I was a father. I heard Kim answer for me with a simple yes, and grabbed my hand to get me moving. From there it was just autopilot Kim pulling me towards my daughter. I have a daughter. I'm a father... I'm a father. We entered a room with about 20 or so kids in it. It seemed 2-3 year olds. I start looking at the girls and start thinking that any one of them could be my daughter. Moira is still leading us to the corner of the room where a tiny little girl was pretending to read a book to a bear. She was just mumbling, but it was so incredible. She had my blue eyes with dark brown wavy hair like her mom. She had these light freckles along her cheeks, and I just can't describe what I'm feeling. Moira tells us to wait there, and goes over to Thea, my daughter. She gets up and takes Moira's hand as a way to steady yourself, and then she looks at us. She hides behind Moira, and I just think that she's scared of us. I'm her father she shouldn't be scared of me. I look at Kim who is just as mesmerized by her. Kim looks towards me and she realizes that I'm scared she's scared of us. She just smiles at me and walks towards Thea. She then bends down so she's closer to her height.
"Hi Thea I'm Kim and this man right here is Jay do you think you could read us a story." Thea comes out from behind Moira and smiles at Kim then she looks at me and says,
"No" she walked over to what I assume is her bag, and pulled out something that looked like a picture. I'm not paying attention to what is the picture now. I'm just thinking what if her mom talked bad about me. What if Thea hates me. I stop thinking when I feel a tug at my hand. I look down to see Thea holding a picture of me that looked like it was in the newspaper zoomed in. She points at it then at me and says,
"No Ja, Dada" She knew who I was. My eyes start to water because I don't think I've ever heard anything as beautiful as that. I look at Kim and she is smiling as well.
She reads us one of her books before we talk to Moira about getting out of here. She said that I just had to sign some papers and then we could leave. She said that while we were doing that Kim with the help of her assistant could work on getting Moira into the car with her stuff.
After signing a couple papers I make my way out of the car. I see Kim holding Thea walking back and forth in front of the car. Thea's head was on Kim's shoulder. As I make my way towards them Kim puts a finger to her lips which I'm assuming means Thea is asleep or almost asleep.
"All the stuff is packed up. I just didn't want to put her in the car seat when she was just starting to fall asleep." Kim is great. I don't know how I would've done this without her. How am I going to last the night on my own?
"Thanks for all of this. I feel guilty about asking, but could you possibly spend the night. If not that's fine. I'm sure I can figure it…" I couldn't finish because she cut me off saying,
"I'm happy too, but I'm gonna have to borrow some clothes. And you owe me breakfast." Towards the end she put a smirk on her face as she got Thea into her car seat. While, I just watched in awe. Kim really is amazing.
We make it back to my apartment with Thea not waking up at all. She only went up when I got her out of the car seat which I'm pretty sure was uncomfortable for both of us. Hopefully I get better at it. We make our way up the stairs, me with Thea and Kim with her bag. Tomorrow is definitely a trip to the mall because Moira gave me a list of things that I would need for Thea, but said that they could wait until tomorrow because she was a little older. Thea was already fed so we just needed to get her to sleep. Moira said to put her in the middle of the bed and create a border around her with our bodies or pillows. I put her down in the middle of the bed, and started to get the pillows around her. Kim is getting her blanket and bear out of her bag to place next to her. By the time we're done Thea is sound asleep and we go into the living room which is basically connected to my room. We left the door completely open so that we could hear her if she needed anything.
"Hey Jay would it be ok if I took a shower?" I had almost forgotten she was there. She was so quiet.
"Yeah sure it's the first right." I said not really thinking about it as I watched her go in. I hear the shower start, but then she comes out still in her clothes. She looked a little embarrassed.
"I...uh… wasn't kidding when I said I would need to borrow clothes" She looks so cute when she's embarrassed.
