Lyon's Heart (9 page)

Coming home was another eye
opening experience. The two days I spent in the hospital Colt had
corralled everyone into coming over and getting the house ready for
us. He’d already child proofed everything and we had everything you
could possibly need for a baby. But he somehow found more that
needed doing. Jared and Cy were only too happy to tattle and tell
me what a madman he had been.

“I don’t see how he had time
to do all this because he never left the hospital, not even when I
was asleep.” Colt refused to leave the hospital grounds because he
was terrified someone would make off with his Caitie bear. He’d
seen some news report where the woman walked into the hospital and
made it all the way to the door with the baby before being caught.
I had to hear about that ad nauseam. The nurses thought he was too
cute because when I was asleep he sat up in the chair next to my
bed with the baby in his arms. I thought he was nuts.

“He called Elena every hour
on the hour with instructions. Daniel kept us well supplied with
the wacky weed or we might’ve all shanked your husband by now the
man’s a menace.”

“Oh hush Jared he’s not that
bad.” My ass, he’s totally out of control.

For the first three months
of Caitlin’s life I don’t think Colton slept a wink. He laid with
her on his chest up until she was three and a half months. The only
reason he put her in her crib after that is because she was getting
bigger and moving around more and he was afraid she’d either fall
or he’d roll over on her. I tell you I never really worried about
anything, because if there was something that could go wrong Colt
had already thought of it and put things in place to prevent it.
Everywhere he went that baby was on his arm, she was like an
extension of him and boy is she a daddy’s girl. Now his newest
obsession is making sure the baby has the best first Xmas ever.
He’s got more camera equipment to immortalize the occasion than a
photographer at New York fashion week. I just go with the flow and
try to keep up. I knew my bad boy was going to be a lot to handle
but good grief.

“Caitlin baby give daddy a
break will ya?”

“Dada, da, da.”

“I’m gonna da, da, da you in
a minute get over here.”

My little princess is nine
months going on fifteen. She can’t really talk yet but her first
word was dada then came mama. I won that fight. She started
crawling at six or seven months and all hell broke loose from then
on. She gets into everything so I have to watch her every minute
that I’m alone with her or I’m afraid she’d hurt herself. Her
mother is a little more lax than I when it comes to parenting. She
says ‘oh she’s supposed to do that or don’t worry Colt that’s
normal’. I didn’t take shit for granted. In the first three months
after I’d started putting her in her crib at night I stood over her
to make sure she was breathing right and shit before I went to bed.
I spent almost every waking hour worrying about one thing or the
other. Anything that could go wrong I tried to head off at the
pass. Now realistically I know there are no guarantees in life but
I couldn’t help myself. Now instead of one I had two people to
protect and take care of. While Kat was healing from the birth I
saw that she had everything she needed and was doing everything
that they told her to do. Believe it or not she was up and about in
just a few days; which I found unfucking believable after having
seen the birth process. I had to keep an eye on her to make sure
she didn’t overdo it but all in all things went fine. I was tired
as fuck most of the time because Caitlin woke up every hour on the
hour that first two or so months. Half the time Kat slept through
the feedings while I held the baby in place. Those were our bonding
times because as she got older she stayed up longer and longer
after her feedings and that’s when she and daddy had their
talks.

Now she’s growing like a
tumbleweed. She smiles and my heart melts and she’s so much her
mother’s daughter that she knows it and uses it. She gets into shit
and heads for me with her pouty face and those teary eyes that I
can’t resist. I always know she’s done something that she wasn’t
supposed to but I can’t scold my baby. She’s going to be a handful
if I keep that up or at least that’s what I keep hearing from
everyone around here. Like I give a fuck.

“Caitie don’t do that.” Shit
I’ve been trying to teach her not to push things in the light
sockets it’s an ongoing battle, which I’m losing
handily.

“Baby being a naughty
girl?”

“Da da.” She lifted one of
her stuffed toys up to me before stuffing it in her mouth and
grinning.

She’s so fucking cute how
can I stay mad at her?

Her mother is off Xmas
shopping with her grandmothers and her aunts. Why the fuck a kid
that’s less than a year old needs all this shit is beyond me. The
basement’s already wall to wall with gifts and shit. The house
looks like Santa and his elves threw up all over the damn place,
and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many decorations in one place
at once. The tree scares the crap out of me because I swear it’s
going to topple over on my little girl since she likes pulling on
it and shit. And I’m not sure those decorations are safe. They seem
like choking hazards to me. I found a way to nail the tree into the
ground though, which was just one more thing for the peanut gallery
to laugh at.

She dropped the bear and was
off and toddling towards the brightly wrapped gifts under the tree,
set on destruction no doubt. I picked my little darling up so she
couldn’t get into any more trouble tearing into the gifts and
looked for something to entertain her with until her mother got
home.

“Come on baby you want to
play with your blocks?”

I don’t let her watch TV,
Elena didn’t let us do that shit when we were growing up and I
agree with that. Plus I have way more fun playing with her and
teaching her things. Daddy couldn’t have taught her the ABCs if she
was sitting in front of the TV all day now could he?

We built shit for a half an
hour before I went to fix her something to eat.

“What should it be today
Caitie bear? Bananas, pears, carrots?” She banged away on her
highchair and babbled away at me as I pureed her banana, which was
her favorite.

I fed my girl while playing
airplane with her to make it more fun. Of course she didn’t go off
to sleep like every other kid does so I was back on entertainment
duty after cleaning up the mess she’d made of her face. She pointed
to the unlit fireplace and I groaned. What’s with this kid and
fire? I lit the fireplace and she clapped her hands in glee. She
rocked back and forth on my lap talking a mile a minute about who
knows what. I always play along like I know every word because I’d
read somewhere that communication was very important. She soon grew
bored and wanted down so she could go off and do something else. I
looked around at all the shit in the room from beneath the tree to
the middle of the floor.

