Two year old Che is glad.
"She missed you yesterday," Sarah explains, "but she knew you weren't feeling well."
She's making up for it today.
This is me having coffee.
She's not letting me go.
So far today we've played in her room dressing up like royalty, taken old bread to feed the turtles in the Lagoon, danced to Richie Haven's "Freedom", pretend to sky dive jumping off the sofa onto the pillows, sing nursery rhymes together, tickle each other relentlessly and she's eaten four Reese's Peanut Butter Cups ... my stomach can't ha ndle it yet.
She's also lays quietly with her head in my lap, tells me she's "Clare Elliott Che", her mother's "Sarah Wonder Woman" as we watch "scary monsters" on television.
When I get up to leave the room, she whimpers but follows me to the fridge, pantry and bathroom.
If I sit at the table and stare at my laptop, she strolls over, grabs my hand and leads me back to the sofa.
"Wuv you Daddy," she says, laying her head in my lap again to resume our show.
Fading in and out of consciousness yesterday, sweating as I slept, my life plays like an old video in my head.
People and events I haven't thought of in years come back to life and, tossing and turning, I find them irritable, choosing instead during my more lucid moments, to focus my thoughts on Sarah, the girls and wishing I was in the other room with them.
Life is now and I'm not enjoying this disruption.
"HELP!" Che cries as I write this.
Laying in the floor she purposely fell on, my daughter holds her arms in the air for me to pick her up.
"OH NO!" I exclaim.
She laughs as I pull her up high into the air and throw her on the couch.
"Do it again," she says falling on the floor.
I can't think of anything else I'd rather do.