"Yeah I'll go get you some. Sorry I was in my head for a moment and forgot." I walk into my bedroom, and get Kim a pair of shorts because I'm pretty sure that my pants would go past her feet, a shirt, a pair of socks, and a sweatshirt. Just because it could get a little chilly at night. Just as I was leaving I turned to check on Thea. She was sound asleep curled into a little ball with her tiny hands wrapped around her bear. She is so innocent and pure. I just hadn't realized I had mumbled it.
"It's refreshing isn't it seeing someone so precious and sweet compared to the people we deal with at work." Kim had walked right next to me.
"Yeah it is. Here are the clothes. I didn't know what you'd want so I put a little of everything, and then you can choose." Handing her the clothes she smiled at me.
"Thanks Jay." Then she turned and left going straight to the bathroom. She is the best. She deserves the best. Kim would've made a great mom. Oh my god Kim lost her baby and she's here helping me with my daughter who I just found out about with smiles. When she gets out of the shower I'm gonna talk to her, and make sure she is actually ok.
After about 10 minutes I heard the shower stop, and then 5 minutes later she came out wearing my shorts, shirt, and socks. She had the sweatshirt in her hand.
"I might use the sweatshirt later depending on how cold it gets if that's ok."
"Yeah that's fine. Hey could you come here for a minute I just wanted to talk." I was sort of nervous bringing up her miscarriage, but I also wanted to make sure that she wasn't hurting because she was helping me.
"Sure Jay what's this about." She had her concerned look on again. It's like she has it perfected.
"I just wanted to check in, and make sure that you're ok helping with all of this. Not that I'm not grateful. Trust me I am. It's just I want to make sure that this isn't bringing up memories about what happened 6 months ago. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I'm just asking that you tell me if helping me with Thea is hurting you. If it is I'm sure I can figure it out by myself because I would hate for you to be hurting because of me." I realize I might have started to ramble, but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything.
"Jay, that's sweet, and I'm ok. After the first couple of months I started to realize that it probably wouldn't be for the best. Adam and I weren't really together we just hooked up after that really bad case because I wanted to forget. We weren't going to get back together no matter what happened. Think of what that would've done to the baby. Growing up with two parents who don't love each other. I wanted to be a mother. I still do, but it just wasn't the right time. It also wasn't with the right person. Thank you Jay for caring, but I'm fine. If I'm not I'll let you know." After she said that she leaned over towards me, and gave me a hug. She gave really good hugs.
"Ok great I just wanted to make sure, and also Hank texted me while you were in the shower, and said that we both could have the day off as long as there isn't something big. I was wondering if you would want to go shopping tomorrow with me and Thea for her stuff. If you want of course." I didn't want her to feel pressured into helping me more than she already was. Kim just smiled.
"I would love too" One thing about this whole situation is that Kim and I are becoming closer which will help with our partnership.I was going to ask her if she wanted to watch a movie, but then Thea started crying. Both Kim and I bolted to my bedroom. She was just crying, and I didn't know what to do. Kim however went right into action picking her up, and starting to rock her. Thea started to calm down, and was sniffling while she held onto Kim's hair.
"She might need a diaper change because she hasn't been changed since before we left CPS, and I think she only started crying because she woke up in a new place with no one there. Jay, she's ok. Now come on you need to learn to change a diaper." She carried Thea into the living room, and told me what to do. In no time her diaper was changed, and Thea's eyes were already starting to drop. While I threw out the diaper Kim picked Thea up, and started to take her back to my bedroom.
"We should probably get her back to bed so that she's not too off schedule. Here I'll lay her down and then you can pick whatever side you normally sleep on to be one of the barriers.I'll go sleep in the spare room." She tried to put Thea down while I moved the pillows from the side back to the front. When I turn back I see that Thea has a death grip on Kim's shirt, and despite trying to stop myself I laugh a little. I try to go and help her, but the kid is not having it.
"No, you here. No leave." Well I guess Kim is going on the other side. Kim looks at me and I just give her an amused look and start to move the pillows and pull the comforter back. Kim lays down first with Thea on top of her before she tilts and moves Thea to the middle of the bed. I go around to my side and lay down before turning to my side to see a beautiful sight. Kim and my daughter sleeping soundly with only letting out little snores here and there.