Chapter 2
“Hey, quit jumping on the bed, both of you,” Paul scolded. “Come on, you two know better than that, especially you, Mac.”
Six year old Mackenzie pouted. “Papi, we’re bored,” she whined.
“I put Nickelodeon on,” he said. “Go take Kira in the other room and watch that for awhile. I got some stuff to check and my travel things to book and need you two to settle down. Besides, the last thing I need right now is an emergency room bill because one of you fell off the bed from jumping on it.”
Mac sighed and took three year old Kira’s hand. “Come on, Sissy; Papi’s busy and we can’t make noise or he’ll get mad again.”
“Guys, I’m not mad, I just need you two to settle down. I know you’re bored, but then again so am I. Just go watch TV and be quiet for a bit until I’m done and then we can go do something. Okay?”
Mac perked up at the thought of them going out. “Okay!”
Paul sighed as he watched his two little girls go into the next room, reflecting on how rough it had been for all of them the last three years since Reggie had died unexpectedly in her sleep. Mac had been barely three and Kira only eight months old when it happened.
Actually, he hadn’t even thought about ending up with someone like Reggie; she’d started out being a random fling each time they’d hooked up when he had come to town for a show. Most would have thought she was a ‘step down’ from the types of girls he had dated; though Reggie Sargent was pretty with short dark hair and glasses, she was far from model thin, but at about 160 pounds, she hadn’t been exactly enormous either. The joke going around had to be that the woman must have been a hellcat in the sack to get a guy like Paul at the time.
But when she’d gotten pregnant with Mackenzie and it was confirmed he was the child’s father, adding in to the fact he’d developed feelings for Reggie at the same time, they had gotten married six months before Mac was born.
It hadn’t mattered that they were still relatively young or he was still working his way up in the independents, he felt it was important that at least Mac knew who her dad was.
Reggie had barely potty trained Mac when she discovered she was pregnant again a little over two years later. Kira had been born at home, obviously in a tearing hurry to make her debut into the world, though neither of her parents could figure out why.
On what would be the last night of her life, Reggie and Paul had gone out, leaving the girls with a sitter overnight. She had been perfectly fine and in high spirits; it wasn’t very often they had the opportunity to be alone to go out anywhere, between his schedule and of course having the girls around most of the time.
They had come home and made love before going to sleep, but sometime during the night, Reggie had taken her final breath.
When Paul discovered she was dead the following morning, he’d been beside himself. Reggie had been a strong, healthy woman, what would have made her die so suddenly?
He’d requested an autopsy on Reggie’s body, which revealed she had had suffered a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, along with sleep apnea.
Strange, Paul had thought. Reg had never mentioned having any type of heart problem, nor had he remembered her saying anything about sleep apnea. Sure, she had snored like a bear at times; both of them made jokes about who snored the loudest, but was there a chance she’d had the apnea and it hadn’t been diagnosed? By then, it had been too late to find out.
At least she didn’t have time to suffer, he thought. At least her death was peaceful.
After her funeral, the pressing question had been how Paul was going to manage an active three year old and her baby sister by himself. He had no idea on how to raise little girls; he barely learned how to change diapers when Mac was born and then again when Kira came along.
It had been Reggie that had seen to their care for the most part up to this point, and now that she was gone, he had some lessons to learn. Over the next few years, it had been basically trial and error, but then he’d grown somewhat more proficient, even styling Mac’s hair for her first day of kindergarten.
When Mac had started first grade and Kira preschool, Paul began leaving the girls with one or the other of his parents while on the road. They had objected at first, but despite their circumstances of his career and them without a mother the last few years, he felt it was important that they had some kind of stability in their lives–even if it was via their grandparents–and that they went ot school to be around other kids their own ages.
During the summer, he took them with him as often as he could. Mac seemed like a miniature old lady for being six, always looking after Kira, and outside of things that drove him nuts like them jumping on the bed or whining, they were good kids that gave him, and everyone else, little to no trouble.
Back in the present as he heard the girls giggling at something on TV in the next room, Paul slapped the cover of the laptop shut, figuring he could finish what he had to do later while they were asleep.
“Who’s up for McDonald’s?” he called to them.
Unison cries of “Me!” responded excitedly.
“Okay, guys, get your shoes so we can put them on, then we can go.”
“Are you done already, Papi?” Mac wondered, handing him Kira’s shoes before putting on her own.
“Nothing that can’t wait till later,” he grinned, putting the shoes on his younger daughter‘s feet and tying them. “Especially when I have a chance to go out with two beautiful young ladies.”
“Papi silly,” Kira giggled.
“Oh yeah? You’ll see how silly your papi really is when I stuff both of you with junk food until you can’t take any more,” Paul laughed, grabbing Kira and picking her up. “Okay, let’s go have that outing.”
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