Lily didn't understand why she couldn't go visit her daddy. Or why she had been sleeping over at either Auntie Chief's house or Auntie Julie and Spencer's house for the last week. All she knew was that her daddy was sick because his brain got hurt and that she wanted to see him. She missed playing with her daddy. She missed playing horsey and going to the park and playing tag.
She missed her mommy too. She had only gotten to see her a couple of times over the last week and every time she did, she seemed sad. Her eyes always looked sad and tired.
"What's wrong, Mommy?" she asked the last time her mommy had come by to check on her.
"I'm just tired, Lilypad," Her mommy told her, scooping her up and squeezing her into a tighter hug than usual.
"Mommy, I can't breathe," she said, wiggling in her mommy's lap.
"I'm so sorry." The arms around her immediately loosened.
"Mommy, I want to see Daddy," she said confidently. "When can I see Daddy?"
She saw her mom's eyes get wet at the bottom and she looked over to Auntie Chief who was sitting across from them on the couch.
"Daddy's still in the hospital resting," Auntie Chief said, sitting next to Lily on her mommy's lap. "They need to give his brain lots of rest so it will feel better and he can come home and play with you again soon."
"But I miss him," she felt tears roll down her cheeks. The kind her daddy called "Alligator Tears."
Auntie Chief or Auntie Julie would take her to preschool every morning and tell her to have a good day. But how could she have a good day? She didn't get horsey rides from her daddy or pancakes from her mommy or big fat kisses from either of them. She would sit in the grass and play with the ants during outside time.
"My daddy is in the hospital," she told Jason at school. "He hurt his brain."
"That's impossible," Jason said matter-of-factly, "If he hurt his brain, he would be dead."
"No! That's not true!" Lily cried. "He's not dead. He's resting so his brain will get better."
"Yeah right," Jason said, sticking out his tongue and running away. "My grandpa hurt his brain and now he's dead. I bet your dad is dead too."
"My daddy's not dead, you son of a bitch!" Lily screamed and threw a shovel from the pavement towards Jason.
Mrs. Christy ran over and pulled her back into the classroom. "Lily, we don't throw things, and we don't call people names, that wasn't very kind."
"But Jason said that my daddy is dead because he hurted his brain but he's not dead!" Lily started crying harder. She tried taking deep breaths with Mrs. Christy, but she couldn't. She kept crying big alligator tears.
Spencer and Gus came to the classroom door soon after to pick her up.
"Maybe she needs a few days off school," she heard Mrs. Christy whisper to Spencer before they left.
"Can we go see Daddy?" Lily asked when she was buckled into the back of the blueberry.
Spencer and Gus started loudly whispering to each other, but Lily couldn't make out any of the words.
"Can I go see Mommy?" she tried again.
"Fine," Gus shot back at Spencer, turning his head sharply to look straight ahead and starting the car.
"Are we going to see them?" she called quietly into the front seat. She missed her Daddy so much. She just wanted to see him. She had never been away from either of her parents for this long. She had slept over at Iris' house every once in a while for a night, and her daddy would go to a conference with Auntie Julie for three nights every year, but that was it. She wanted to be back home with her parents. She wanted to sleep in her own bed and know that her mommy and daddy were both sleeping in the next room over.
She looked out the window and saw a tall glass building get even taller as they approached. A big ambulance with flashing lights zoomed past them.
"Is this where Daddy is?" Lily asked, tilting her head so she could see the whole building.
"Yes, it is, but we're not going to see Daddy today. Just Mommy," Gus said, pulling into a parking spot. She saw Spencer make a big show of rolling his eyes at Gus.
Spencer got out of the car and walked around to get her out of her car seat. She looked up at the huge building full of windows in front of her.
"This is the tallest building I've ever seen!" Lily said and began running towards the front doors to see her mommy.
"Just wait until we get up to the 12th floor!" Spencer said, crouching down and pointing out one of the windows high up in the sky.
