Hush Little Baby by Suzanne Redfearn

hematite. I almost bought both.”
    He’s like a little boy eager to please. It’s not an apology, but an overture of his love that says, despite what he did, he loves me.
    He pulls me into an embrace and kisses the top of my head. “Happy birthday, babe.” Something in the tone lets me know that, in addition to the bracelet, his mercy tonight was part of his gift.

14
    T he alarm buzzes, and I roll across the empty bed, hit the snooze, sneer at the fifty-seven frozen men and women who laugh and smile at me from across the room, then put the pillow over my head to return to sleep. There’s a bare spot in the middle of the wall for the five porcelain partiers still missing.
    Gordon’s already up, probably gone for a run.
    My mind returns to the memory the sculptures inspire as my predawn dreams have every morning for the past twenty years.
    In my memory, my dad is already old, gravity and too many Wild Turkeys making his face sag. I’m young, and the prettiest I will ever be.
    It was the spring of 1990, and we’d already rock hunted in Quartzite, ridden mules into the Grand Canyon, and watched Dale Earnhardt bring his Chevy into the victory lane at the Phoenix International Raceway.
    My dad drove with his left arm out the window, the palm of his right on the top of the Jaguar’s mahogany wheel. My hair, long at the time, whipped in the wind. Sometimes I tied it back. Most of the time, I didn’t.
    The great saguaro cacti kept us company as they reached for the sky at the painful pace of an inch a year. Most of our drive was quiet, accompanied only by the wind and the jazz from the CD player. A few times we talked, but most of what we had to say had already been said. At one particularly long stretch, my dad told me a story. When I was little, his fantastic tales were frequent. As I got older, there was less time or maybe he had less inspiration.
    “I ever tell you the one about the lion who was in love?”
    I shook my head.
    “The maiden was beautiful, not much more than a girl, the father old and ugly, but still wily.”
    I smiled. The story was about us.
    “But because the daughter was a bit too much of a smartass for her own good,” he paused and gave me a toothless grin, “she chased off all her suitors.”
    The story was definitely about me.
    “The father worried there was no man brave enough or strong enough for his beautiful daughter and prayed for the gods to bless them with a worthy soul who would provide for her and protect her.”
    I rolled my eyes.
    “Not that she wasn’t completely capable to fend for herself,” he amended, “but as a father does, he worried that should something happen to him, she would be left with only her mother, who was not so good in the ways of the world.”
    “Pops, really?”
    “What? I’m telling a story.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Then one day, not so long after he made his wish, there was a knock on the door, and the father opened it to a shocking sight. On his porch was a lion, a magnificent beast tall as the father and with a mane that filled the frame.”
    “A lion who knocked?”
    “Shhh.”
    “You’re kidding?”
    “It’s a story.”
    “Fine.”
    “And the lion said…”
    “The lion talks?”
    “It’s my story.”
    “Fine.”
    “And the lion said, ‘Kind sir, if you would please do me the honor, I’ve been in love with your beautiful daughter since she was a child, and now that she’s of age, I would like to ask for her hand in marriage.’
    “The father was terrified. The lion had teeth like sabers and claws like…well, like…well, like claws.”
    I laughed.
    “He didn’t want to insult the beast, but how could he possibly agree to betroth his precious daughter to this wild animal? The lion, while noble and beautiful, was…well, he was…he was…”
    “A lion?” I finished for him.
    My dad didn’t laugh, but instead flicked an annoyed look at me, pulled out a cigar, lit it, and began to puff.
    “Well?” I said, irritated.
    “So you