22. Leo
Chapter Twenty-Two
LEO
Dora stared at me, hands on her hips with her eyes narrowed. If you had tried to tell me before I was the full-time parent of a six-year-old that they could boss you around, I wouldn’t have believed it. I found it harder to hold my ground with Dora than with full-grown men who were bigger than me.
“Dora,” I began, clearing my throat. “I don’t know if we can have a dog.”
She’d gotten it into her head that we needed a pet.
“Why not?” She blinked up at me.
Holy fucking hell. How am I supposed to let her down?
My reasoning behind the dog was that I could be gone for a few weeks at a time when I got called out to fires. My parents made it possible for me to have Dora and keep my job. Considering that this situation had happened on the fly for me, I’d had to just roll with it. I didn’t think I should add the responsibility of a dog to my parents, seeing as they already had an elderly one to care for.
Of course, there was Casey. I wanted to bring Casey more fully into my life. I was ready for her to meet Dora. We’d planned for it to happen this coming weekend at my parents’ house. I knew they would adore her. Who wouldn’t? She was amazing.
“Dad?” Dora prompted, bringing my thoughts back to the moment.
“What about a cat?” I asked, thinking I could handle a cat.
“Yes!” Dora practically shouted.
“Yes, what?”
“I want a cat.”
“Okay, well?—”
Before I could finish, Dora beamed. “Let’s go today!” She turned and raced down the hallway to her bedroom, coming back with her shoes and the small plastic bucket she was referring to as her purse.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The pet place. Tiffany told me about it,” my daughter said, looking at me as if I was slow.
“Ohhhh.” I finally connected the dots.
“Did you meet Tiffany with Grammy?” I asked as Dora put her shoes on.
She’d just learned to tie them last week. The amount of pride I felt at the fact she could do this seemed wildly out of proportion to the task, but I figured that was part of being a dad. Everything she learned to do herself made me so proud.
She was sitting on this little stool my dad had built for her. He’d made it out of a tree trunk, and it was the right height for her. She would get too tall for it, but she loved it. My dad promised to make her a new one when she needed it. She was very focused on her task and stuck her feet out to study the ties before she finally answered my question. “I met Tiffany with Grammy and she said there’s a place where they keep all of the pets who need a home and that I should ask you about it.”
I chuckled. “Of course she did.”
Wes, a fellow hotshot firefighter and friend, helped his mom with the local animal rescue program. Tiffany, his wife, also helped out and managed the local vet clinic. She was constantly trying to find people to take animals from the program.
“Here’s the deal,” I began as I looked down at Dora. She put this wallet my mom had gotten her into her bucket. “We’ll go look, but we have to wait to pick up the cat until this weekend if we find one because we need to get some things for it.”
Dora bounced up and down, her bucket swinging in her hand. “Okay!”
As I drove into town a few minutes later, I wanted to stop and see Casey at Firehouse Café, but with Dora with me, I hesitated. We had a plan. We’d gone over it with our therapist. If I stopped by with Dora now, she’d meet Casey and have a million questions when Casey later showed up for dinner.
When we arrived at the rescue program, Wes was there with Tiffany. Tiffany smiled down at Dora. “Hey, girl!”
When Tiffany met my gaze, I prompted, “Cat?”
She grinned. “No dog?”
“Tiffany, you know that having a dog isn’t the greatest option for a hotshot firefighter, especially one who’s a single dad,” I explained, keeping my voice low. Dora had already hurried over to look at the photos of cats eligible for adoption.
“Excellent point,” Wes chimed in, narrowing his eyes at Tiffany. “Not to mention, we usually have more cats than dogs,” he added dryly.
Tiffany laughed as Wes curled his arm around her waist and gave her a quick squeeze before crossing over to open the doorway into the back. “Let’s go meet the cats.”
It took Dora a mere five minutes to declare that we needed to adopt them all, but when I explained that wasn’t an option, she spun in a circle before sitting down beside two cats.
Wes glanced at me. “That’s a bonded pair,” he said under his breath. “Their owner passed away.”
“How old are they?” I asked.
“Conveniently, we have their vet records. They’re only two years old and already litterbox trained.”
Wes glanced over at Dora who had both cats in her lap now. “When you are out dealing with a fire, the cats won’t be lonely,” Wes pointed out with a brow waggle.
Next thing I knew, I had agreed to adopt a pair of cats. I got a big hug from Tiffany and Dora. I was prepared for Dora to beg for us to take them home today, but she was so excited that she didn’t care she had to wait.
It was Thursday, so we just had to make it to Saturday. We had dinner tomorrow with my parents, Dora, and Casey. My mom had already planned for a slumber party and movie night with Dora after dinner. I figured we’d get the cats together on Saturday. Now that I had agreed to this, I might as well take full advantage and have it be an activity with Casey that might be bonding for Dora. Our therapist had suggested coming up with something and this seemed perfect.
As we drove away, I marveled, as I did pretty much daily, at how much I had absorbed Dora into my life. Much as I wanted to see Casey every single night, I knew we weren’t in that place yet, not when it came to Dora. I didn’t mind waiting because Dora was my priority.
“Daddy?” Dora piped up from the back where she was buckled into her car seat.
When she called me “Daddy”, I thought my heart might split open from the combination of piercing joy sliced through with pain. I loved it and it also hurt that I’d missed so many years with her. For a split second, I would be angry with Diane but then I’d remember it didn’t matter anymore because Diane was gone.
I caught Dora’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “What’s up?”
“Thank you,” she said in a singsong voice.
“For what?”
“For letting us adopt two cats. I know you’re probably worried about it.”
“Why would I be worried?”
“Because now you’ll have more than me to take care of.”
I caught her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Dora, I love taking care of you. Please don’t ever worry about that. Two cats will be easy. We just have to get a few things so we can take care of them properly.”
She bounced her feet against the bottom of her car seat. “You like to do things properly. Like you take care of me properly.”
I smiled as I caught her eyes again in the rearview mirror before looking back at the road. “I try. I haven’t had a cat since I was a little boy. We used to have one.”
“You did?” The surprise in her voice drew a chuckle.