IN HIS HANDS

“Michelle’s daddy can lift a house!” My five-year-old daughter cried giant tears. She wiped her nose with a dirty fist and glared at the back door as it slammed shut behind her. “Michelle says her daddy is the strongest daddy in the WHOLE WORLD.”

Tears made dotted lines down her cheeks, ending at the corner of her mouth. She licked at them angrily. “I told her that my daddy lifted the swing set and the doghouse and that big bunch of logs over there, but she didn’t care. All she does is sing, ‘My daddy’s stronger than yooouuurrs…My daddy’s stronger than yooouurrs…’ OVER AND OVER!”

Through the kitchen window I could see Michelle on the swing set. Her ponytail swept the ground as she leaned back and sang to the clouds. “My daddy’s stronger than YOOOUUURRS.” Little lungs puffed the words into the air with deafening vitality.

I put away the plate I was drying and squatted down to see Andrea better.

“Honey, Michelle’s just telling a joke. She’s teasing you.” I shook her shoulders lovingly. “It’s not true.”

“MOTHER!” Andrea’s voice mimicked my own stern timbre. “She goes to Sunday School! Michelle is NOT telling a lie!” Her wet eyes chided me with haughty loyalty, then pleaded for an answer.

“Her daddy can lift a house. Can our daddy do it? I told her I was gonna ask you and find out so she would SHUT UP!” The song droned on outside; Andrea flinched at each syllable as if being pelted with rocks.

“Tell ya what,” I said. “Daddy will be home in a little bit. Why don’t we ask him?” I looked at the clock over the table. “When the little hand is on the five and the big hand is on the twelve, he’ll be here. Okay?” Wet eyes found the numbers and weighed the proposal.

“Okay. But I don’t feel like playing with Michelle anymore. I’m gonna color.” Andrea plodded toward her room; I sent Michelle home for the afternoon and started supper.

When the clock’s hands pointed to the right numbers, I heard John’s truck rumbling up the driveway. So did Andrea. She came roaring from her room with a fistful of crayons and face full of hope.

“DADDY!” She exploded from the house and ran toward him; jagging around the swing set, leaping over the flower bed, and clawing at the gate of the fence with marathon precision. Andrea’s tiny arms reached toward her daddy, her fingers cupped and stretched outward as if waiting to receive a fragile gift.

John stepped from the cab of the truck; his boots crunched against the gravel like applause. In a precision perfected through countless days of coming home, he slammed the truck door shut with one hand, set his lunchbox down with the other, and reached out to sweep his baby girl up into his arms.

The two of them whirled toward the house in a cyclone of hugs and tickles.

I had hoped to warn John. But it was too late. I could see Andrea’s little lips moving against her daddy’s rough cheek, asking the question that she’d been holding inside all afternoon.

Her legs wiggled in the empty air as he carried her; she leaned closer to his chest and pressed her ear to his heartbeat.

Andrea’s daddy cradled her with fierce gentleness as he climbed the porch steps. The screen door swung open, they stepped inside and his eyes offered warm reassurance to my worried face. I felt his answer before I heard it.

John untangled his daughter’s baby-plump body from his torso and hoisted her above his head with the strength and sureness only Daddies possess. He tilted his head upward and said, “You can just tell that old Michelle that your father can lift HIS WHOLE WORLD!!”

Andrea giggled and reached down from Heavenly heights to hug him. In that moment, and from that moment on, there was no question: Her Daddy was truly the strongest, most gentle Daddy she would ever know.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

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Contact Robin at robingarrisonleach@gmail.com