Nyx Eris

Chapter 13

She had often been told, and had seen for herself, that her father had been gifted a smile to rival a prince's.

She had asked him about it once, when she was a wee little girl who had only just had her first lesson in subtraction.

Subtraction she had found disappointing, particularly when her teacher had said that no, she could not subtract new baby sisters from the lives of her pupils.

Noting that her sister was a nuisance who constantly caused her parents fatigue and it would therefore be best to subtract that sister from their lives entirely had been answered with, "Well, that is what newborns do. I am sure that when you were small, you too, caused your parents many nights of fatigue."

"Mummy says I was a dream baby," she had answered her teacher. "Dream babies don't cause fatigue."

She hadn't had the faintest word what fatigue meant. She had read it in one of her daddy's novels and had thought she may have used it properly.

She wouldn't have told the teacher that, as her daddy's novels did not contain content terribly appropriate for little girls.

"Did you always have a smile like that, Daddy?" she had questioned on a chilled autumn's night that had stabbed tiny ice pellets at her chest until she had slipped underneath the warmth of her fleece duvet.

"A smile like what, darlin'?" he had inquired, in a voice carrying an accent much different to her own.

"That one," she had said, pointing to his face. "The one that wraps around your entire face. I see it there a lot. The other kids do, too. They ask me about it."

"What do they ask you about it?" he had questioned, amusement playing across his eyes as he set down the chapter book he had planned to read to her before bedtime.

"They ask me if you were born smiling," she said.

"Have you told them I was?"

"I don't know, Daddy. I wasn't here when you were born. If you were born. I've not decided if you were."

"You've heard Nana's stories."

"Yes, but Nana likes to tell stories. That doesn't mean they are all true."

"Do you believe my stories?"

"Sometimes. It depends on the story."

Dylan had drawn Adrianna into his lap, where she liked to sit when it was available.

It typically wasn't, as it was her mummy's and sister's favorite place to sit, too.

"Can't tell ya if I was born smiling, because I don't know if I was," he had told her. "I don't ask Nana about that time too often because it brings up some painful memories for her, you see?"

"What's painful mean?"

"It means that it hurts her, right here," said Dylan as he had placed his hand along the upper part of Adrianna's nightgown, the silken pink one with the princesses and the tiny puff sleeves that, after being handed down to Callie, had been promptly exchanged between Callie and her friend for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles nightshirt that Callie had had her eye on.

"Do you get hurt there too, Daddy?" Adrianna had asked.

"I have, many times."

"Are you hurt there now?"

"Have you seen your Mummy today?" Dylan had said in response.

At dinner, Adrianna had told him, slightly concerned over whether he had forgotten.