Daddy Said

Daddy said he’d be back by 8 to tuck me in.

He had taught me to read the time the weekend before, and I had been looking at the big and little hands all day, waiting for Daddy to come home and tuck me in, maybe even read another page of one of the new Spiderman comics he’d given me. I’d gotten a box full of them two months before, in July, on my eighth birthday, because Daddy knew they were my favorite. My auntie Mia had also gotten me superhero gifts, and my favorite was the Aquaman action figure. He looked just like the one on the cartoons and on my comic books.

I was busy with a police car against firetruck race when Mommy turned the TV on, and it was 9:55 a.m.

Mommy held her chaplet between her cupped hands, staring at the woman from the news program as she spoke. The woman went away, and the screen became occupied with a plane, like the ones we saw sometimes, and that had the cool pilots and the big cockpit. I’d been on one before when Mommy, Daddy, and Nana took me to see uncle Paul. He lived in California, and his house was bigger than ours, and I met my cousins, and they had so many toys!

       It was summer when we went there, and uncle Paul took us to three big beaches with many waves. My oldest cousin, Emma, let me sit on her surfboard and she pulled me towards the deeper bits and pushed me when a big wave came. The board took me to the shore, and Mommy and Daddy said I was very brave. I already knew that, because I was wearing my Captain America swimsuit, and it made me brave just like Captain America.

       My other cousin, Alex, let me help him build a Star Wars Lego set and play Super Mario on his Super Nintendo. Everything there was super, like the fries we super-sized at the restaurant and the super big ice cream Emma took us out for. Like uncle Paul’s super house with a super pool.

       I really liked their house but being home didn’t make me sad. I had Mommy and Daddy, and they always took me to the park, read with me, and played with me. They were better than any toys or pools or beaches or sweets.

       I was very little when we’d gone to uncle Paul’s house, and on my last summer vacation, Daddy had taken me to see the place he worked at. It was a giant building that was as tall as the sky, and there were many people walking in and out. From Daddy’s office, I could see everything in Manhattan, and Daddy pointed out important places. He told me everything about his job, and because it was very boring, I decided to stick to being an astronaut or a pilot. I’d seen space before, my teacher had shown it to us in class, and though Daddy’s office was really pretty and almost in space, I still liked the rockets and planes better.

       Lately, I’d been a lot more interested in being an astronaut, so Mommy got me a book about space with lots of pictures of the stars and a big page that I could unfold to look at the parts of a rocket and see what they did. Daddy told me what some words I didn’t know meant, and I felt a lot smarter when I finished reading the book for the first time. I started to ask Mommy and Daddy for a rocket toy to race against my police car, but I hadn’t gotten it yet, so I had to wait until Christmas to know if they were going to give it to me.

       Charlie had a toy rocket, but Mommy didn’t let me go to school because I had a fever, so I wouldn’t see it even if Charlie’s Dad let him take it to show and tell.  

       I didn’t stop liking planes, but they weren’t as cool, and the plane wasn’t as interesting to see on TV as it was in person, so I didn’t care about what Mommy watched. I stole a cookie from the platter in the kitchen, hoping Mommy wouldn’t notice I was eating sweets before lunchtime as I ran to my bedroom and hid under my desk.

       I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with my action figures and cars and looking at the space pictures in the book. I didn’t read it, though, because my head felt a bit like a balloon, and laying in bed looking at pretty pictures was a better idea. Mommy and Daddy told me to rest, anyway, so I could get better before the next Tuesday and see Charlie’s toy rocket on the next show and tell. It was a long time to wait, but at least I would be able to see it if Charlie’s Dad let him take it to school again.

My toy soldiers were at war with Aquaman when I decided to go back to the living room. Mommy was on the phone, and I looked at the big and little hands on the clock. It was 10:20 p.m., and Daddy hadn’t come home yet. A strange man stood on our front porch with a nasty look, so I offered him a cookie. Maybe he was sad, and the cookie would make him happy, like me. He didn’t take my cookie, but I saw his cool police car, with the same red and blue lights my slightly less cool police car had. I wondered if he also had a rocket, just like the one I wanted. I asked him. He didn’t.

Mommy hung up and told me to go upstairs and get ready for bed. I said goodbye to the not-so-strange man with the cool police car with red and blue lights and ran upstairs with Aquaman.

Daddy didn’t tuck me in, Mommy did.

Daddy said he’d be home by 8. He wasn’t.