Page 48 of Off-Limits

She focuses her anger on her little girl; I can see it in her eyes.

“Go to bed, Arrianna, now.”

“Mummy, mummy!” she coos, reaching out for her and my heart skitters.

“Now!” she booms. “Damn your grandmother for not watching you tonight.”

“Are you serious right now, Kerry-Anne? For crying out loud,” I hiss.

“Daddy, daddy!”

My heart freezes in my chest, before jackhammering back to life as I look down at the green-eyed little princess, and I can feel her laying down bricks to the rest of my life.

I glare at Kerry-Anne. “We will talk, but not right now.”

I haven’t had much to do with kids since my siblings, and seeing I was the eldest child, a lot of the burden of raising them fell on me because of my drug addicted mother. She could open her legs to Tom, Dick, and Harry, spit the children out, and then she’d leave the parental responsibility to me, because my father left her when I was young. He always made time for me, hell, he asked me to come and live with him, but I couldn’t leave my younger siblings knowing what my mother was like or where they might end up.

I mean I’ve always wanted to have children, but not like this.

I shake my childhood thoughts from my mind and focus on the little girl in front of me.

“Let’s get you to bed, princess,” I say, scooping her up in my arms and navigating my way through the house to the door at the far end of the hallway that I never went into.

Opening the door, it creaks in disapproval. Releasing a deepsigh, I switch on the light with my elbow, and I’m met with a room that screams deprivation and no love. The only colour in the room is the pink walls, but even that seems rushed and done without care.

I glance at the toddler bed shoved in the corner, the ratty pink and purple blanket with a dirty pink Care Bear resting on the pillow without a case. Sadness robs me of air, but when I glance down at the little girl with her bright green eyes and big smile, she does something else.

She steals my heart.

I smile back at her and tuck her into her bed. She yawns and stretches, her eyes fluttering open and closed.

“Will you be here for bakefast?” she asks, messing up the word breakfast.

“I should be, princess.”

“Good,” she says, yawning again and grabbing her bear and rolling over.

And that’s when it happens.

She becomes my daughter. My Arrie.

I adopted her a year later.

A tear slides down my face at the thought of Arrie’s living conditions before I arrived and moved them into my house. Kerry-Anne always looked immaculate when we were dating, but Arrie was wearing clothes that were either ripped, dirty or too small for her.

Kerry-Anne was a selfish cunt. It didn’t take me long to realise everything she was as a person, and everything she wasn’t as a mother, and that’s why I stayed for ten years.

It was only two years into the relationship when things really started to shift and fall apart. But I prevailed for the little girl that stole my heart, the little girl I promised I would be there for no matter what.

Arrie.

Swiping the tear from my cheek, I look around and realise I’m sitting at my attorney’s office. I must have spaced. Opening the door of my pickup, I step out and walk up the concrete stairs to the entrance.

The door chimes when I walk in, and a young receptionist glances up, her eyes growing wide and mouth falling open. Jesus. I offer a tight smile, and she smiles back, batting her eyelashes.

“Hi. I’m Damon Woods, I’m here to see Archie.”

“Mr Wilson will be with you shortly. Is your wife coming in as well?”