Winnie
Dad!Tucker takes his daughter Winnie fishing (Or tries to).
“Daddy, I don’t think there’s any fish in there.”
The declaration came about forty five seconds after Tucker cast his line in the pond.
His five year old stands next to him on the bank, her hands planted firmly on the hips of her tiny denim overalls— the one with a big pocket on the front for rock collecting, and her bright pink rain boots.
Winnie, his little spitfire, looks utterly unimpressed with her glance out over the water.
“I know there’s fish in there.” Tucker argues with a scoff. This is his life now. Arguing with a four year old. It’s weirdly all he’s ever wanted.
“How do you know?” She asks skeptically, turning those bright hazel eyes of hers, his eyes, up at him.
“Because I put them there.”
“You put them there?” She looks even more disbelieving now, her brows raising and furrowing like she can’t quite pick which expression she wants. Her incredulity and confusion at odds with each other.
“I paid money to have fish put in the pond.” He answers in a soft fond sigh, already placing his rod in a holder on the edge of the dock because her curiosity has surely scared off any fish in a twenty foot radius.
Winnie considers his words for a moment, looking back out over the water.
“Daddy… that’s cheating.” She declares with a shrug of her small shoulders, one of her hands slipping from her hip to wave it in the open air in front of them.
“What? That’s not— it’s not cheating.” Tucker scoffs, catching himself playfully bristling at her insistence. “It’s good for the earth. It helps the wildlife—“ He glances down at her, stopping himself before he starts explaining ecosystems to someone who can’t even tie her shoes yet.
“This is boring. Fishing is boring.” Winnie huffs her declaration and slumps back into her folding chair.
“It’s not boring. It’s about learning how to be still, how to have patience.”
“What even is ‘pay-tents’?”
“Not pay-tents. Patience.” He stifles a laugh at her curiosity. She definitely got his patience— or lack there of. “It’s when you wait for something without getting upset about it.”
“Why do I need to learn that?” She asks, the innocence of her question masking the bluntness she’d also inherited from him.
“Because…” He pauses, trying to come up with something better than ‘because I said so’. “Because good things are always worth waiting for, Wins.”
Winnie contemplates this for a few seconds, her lips pursing in deep, deep thought. Tucker takes a few steps back from the bank and slumps into his folding chair— a much bigger one, placed right next to hers.
“Like when you had to wait for me?” She finally asks with that tone that never fails to crack his chest wide open. He stiffens in his seat, shifting to make himself more comfortable. It never ceases to amaze him how profound some of her thoughts are without even meaning to be.
“Yeah, baby. Exactly like that.” He answers, a soft breath leaving him that’s amused but mostly impressed at her emotional awareness.
He’s explained to her over the last year or so in kid terms how she came to be. How surrogacy works, how a very kind lady grew Winnie in her belly for him.
It wasn’t a decision he made lightly, and he’s never— not for a single second, regretted it. By the time he decided to go through with it, his entire chest ached with longing to hold something that’s his.
“Was it scary? Or was it boring like fishing?”
He’s taken back in time by the question. Taken back to the long nights spent staring at the ceiling in his bedroom, wondering if he was making the biggest mistake of his life. Worrying that his life is too busy. Worrying that he wouldn’t be enough. Hoping and praying to something he only halfway believes in that she would be happy and healthy.
“It was a little scary, yeah.” He answers with a soft nod, his hands kneading against his wader covered knees. Winnie waits. She’s used to her daddy taking his time before saying what’s on his mind.
“But,” He adds, because obviously he can’t just leave it there. “All of that scariness… all of it went away the second that I saw you.”
“When you were holdin’ me?” She asks in return, a tiny dimpled grin forming on her cheeks from the story she’s been told a million times by her nana.
“Yeah baby, when I was holding you.” He confirms, laughing as he nods his head. He looks out over the calm water, his mind replaying the nurses having to practically pry Winnie from his arms the whole day she was born.
She was perfect (and still is). Tiny, pink faced and fragile. The memory is fresh in his mind like it was yesterday and not almost five years ago. Her wide, teary eyes staring up at him like he held all the answers.
In that moment every doubt he had dissipated. He swore then and there— in that stiff hospital chair— that everything he did from that moment on would be for her.
Everything. Every show, every trip, every single decision he’s made since that first day when she was small enough to fit in the crook of his elbow has been with her as his first priority.
Just as he's about to say something, his rod jerks in the metal rod holder. The line pulls tight.
"Daddy!" Winnie shrieks, scrambling off her chair. "Daddy, you got one!"
He reels it in—a small bass, nothing trophy-worthy—but she's bouncing on her heels, clapping her hands, the rocks she’d collected earlier clacking in her front pocket. He laughs, unhooks the fish and holds it up for her to see.
"Look, Wins. Patience paid off."
She wrinkles her nose. "It's kinda ugly… and it smells.”
He sets the fish back in the water and watches it swim away. Then he looks at his daughter— his perfect, impossible, worth-waiting-for daughter and feels that familiar ache in his chest.
"You know what else is beautiful?" he asks.
She looks up at him, skeptical. "What?"
He taps her nose. "You."
She scrunches it. "Daddy."
"You're also kind of smelly," he adds, grinning. "You definitely got that from me."
She shoves at his leg, laughing. "I am not!"
"You are so. One hundred percent stinky."
"Daddy!"
He scoops her up and tosses her over his shoulder, her giggles echoing across the pond. She beats her tiny fists against his back, but she's laughing too hard to put up a real fight.
He carries her back toward the house, her weight familiar and right.
He waited for her. He'd wait on her forever if he had to.
“I love you, Wins.” He tells her, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her head while he walks carefully, trying not to trip over his heavy boots.
“Love you too, daddy… but I’m still not stinky.” She mumbles, already sleepy as she nuzzles her nose against his shoulder with a crooked little grin.