"Wow!" Lily said, craning her neck to see the top of the building.
Gus took hold of Lily's hand as they walked through the parking lot.
"I wanna press the button!" Lily said when they got to the elevator.
"12th floor please!" Spencer said, holding out his hand for her to run into the tall elevator. She jumped up to reach the top row of buttons.
The elevator started moving and Lily jumped up and down just like Spencer taught her to. The elevator shook as they flew into the sky. Gus hit Spencer on the arm and Lily started laughing.
"We're here!" Spencer said, sticking his arm out to hold the elevator door open. Lily stepped out into a hall that was brightly lit with rooms with big flowery curtains covering them and loud dings coming out of them.
She started to run down the hall but was stopped by Gus taking a firm hold of her hand. She stuck out her bottom lip and looked up at him with her best puppy dog eyes.
"Let's find your mommy, first," Gus said, making a point to not make eye contact. Lily smiled to herself. She could get Gus to do anything she wanted with her best puppy dog eyes.
Lily looked up and saw her mommy sticking her head out of one of the doors.
"Shawn! Gus!" she said, looking around and hurriedly walking out of the room.
"Mommy!" Lily jumped up into her mommy's arms when she walked down the hall. She felt her mommy's arms around her and rested her head on her shoulder. She stroked her fingers through her mommy's hair that was twisted in knots down her back. "Mommy, your hair is tangly."
Her mommy ignored her and started talking in hushed tones to Spencer and Gus. They started speaking a little louder and Lily wiggled so her mommy would put her back on the ground.
Daddy is here. She knew it. She could feel it. He had to be. He had to be in that room that Mommy had just walked out of. Very quietly, using her best hide-and-seek feet, she backed away from the adults and started walking towards the room where her Mommy had just been.
People rushed around her, but no one seemed to notice her as she snuck along the wall, like Spencer taught her to do. The door to the room was open and Lily walked in, expecting to see her daddy sitting in a chair waiting for her.
"Daddy?" she whispered as she snuck into the room. There was a big bed in the middle of the room, and she saw feet sticking out of a crumpled sheet at funny angles.
"Daddy?" she whispered again. She walked around to the side of the bed, still searching for her dad. She looked at the person laying in the bed closer. There was a chair next to the bed and she pulled herself onto it and stood up to see the face. The face looked droopy, like her doll that she had accidentally left too close to the oven one day. There was a tube in the face's mouth with thick stickers squishing his cheeks together and a big thick band-aid around the face's head.
She leaned in and gasped. "Daddy?" she said a little louder. She tapped her daddy's cheek. "Daddy wake up!"
Suddenly loud alarms started going off all around her and her daddy's eyes shot open. "Daddy! What's wrong? Daddy, why can't you come home?"
Her daddy started blinking quickly and tried to shake his head. He picked up his hand and started reaching for the long tube in his mouth.
"Lily!" she heard from behind her. She turned around just in time to see her mommy sweeping her off of the chair and dropping her in the corner, her head hitting the counter behind her with a thunk. She watched with fear bubbling in her chest as her mommy leaned over the bed, grabbing onto her daddy's hands, attempting to push them down.
"Carlton, no!" Her mommy yelled loudly at her daddy.
Why is she doing that? Why is she telling him no?
"Don't yell at him!" Lily cried from the corner, feeling big alligator tears run down her cheeks. Her head hurt but she ignored it, trying to move forward to push her mommy away.
A bunch more people ran into the room, blocking her view of her daddy. She was about to sneak in front of them to see what was happening when she felt herself being lifted off the ground and carried quickly out of the room.
"Daddy!" She screamed, trying to kick her way out of the arms. "Let go of me! Let me see my daddy!"
Her mommy was still yelling at her daddy.
Her daddy looked like he was choking on the tube in his mouth.
The people in uniforms were talking over each other, tying her daddy's hands to the side of the bed.
And she was being pulled away from him, kicking and screaming with all her might.
