The Way Daddy Smiled

I think it made my Daddy smile the way I’d step out of our old brown car and look up at my bedroom window with glittering awe in my eyes. “It isn’t much”, he’d say. But I loved that great new house. I popped the screen out of my new, big window. At night, I’d peek my head out, and sing to our house’s stars. That’s what I used to think when I was little, that each house had their very own stars in the sky up above them. The first morning that we woke up in our new, white house I marched right to the kitchen where my Daddy stood unwrapping plates and bowls. I looked up at my Daddy, so tall and handsome. And as proudly as I could, one sassy, 6-year-old hand on my hip, I exclaimed “Daddy, our house has the best stars in the neighborhood!” My Daddy laughed his silly laugh, and kissed me right on my head. My Mommy painted my room pink, and my Daddy constructed thick, cherry wood shelves to hang up above my picket-fence bed. Night time was always the best. I could smell the paint and the saw dust and the dirty diapers. And after a few nights in my new pink room, in my new white house, under my thick, cherry wood shelves, I decided that I absolutely loved the utter simplicity of a young and fully functional family.