Pinky Swear

Author’s note: This is the original beginning to the Fey. During the blog tour, I was asked by Reika at The Eclectic Connection for a side story. This is my editor’s favorite story about Alex, Max and Patrick. In many ways, it explains how Alex became a Green Beret.

THE PINKY SWEAR

“Where is she?”

General Patrick Hargreaves shook the rain from his jacket and yanked off his hat. His wife, Rebecca, watched him from the kitchen of their tiny home. Even eight months pregnant, she watched his movements with clear interest.

“Under the dining room table” she said. She returned to feeding the towheaded toddler seated in the highchair in front of her. “I tried to talk to her, but you know how she gets.”

Patrick kissed her neck as he squeezed between her and the stove in the small blue kitchen. For a moment, she relaxed into his warmth and smell – rain, Old Spice, and all male. His hand touched the side of her expanded waist, then he was in the dining room.

Patrick Hargreaves smiled. Fatherhood came to him late in life. After years of service in the United States Army, one warm spring day, he attended a formal charity function in Chicago and fell in love. Just like that. At 40 years old, Patrick was in love for the first time. What happened in a breath grew into deep happiness, love and children. They had four children already and one on the way.

His 5-year-old daughter, Alex, brought him home in the middle of the day.

He watched the lace table cloth quiver to the rhythm of soft sobs. Sitting down on the floor, he pulled the child onto his lap. Her long ash blonde hair covered her tear stained face and her big brown eyes. Her dress was torn, knuckles bruised, and shin scuffed.

“What’s wrong, Pumpkin?” he said. He brushed her hair out of her eyes.

“It’s Maxie,” she said.

“Max?” he asked. Max was her identical twin brother and best friend. They were inseparable.

“Maxie told me that I can’t be in Spec’l F’rs’s. He said no girl can be a Green Beret.” She sobbed into her hands. “I punched him. He won’t take it back. He has to take it back. He told Mommy that I was being a baby. I punched him again.”

“Then he tore my dress.” She held up the damaged dress. “Mommy’s mad at me.”

Patrick caught the look Rebecca shot him from the other room. He nodded.

“Are you sure you want to be a Green Beret? You know it’s not a lot of fun.”

“I wanna be a Green Beret!” Alex screamed. “I can’t be a Green Beret because I’m a girl. I hate being a girl. How come Max got to be the boy?”

He sat rocking her on his lap until her tears abated.

“Alex, you can’t hit your brother. Any Green Beret knows that violence is always as a last resort, always.”

“I’m never gonna be a Green Beret.”

“I think you could do anything you set your mind to,” he said. “If you want to be in Special Forces, I promise you today that I will do everything in my power to make that happen.”

Her tear stained face lifted and her brown eyes cleared.

“Promise?” she said.

“Pinky swear,” he said.

Giggling, she held her pinkie out to him. They shook pinkies.

Picking her up, Patrick wandered back to the kitchen to find Max hiding in the pantry.

“I didn’t mean to make her cry or tear her dress.” Max dissolved into tears. “She punched me.”

“Does it hurt?” Patrick rubbed the injured arm. Almost an exact match to the girl in his arms, the same tear stained brown eyes looked up at him.

“No, I’m tough. That’s how boys are. That’s why boys are Green Berets not GIRLS.”

Max’s attempt to run into the other room was cut off by Rebecca. Rebecca and Patrick shared a glance of exasperation and humor.

Alex began her chant: “I wanna be a Green Beret.”

Max took up the call with his own version: “Girls can’t be Green Berets.”

There was only one solution this dilemma. Drawing on his years of diplomacy and conflict resolution in the Army, Patrick said the magic words, “Ice Cream?”

Max and Alex squealed with delight.

“I want some too!” His oldest daughter Samantha said as she came into the room. The toddler in the high chair squealed and laughed. It was unanimous.

Rebecca’s hazel eyes held Patrick’s baby blue eyes for a moment. She gave him a faint smile while he helped her with her coat. The children ran through the rain to the car. He helped her into the front seat. When he settled in to the driver’s side, she leaned over kissing him on the cheek. He kissed the palm of her left hand.

The rest of the day dissolved into happy family memory.