...what happened next...?
“Where’s your mum, Lolly?” Craig’s looking around for Chelsea, and then realises that Dieter’s obviously heading right for them.
Lolly shakes her head, because she knows that Chelsea’s not there, but Craig’s half a step ahead. “Is this your dad?” He crouches down to Lolly’s height and points to Dieter.
Dieter braces himself for the usual round of explanations, but Lolly just nods, diverting the thumb that she was probably about to put in her mouth despite Chelsea’s efforts to get her to break that habit and reaches out for Dieter to pick her up.
“Hi, Mäuschen. Have you had fun?” He settles her on his hip and she grabs hold of the back of his hoodie, pulling the neckline against his throat.
“Ja.” Lolly buried her face against his shoulder, and Dieter tugs his collar back into a position that allows him to breathe, making eye contact with Craig as he does so. Craig looks like he’s been in Dieter’s position many times.
One day Lolly will be too heavy for this. One day she’ll be too grown up to want him to pick her up. She starts school in September.
“Are you going to say bye to George?” Dieter bounces Lolly a little to make her look up.Â
“Finley!” Craig’s looking past Dieter into the crowd of kids. “Your dad’s here!”
Dieter turns around to find Finley. Finley’s looking confused, probably because he hasn’t seen his dad in over a year so far as Dieter knows, but then he sees Dieter and Lolly and he smiles and comes running over.
“I got one for Lolly too!”Â
Dieter doesn’t ask one what? because Finley’s already passing him two plastic bags despite Dieter’s hands being full with Lolly. It’s probably more cake, as if they hadn’t had enough sugar already.
“Thank you for inviting us.” Finley covers being polite for both himself and his sister. Dieter’s proud of him.
“You’re very welcome.” Craig smiles, and then nods to Dieter and turns away to make sure that the rest of the kids are allocated to the correct parents.
“Ready?” Dieter checks with Finley. “Where’s your coat?”
Lolly’s tired enough that she lets Dieter carry her all the way to the car and do her seatbelt for her. Finley’s been chattering about the party all the way across the car park, but as he’s doing up his own seatbelt he suddenly switches topic mid sentence.
“Can we call you Dad?”
Dieter has no idea how to answer that. Chelsea should probably have some input here.
“Because you do all the dad things,” Finley continues, oblivious, “and when Timothy’s dad said my dad was here I’m glad it was you and not my real dad.”
“Papa.” Lolly interrupts, sleepily. “Deets ist Papa.”
Finley glances at his sister. “Okay. Then we always know it’s you and not any of our other dads.” He thinks for a moment. “Although I might call you Dad when my friends are there because it’s easier.”
Dieter’s still frozen to the spot.
“Can we go home now? I want to tell Mum about the party. Dad?”
“Papa!” Lolly corrects, on course for the early stages of a meltdown, and Dieter quickly shuts her door and gets into the front of the car. He still feels a tiny bit nervous when he’s driving the kids around, he’s only had his full licence for five weeks and he’s extra careful whenever he’s got Finley or Lolly with him.
The kids know that they have to be really quiet when Dieter’s driving, even if they don’t understand why. Sometimes it’s actually more unnerving, to have them be quiet.
Dieter’s just hoping that Lolly doesn’t fall asleep. If she naps now she won’t go to bed later.
“Bist du noch wach, Mäuschen?” There’s a sleepy ja from the back seat, which doesn't mean anything because she says that in her sleep sometimes anyway. “Mäuschen?”
Dieter has to concentrate really hard on the road.
