picked up all the items Liz had sent him that she liked to eat, Agnes was quite excited when she saw the haul in the buggy but walking around a grocery store with a 5 year old wasn't nearly as efficient as on his own. Don usually was in and out of the store in about 30 mins, max. Grocery shopping with Agnes and her little legs and interest in all canned goods, took over an hour, and that was with him rushing her. When they got back to his apartment with all of their things, Don had let her play in the living room while he packed everything away in the kitchen and that was when he noticed how unfriendly his place was for a child. She was using glass art for some kind of obstacle course, had wine bottles rolling on the floor for her dolls to jump over, poker chips flung about the room or stacked in various piles, and his glassware had become seating for her barbies.
Don walked into the room and realized he needed to put some things away. The wine was placed on a top shelf, the glassware in a cupboard and anything else breakable was put in the closet. His apartment now looked cluttered with toys but without many of the things he used for decoration. Agnes watched him move everything out of her reach and sighed on the sofa. It was fun for her to play with those things.
"Agnes, they could hurt you if they broke," Don said as he saw her sour expression.
She huffed and said nothing, going back to bouncing her barbies across the cushions of the sofa.
Don sighed, he sucked as a parent.
"How about we go look at the box of clothes and make sure you have some pjs for tonight?" Don asked her, hoping getting into her clothes would help. Girls liked clothes, right?
Agnes followed him into his bedroom where he had dumped the box after three trips up to his place, and opened it looking inside. They were summer clothes, mainly, which was good considering the weather, but she turned her nose up at them.
"What?" Don asked as he pulled out a yellow shirt with a hippo on it and held it up.
"They are from last summer," Agnes said.
"And they are out of style?" Don asked as he looked at the hippo shirt confused. When did a hippo shirt go out of style?
"They are for babies," Agnes said.
"Well, I'm…I'm sure there are some that aren't," Don said as he dug into the box some more and pulled out some more clothes.
In the end, after much sorting, she had decided that a small number of shirts, shorts, one hoodie and one pair of jeans were not for babies. The rest was deemed babyish. And, as Don looked at her and the clothes, possibly much of it was too small for her.
"Well kiddo, I guess we are going shopping," Don said. "Let's go."
Agnes jumped off the bed and they were at Target a half hour later. One thing Don learned about kids was that they didn't try on clothes. He saw several mothers walking around with their kids just choosing items and then going to the clerk to pay.
"What size are you?" Don asked her.
Agnes shrugged.
He reached around the back of her shirt and looked at the number printed.
"You're a seven," Don informed her. "Pants the same?"
Agnes pulled out the tag from her tights and they both looked at the tag.
"Medium," Don said as he furrowed his brow. "Why is one a number and one a range?"
Agnes shrugged.
They went to a table and Don pointed to a bunch of t-shirts. "Do you like any of those?"
Agnes picked up a few and held up a blue one for him that said Pawstive Catitude with a picture of a cat with sunglasses on it.
"Good choice," Don smiled at her and she smiled back. They found the right size and moved on to table after table, rack after rack until she had more tights, some more shorts, a few more shirts, and three pairs of pajamas.
They were on their way to the checkout when he noticed a mom walking with three girls all wearing bucket hats. He turned and looked at Agnes, she would need some protection from the sun, it was the end of May and the weather was only going to get warmer.
"Hang on kiddo, let's get you a hat," Don said as he steered her back toward the kid's section and then stopped when he saw a Washington Nationals kid's baseball cap. "Here's a hat for you."
Don plunked it on her head, and she smiled and laughed. He grabbed one for himself as well and they made their way to the register.
After paying not as much as he expected for a decent amount of clothes for a child, Don and Agnes made their way back to his place where she continued to play quite happily with her dolls while he threw a frozen pizza in the oven. He leaned against the wall to his kitchen and watched her play. She was Liz in colouring and facial expressions but not a mini-me of her mother. He didn't see much of Tom in her, except the nose. Liz had said it could be months, so he needed to make plans for Agnes through the summer. How was he going to let her be a child, protect her and still work at his job?
His phone buzzed with a text from Aram.
Don looked at it: Ten of the best camps in the DC region.
It was like they were thinking the same thing—Don started to click on some links and see the offerings for her; all of the camps looked good and were relatively the same price, he would let Agnes decide. He would have to allow Reddington to provide security for Agnes, there was no way around it. Agnes could not be left without a guard. He was going to have to trust Reddington's men with Agnes whether he liked it or not.
Don heard the oven beep and took out the pizza, carefully cutting it for the two of them and called her to eat. She seemed to like the pizza but he struggled with things to talk with her about and finally settled on puling out his phone and showing her pictures of the camps and reading to her some of the things they did. She seemed interested in all the camps, so, it looked like, ultimately it was going to be for him to decide.
"What time do you go to bed?" Don asked later that evening as they sat watching cartoons.
Agnes shrugged.
Don took out his phone and texted Park. What time should Agnes go to bed?
He got a text back within a minute: She's not already in bed?
He looked at his watch, it was 9:20 and he looked at the little girl watching the cartoons and her eyes closing then opening again.
"Shit," Don said before he rose. "Come on kiddo, time for bed."
Agnes nodded and walked to his room where he helped her change into pjs and tucked her in bed.
Don looked down at her, normally you would read a book, but she looked so tired that a book may not be necessary.
"Did you want a story?" Don asked, half expecting her to nod 'no'.
Agnes nodded 'yes' and Don looked around for a book finally sitting down and reading The Paper Bag Princess to her. He hadn't read it before, and liked the message of the story and liked that Liz had chosen to instill this independence in her child at such a young age. He should research some more children's books with strong female characters for Agnes.
He patted her head and wished her goodnight and grabbed his own pajamas before leaving the room to sleep on the sofa; which was going to be his bed for the foreseeable future.
Cracking open a beer, Don sat back on the sofa bed and watched TV at a low volume, catching up on the news of the day and trying not to let his mind overthink the responsibility of taking care of a child. Because no matter how he looked at it, Liz had asked a big ask in taking Agnes and, although he never would have said no, he wasn't sure he was the right person for the job.
He looked down at his phone.
You did put her to bed, right? Park's text read.
Don sighed, he wasn't going to keep her up to midnight, but 9ish didn't seem incredibly late. He googled common bedtimes for 5-year-olds and discovered it was somewhere around 8 or 8:30.
"Tomorrow," Don said as he closed the search engine and looked at Park's text.
She was in bed by 9:30, tomorrow I'll make it 8:30 Don texted back.
Don placed down his phone and looked at the TV with the mom and dad playing at the park with their child in the commercial for life insurance. Don sighed, perhaps when you raise a child from the moment she is born you just know what to do. But he was behind the 8 ball, five years in, with a child he barely knew, who wasn't even his, and who had been passed around to several people over her short life. Don couldn't pass her along to anyone else, as much as he knew he was not prepared to do this, he also knew that Liz had chosen him, for whatever reason, to take care of Agnes. And he needed to not just do that, but do it well.
Don turned off the TV and slid down until he was laying flat, his body adjusting to the too thin mattress and the weird feeling of being in a different bed. He eventually fell asleep and hoped tomorrow he would be a better parent then today.
To be continued.