Even the Score(76)

“Logan! Get up! We have to win!” I pushed his mattress down, shaking the hell out of it before hustling over to his dresser. I grabbed the first T-shirt and pair of shorts I could find and dropped them on his face as I ran from the room. “Put those on, hurry!”

I had to hold on to the door frame to keep from sprinting clear past Becca’s doorway.

“Becca? Where are you, baby?” My eyes scanned the room quickly.

“I’m over here, Daddy.”

Craning my neck toward the sound of her voice, I saw a few of her wild blonde curls sticking up from the floor at the end of her bed.

“What are you doing, honey? We gotta go.”

“I can’t,” she said sadly, shaking her head.

“What? Why?” I walked over and sat down next to her. She was sitting cross-legged, facing her doll cradle.

“Because my baby is sad. She’s hungry, too, and I can’t leave her here if she’s hungry.” She turned her head toward me, staring up at me with the saddest baby blues eyes I’d ever seen.

Drama queen.

“Okay, how about we take her with us to the restaurant?” I patted her shoulder and jumped up, hurrying toward her closet, thinking I’d taken care of the problem.

“Daddy, she’s so hungry she can’t even move. She needs to eat now,” she said incredulously, slightly scolding me. As I grabbed her favorite pink sundress off the hanger and laid it on her bed, she picked up her pretend baby bottle and started feeding the doll.

“Becca, honey. Please.”

She completely ignored me, happily feeding her baby.

“Don’t you want to go to breakfast with Dani?” I said, hoping the gentle reminder would pique her interest and get her butt moving.

“I do, after my baby eats.”

Time to regroup. “Okay, how about this. I’ll feed your baby while you get dressed. That way we can still beat Dani to the front door.” Thankfully, my daughter had inherited my competitive bone.

“Yeah!” she hissed excitedly, thrusting her doll and bottle into my arms. She whipped her pajamas off and threw the dress on faster than I ever saw any female change . . . ever.

“Brush your hair super fast, too,” I added.

After she grabbed her brush off her dresser, she turned to check on my progress with her doll. “Uh . . . Dad?” she said, pointing down toward my lap. I looked down, realizing that I had the bottle upside down.

“Oops, sorry.” I switched it quickly. “Ready to go?”

“Yep!” She pumped her arms up and down excitedly. “You carry her; I have to get my purse.”

The words left her mouth and I paused, staring down at the peachish-colored doll in my arms. I thought about arguing with her for a brief second but decided that I’d rather win the front door race than an argument with my six-year-old.

“Okay, I’m heading downstairs. Hurry up!” I called out as I ran down the hall, stopping briefly at Logan’s door. He was sitting on his bed, still half asleep as he tied his shoes.

“Ready, dude?”

“Mm-hmm,” he mumbled, frowning when he looked up at me.

Knowing he was referring to the doll in my hands, I just shook my head. “Don’t ask.”

We all ran down the stairs, and I celebrating, tempted to spike Becca’s doll on the ground, when I saw that Dani wasn’t there yet.

“We did it. We won!” I high-fived both of them. “Here, scoot in for a selfie. I’ll text it to her.” Logan and Becca pressed their cheeks against mine, and I held my phone out in front of us.

“Wait!” Becca shouted, just before I clicked the button. She reached down and grabbed her doll from me, lifting her so that she was in the picture, too.

I laughed out loud. “Okay, everyone smile.”

I took the picture of the three, make that four, of us and attached it with a text . . .



HA! How does it feel to lose?



I waited a second, looking back and forth between my phone and the kitchen area, half expecting her to walk around the corner with an adorable scowl on her face. Instead, my phone beeped. I looked down at the incoming text from Dani, also with a picture of her sitting on a bench that looked oddly familiar.



D: I don’t know, you tell me. Open the front door!



“What?” I exclaimed out loud, staring down at the picture. Logan saw the picture, too, and before I had a chance, he turned and opened the front door.

His eyes lit up. “Dad, she’s out here!”

Becca darted out the door with her baby tucked under her arm, jumping up and down. Clearly I needed to teach that kid that celebrations only happen when you win, not when you lose. I followed her out to the porch, shaking my head.