Still Waters

Chapter 49

Somewhere in the two months that he was gone, I decided to celebrate my baby's birthday. It wasn't her birthday, but who was there that cared? We hadn't celebrated her first because Collin thought it was stupid when people celebrated baby birthdays.

"She doesn't give a shit anyway," he said and then made googly eyes at her, making her laugh. "Look at her, dumb as fuck just like you. She doesn't know what the hell is going on."

This night, though, it was just me and baby, so I made a huge deal about her birthday. I decorated the house like people were coming over, and baked like two dozen cupcakes for absolutely no reason at all. I paused when the strawberry icing started dripping off of the knife and transfixed me into a time...that I didn't want to remember.

At all.

But then the baby started laughing and calling me, "Mama! Mama!" so I turned around, picked her up off the floor and gave her a big hug. Then I put her in the highchair that she unfortunately spent most of her time in, and went back to icing the cake. She was usually a happy baby and needed more attention than she got, but the little moments that she could actually get someone to look into her eyes, she ate up. She absolutely loved for people to look into her eyes. I'm not sure why.

She had the most beautiful smile, especially with her little teeth coming in. Even Collin had to smile at her when he looked into her eyes. Her hair was soft and curly like her daddy's, but her eyes were dark, deep pools like mine. I'm glad. I couldn't deal with looking at her if her eyes were like Collin's. She came out kind of medium brown, somewhere in between Collin and my skin tones. Thank God for that because Collin would have really flipped if she had come out light like Kenney.

I pulled a candle out of the drawer and stuck it in one of the cupcakes. Then I lit the candle and brought it over to her.

"Don't touch," I pulled it back from her outstretched hand.

"Touch," she repeated, loving all of the attention that she was getting that day.

"Hot," I pointed to the flame.

"Hot," she repeated, also pointing to the flame. I don't care what Collin thought about my angel, our baby was a freakin' genius. She picked up on everything that was happening around her. Everything.

"Blow." I bent down and demonstrated how to blow the candle out. When the flame jumped she laughed and clapped. "Now your turn." I moved the cupcake toward her. "Don't touch the candle." I repeated, pointing to the flame when she stretch out her hand again. "Blow."

"Hot." She pointed at the candle. I kind of started, not expecting her to fully formulate thoughts, I guess. Who knows what I was thinking back then? I'm just glad I wasn't still popping pills. Her unexpected ability to reason probably would have freaked me all the way out.

"Right." I beamed at her and nodded. When I smiled into her eyes and started singing happy birthday, she put her little hands on my face and just grinned and grinned.

I loved her so much I wanted to cry.

"Now blow out the candle!" I demonstrated blowing again.

She laughed and blew, too. For some reason that was so much fun for both of us. I was kind of glad to still be alive to see that right then. Her very first birthday candle. After we blew it out together, we took turns putting icing on each other's faces and just laughed and laughed, like we were two old friends hanging out. We had been through so much together already, that we kind of were like two old friends, if you really thought about it.