My Little Angel

Yesterday seemed to put everyone in a mood. But when Jimmy came over with paint supplies this afternoon…well everyone wanted to have some fun. Today we were decorating Faith’s room since her furniture wood be delivered later this evening.

Right now I was watching was watching with a look of horror as Jimmy and Johnny threw red and black paint at each other. Brian and Zacky were actually painting parts of the walls that weren’t getting splattered with paint. Faith had decided on the colors. The room would be red with black borders.

“Take that short shit!” Jimmy shouted while pelting red paint at him.

“Rev! That’s cheating, you got me in the back while I was opening a new can of paint!” Johnny whined.

“Sooooooo” Jimmy replied.

They kept throwing paint at each until I spoke above their yells.

“GUYS! You’re supposed to be painting the room, not each other.” I scolded

“Aw, daddy shadows is yell at us. We’re sorry daddy” Jimmy said launching himself at me. I sidestepped him, and he hit the wall.

We all started laughing, while Jimmy was rubbing his head mumbling about ‘not being a nice daddy’.

“Daddy!” I heard from the doorway. I turned around at and saw Faith. She was wearing Mickey Mouse pajamas, evening through it was 2 in the afternoon. She had been napping before. But what really got me was that she was…glaring at me. I mean the full on hands on her hips and seriously glaring.

“That wasn’t nice. Say sorry to uncle Jimmy.” She reprimanded.

The other guys started snickering. And going ‘oohh’, until Faith turned to them and glared.

“You too!” she said to them.

“We’re sorry Jimmy” we said in unison.

“Humph. Well I’m going to go where someone actually cares and won’t laugh at me. Come on Baby Shadows, lets go watch Dora” Rev said taking one of Faith’s little hands and walking downstairs.

We watched in silence for a few minutes.

“Dude” Brian said in a disbelieving tone. “We just got in trouble with a 3 year old.”

At that sentence we all got quiet again. Then we started laughing.

“Matt, you’re kid is awesome” Zacky said.

“Duh, that’s because she’s like me” I replied

We started arguing about how and why Faith was awesome and how I, supposedly, was not. We worked while we bickered. All while Jimmy was downstairs watching Dora.

We were done about an hour later. The walls were crayola red and the edges, door and window frames were black. We went downstairs and saw Faith on Jimmy’s back while he was acting like a pig.

“Jimmy what the fuc- fudge are you doing?” I questioned.

“I’m a horse,” He said…still making pig noises.

“Okay…” I trailed off going into the kitchen and grabbing bottles of water for the guys and me. I tossed them each a water bottle and sat down.

No sooner than I sat down the door opened and Leana, Gena, Michelle, and Lacey came in.

“Hi guys. Matt can we steal your daughter?” Michelle said casually.

“No” I said straight-faced.

“But we want to take her shopping” Leana confessed

“Hell no” All the guys said.

“You’ll make the poor girl collapse with all the shopping you girls do,” Brian stated.

“Matt, did you even take her shopping for new clothes?” Michelle asked reasonably.

I didn’t but they already knew that.

“Exactly, so we’re taking her shopping” Gena said.

I knew I wasn’t going to win this fight so I did something else.

“Faith baby, come here” I called to her. I picked her up and sat her on my lap.

“Do you want to go shopping with your aunts?” I asked her.

I watched as the old Faith started to show her old self. She seemed to shrink into herself, but she leaned up to whisper in my ear.

“Will I be safe Daddy?” She whispered shakily. “Are they nice ladies or mean ladies?”

“Oh honey, they’re the nicest ladies I know”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive, they wont hurt you”

“Okay” She agreed

I gave her a big hug and kissed her on the head. Silently I thought with sadness about how my baby was scared of women. She had been through a lot with her mom and those invisible scars wouldn’t fade just yet.

But I was going to try my hardest to heal them.