“Stay away from that fire or
I’ll get your butt Caitlin.” Who am I kidding? The kid gets away
with murder.

Truth is my little princess
is spoilt. I may or may not play a part in that endeavor but so
what? I’m her dad I’m supposed to. She’s always finding new shit to
give me heart palpitations, constantly getting into shit. Lately
her new thing has been the fireplace she’s fascinated by the
flames. I’m raising a little pyromaniac. She would sit there for
hours just gazing at the fire. I had the thing covered with a
protective screen so she couldn’t hurt herself but I still worry
about her getting in there somehow because she’s proving to be as
hardheaded as her mother. Those books sure didn’t give me the sense
that she was going to be this damn smart at her age. I shudder to
think what she was going to get up to in a year or two. I checked
my watch for the one-hundredth time; it’s like that every time
Angel leaves the house without me. She still doesn’t know her
vehicles have trackers on them so I can protect her as much as I
can even when I’m not there. I took my eyes off Caitlin for one
minute and by the time I turned around she was at the fireplace
trying to pull the screen off. How the fuck?

I didn’t think just reacted
and when I reached her side I swatted her hand and told her no.
Well fuck me.

Her little face scrunched
up, her lip trembled and big fat tears filled her eyes;
gutted.

“No baby, please don’t do
that.” She looked at me like I’d gut punched her. I’ve never felt
so low in my life. It was the first time I’d ever hit her and it
wasn’t even really a hit. Her cries tore at me and I found myself
apologizing and promising myself that I’d never do that shit ever
again. She clung to daddy’s neck and thankfully the cries didn’t
last too long because I couldn’t have borne that. I spent the next
ten minutes walking up and down with her in my arms talking to her.
Anything to get the memory of daddy smacking her hand out of her
head, I’m such a sap. She was back to her shit as soon as I put her
back down. Giving me sneaky looks just like her damn mother, go
figure.

“Come here you.” I snatched
her up before she burnt herself and looked around for something to
keep her occupied.

The doorbell rang and I
could hear the ruckus going on outside before I reached it. Shit,
just what I needed to make my day better. Dad, Drake and Cy were
standing there fighting to see who would get inside first. The
three of them were a sad sight. Ever since my kid was born there’s
been a running competition between them as to who was her favorite
grandpa. Cyrus had claimed his place as honorary grandpa and he
wasn’t letting go for nothing. I usually just ignored their
dumbasses. Now here they were loaded down with bags. I didn’t want
to say anything but they were almost as bad as Elena and Tina.
Those two were always showing up here with shit.

“Can I help you?”

“Hand over the kid and no
one gets hurt boy.” Dad held out his arms with a big stupid grin on
his face. At least he didn’t look high he knew the
rules.

Caitlin was going crazy in
my arms her arms and legs going a mile a minute. Her three favorite
old guys were here. Her variation of grandpa that sounded more like
grappa was chortled as she reached out her arms. To keep the peace
I held onto her as I stepped aside to let them in.

“Don’t you three have work?
Cy what’s going on down at the shop?”

“Son it’s Sunday the shop’s
closed.”

“Yeah I forgot, so that
means you two are off today too?”

“What’s with all the
questions boy? Hand over the kid.” Daniel tried taking her out of
my arms but I sidestepped him.

I put her on the floor so
she could do her own thing. I wasn’t getting involved they’re
idiots all of them. I watched as three grown men who at one point
or the other in the last year and a half have had their share of
enjoyment at my expense acted the fool. I thought of getting my
ever-present camera and recording this travesty but I had enough
footage of them to last a lifetime.

“Your wives kidnapped my
woman like hours ago can’t you two find anything better for them to
do?”

“It’s Xmas son, for women
it’s one of the only times other than birthdays that they don’t
need an excuse to shop, let them have their fun.”

“What’s all this crap
anyway?”

I toed the bags that were so
full of stuff they were toppling over. I don’t think anyone has
come here since the baby was born without something in their hands
and no matter how many times we tell them not to that she has
everything she could possibly need they just ignored us.

“It’s for Caitlin hands
off.” Dad dropped down on the floor with a new teddy bear in his
hand trying to entice her away from the other two.

“That’s cheating Daniel.
Come here Caitie come to grandpa Drake.” His bear was bigger. Are
you shitting me? These freaks are out of control.

For the next two hours they
ran my poor kid ragged until she conked out on the living room
floor. Babies like women, make men stupid.

“I need a smoke after all
that, she’s growing so fast it’s getting hard to keep
up.”

“It’s not the baby druggie
it’s that shit you’re always smoking.”

“Do not oppress me
copper.”

Here we go, it’s always the
same thing with these two. Cy just laughed at them and headed into
the kitchen for something to drink.”

“I guess you’ve been
behaving it’s been a while since I heard about one of your
boneheaded moves.”

“Dad I like you better when
you’re blazed and for your information I don’t make boneheaded
moves you people are just too lax. I keep up with shit. Kids need
all kinds of protective shit I don’t care what any of you fools
say.”

“Yes son they need to be
protected not insulated.”

“He’s got a point there
Colton.”

“Yeah well I don’t happen to
agree Drake. I’m heading shit off at the pass she’s never going to
get hurt ever.” He should know what I was talking about after what
had happened to his daughter. I’d be fucked if that shit was ever
going to happen to Caitlin no fucking way.

Even Cy laughed at that one,
I don’t understand it. Don’t all fathers feel this way? The fuck I
care? I do, that’s enough for me.