AIDEN


    "You look ahead all the time!"


    "Like this?" I asked as I turned to my left.


    "What? No." She palmed both sides of my face and made me face forward. "Like this."


    When she removed her hands, I turned to my right.


    I was met with silence. When I turned back to face her, there was confusion in her eyes. She looked at me like I was some dumbass.


    "What?" I asked, folding my lips in my mouth to keep myugh at bay.


    "Did you go to school?"


    That was it. I burst outughing. And all the while she just watched me.


    She shook her head. "There''s also a boy in my ss whoughs whenever he''s being taught. But my teacher continues teaching anyway."


    Then she proceeded to show me my right and my left and afterward told me the difference between those two and my front.


    As I watched her, I was sure that her brother was surely a lucky boy to have her as an older sister.


    When she was done, she took a deep breath then looked at me, her brows slightly squeezed in worry. "I could write it in a paper for you. So whenever you forget it, you can just go back to it. My daddy tells me to do that all the time." "Oh that will be great. Thank you so much, Amie," I answered in a cheery tone, trying to ignore the pang that apanied the word ''daddy.''


    It''s not been up to ten minutes since we began our walk and she has mentioned ''daddy'' like a thousand times.


    I wished it was me she was referring to with that term but it only made my heart constrict even more. It saddened me that I couldn''t disclose to her that I was her ''daddy'' and not Dennis.


    I might not add the detail that Dennis wasn''t his dad but I desperately wished I could tell her. I wished I could bond with her so much that she would quote and mention me everytime.


    After a while, the lectures on being polite died down and she was back to asking a thousand questions in a minute.


    "Is that a sunflower?" She pointed towards the garden as we walked by it.


    "I nodded and that one beside it is a lily flower. Those two are usually seen in the same area together."


    She nodded slowly. "Can I touch it? Let''s go touch it."


    I granted her wish and we moved into the garden. I slowly walked past each well-bred shrub and her fingers grazed their surfaces.


    At one point, she asked me to stop so she could sniff the flowers. She came up with her nose scrunched up.


    "It smells bad," she whispered.


    I chuckled. "Why are you whispering?"N?velDrama.Org owns all content.


    She shrugged. "I thought we were supposed to pretend that they smell good. All the princesses in cartoons say it smells nice. They smile while sniffing them."


    I chuckled again. It was an incessant urrence whenever I was with her. "Flowers do smell nice though. You probably smelt the leaf under it."


    She shrugged. "Did you see my baby brother too?" She suddenly asked. "I just remembered that nurse saying that you were there earlier with mom." "Oh yes. I saw him. He''s so cute."


    She grinned widely. "I can''t wait till tomorrow so I can see him too. Do you have your own baby too?"


    "Actually..." I tapped on her nose. "I have two babies and I''m expecting another one."


    Her eyes widened as she opened her mouth. "That''s three babies for only you!"


    I shrugged slightly. "Lucky me."


    "Are they boys or girls?"


    "Umm... the first one is a girl and the second one is a boy. I don''t know what gender the third one is."


    "How do you carry them? Do you feed them? Tell me, how do you feed them? Do they like to paint? Do they like cookies and sweets?"


    "I carry the first one just the way I''m carrying you right now while the second one..." I exined to her and she listened intently as I spoke, fascinated.


    After I was done answering all of her questions, she began to lightly jump in my arms. "Can you give me one? Give me one, please."


    "You can''t just give out a baby," Iughed. "But I can let you meet one."


    "Yay! Which one?"


    "Umm..." I pretended to think for a while. "The first one."


    "Yay! Can I y with her? Can I make her hair? What''s her name? Tell me about her?"


    "Oh, she asks lots of questions!"


    She beamed. "I love to answer questions."


    "You do? Then you''ll be answering tons of questions soon. About her name, you''ll find out when you meet her. And she''s this tall..." I lowered myself a bit and showed her her height. "And she is smart and talks a lot too."


    Kon


    Amie pped her hands. "I can''t wait to meet her. We''ll be best of friends.


    I''ll show her my friends at the hospital and when I leave the


    hospital, we''ll go to school together and we''ll also paint togetherShe threw her hands up.


    "Yay!" I mirrored her movement, throwing one of my hands up too.


    We continue to roam the hospital, gawking and awing at all the beautiful parts of the hospital.


    At some point we yed hide and seek and my God! Amie was a terrible hider and an equally bad seeker.


    On several asions when she was


    hiding, she''d giggle and whisper,


    "You can never find me." And as seeker, she would start tearing up, "Come out, I''m scared." Then she''d use me of hiding in ''difficult'' ces.


    Later, I discovered that she was faking her tears. She just disliked being a seeker so much.


    I stepped out when she began to pretend to sniff.


    "Oh, you scaredy cat," I lowered myself to her height. "Come here." I pulled her to me and engulfed her in a tight hug. And when her little arms wrapped around my neck, I knew she had my heart.