Chapter 169: Patty XVIII—Only the Bad Ones
The sun wouldn’t be up for another hour or so. It was dark outside and freezing. It seemed colder in the morning than it was at night, and Patrick hated that the most. He hated when it was so cold it felt as if the air would freeze his face into a porcelain mask, one that would shatter at a breath. He hated it. He didn’t mind mild, cheerful snows, where children could play and breathe out silver plumes of breath. What he couldn’t abide was freezing. It was freezing this morning.
He glanced at the trees lining the walkway to the Trepanier house, at the daggers of ice forming along the branches and he rubbed his hands together. He had no gloves, only his coat.
“Jesus,” he breathed as he turned on the car, letting it warm. He looked again at the Trepanier house, that little pet was still in her bed, warm and sleeping no doubt. She was a dangerously tasty little creature. It was warm in there.
Patrick coughed and turned on the car, squinting as he drove the icy streets home. He could already see some tree branches on yards, scattered and mangled. It must have been quite a freeze last night to destroy the tree branches. He would have to remind the children not to play around the trees today, to stay inside.
When Patrick walked into his house, it was warm and silent. He could hear a clock ticking, a heater purring, but nothing else. There was no fluffbutt to come snarling at his ankles, there were no children to greet him. The house was still asleep.
Patrick glanced over at the kitchen doorway. The kitchen that leads to the basement that led to the girl down there. He felt a fresh tinge of anger and embarrassment remembering how he had spoiled it with the girl. She would never trust him again, he knew that. And his frustration was intensified by the fact that the girl had been so unclothed. Sleeping in her underwear? Had she done that on purpose?
He hadn’t expected to find her like that under her blanket and it had seemed like a gift to him. She was gorgeously formed, slim but not bony, endowed but not overwhelming. Blushing cheeks, trembling flesh, pink lips just like the girls he had known before. They had always complied to him so easily, the younger they were the more pliable. She hadn’t even let him kiss her, he hadn’t been able to get one taste of her. Haughty little bitch.
Patrick shook his head and slowly walked upstairs. Thinking about her was making him angry and he wasn’t in the mood to be angry. He still had Michele to think about. Her anger was exactly like his, quick and fiery and as soon as it sparked, often it fizzled away. Perhaps that’s how she would be.
She wasn’t in their bed. Patrick frowned and walked down the long hallway and peeked into Jonathan’s room. She was with the boy, buried under a mound of blankets, and the puppy was on top of the pile snoring loudly. He backed out of the room before the puppy woke, he wasn’t in the mood for the racket she would make if she saw him.
Patrick took a hot shower, reveling in the scalding water that turned his skin pink and relaxed his aching muscles. He was in the midst of shaving after the shower when he heard the little footsteps creeping into the room. He grinned and pretended he didn’t see her. She was standing in the doorway of the bathroom and finally she peeped.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?” he answered, glancing at Jana. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“I had a bad dream,” she whispered, “I was really scared and Mommy is in Jonathan’s bed, I didn’t know where to go.”
Patrick slid the razor over his jaw, scraping off the stubble. He continued to look at the little girl’s reflection in the mirror as he finished his shave. She was wringing her tiny hands together and blinking with large, butterfly lashes. She was holding her fluffy, sneezing bear to her body.
“Jonathan usually makes the bad dreams go away,” she said. “And Mommy’s there, in my spot.” She frowned but there wasn’t any anger in her face.
“What was your dream about?” Patrick asked.
Jana closed her eyes and made an over exaggerated sigh of relief. She sniffled and entered the bathroom, rubbing the back of her hand over her nose, lowering the top lid of the toilet and sitting on it, swinging her feet back and forth. She hugged a sneeze from her bear and then she placed it on the sink counter, patting it for good measure.
“Was it monsters?” Patrick asked as he concentrated on that spot just above his lip.
“No,” Jana said. “There were no monsters. There was a mean man and he locked me in the closet and I was scared of him cause I knew he was going to hurt us.”
Patrick felt a shot of guilt as he turned on the water and rinsed off his face. Locked in a closet? Of course she was dreaming about their bear game, did she really get that scared during it? He sighed and looked at his face in the mirror, at the water dripping off it into the sink. His daughter was the last person he would want to scare.
“Here, Daddy,” He heard Jana say and he looked at her as she held a soft, blue face towel to him.
“Merci,” he replied and pressed the towel to his face. When he was done drying his face he looked at her. “You were dreaming about our bear game, we shouldn’t do it anymore if it scares you that much little mouse.”
Jana’s cheeks reddened and she shook her head. “Nooo!” she said in an urgent, breathless voice, “I wasn’t dreaming about the bear game, I know I wasn’t. Honest!”
“Of course you were. The closet, someone coming to get you…. To EAT you!” Patrick said with emphasis on the last words.
Jana shook her head, “Nope. That’s not it. Cause I knew the mean man wasn’t you and he wasn’t a bear but he did want to hurt us. He had something sharp in his hand and there was blood on it. Someone was crying downstairs and Gigi was crying. And I wanted you to save me but you weren’t there.”
“Well I’m here now,” Patrick replied. “It was just a dream.”
Jana nodded and grabbed his bottle of aftershave, rolling off the cap. “Can I put it on?”
Patrick smiled and leaned his body toward her level, closing his eyes as the girl poured a healthy amount of aftershave into her hands and patted it onto his face. “There!” she declared, “Perfecto.”
Patrick kissed her quickly on the lips and stood up, stretching.
“Do you have a lot of nightmares?” he asked. He had always put a large amount of pride in the fact that Jana, his youngest, had never seemed to be a fearful child. In a lot of ways she had a lot more courage and vitality in her little body than both of her brothers combined. He had never been aware of a serious problem with nightmares, other than the ones she would try to get attention with.
Jana nodded, one of her eyes winking. “Yeah I do, but Jonathan makes them go away.”
Patrick raised his eyebrows. “What do you dream about?”
Jana shrugged. “Burglars and raving loonies!”
Patrick laughed. “Raving loonies?”
“Yup,” Jana said. “Their eyes spin in circles on the ceiling and they laugh really loud.”
Patrick frowned. Now that was a strange image for a little girl. “Do you dream a lot?” he asked.
Jana sighed and looked away, her face suddenly seeming careworn and not childlike. “Yeah,” she said. “I dream all the time it makes me tired.”
“What else do you dream about?” he asked.
Jana wrinkled her nose. “Everything!” she exclaimed, holding her arms out. “Mostly about hockey games and I try to make sure that you win and they don’t score. Or sometimes I dream about school, or cartoons, or the bunnies with pink eyes. Sometimes I dream about Jacques meeting Gigi and they’re best friends.”
Patrick nodded seeing a piece of himself in his daughter. His dreams were constant and vivid, tiring and sometimes prophetic. Jonathan and Frederick never dreamt that he could recall and he had asked them on a few occasions. It seemed that Jana had inherited that trait.
“Do any of your dreams come true?” he asked.
Jana frowned, looking unbelievably sad. “Only the bad ones.”
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