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“You left,” the child accused, from her hiding place under the table.

“I promised I would come back,” he replied. “And I did.”

She frowned at him and remained unmollified, so he added, “I am here now.”

“You left,” she repeated.

“I had to fight the bad guys and keep you safe. You can come out now.”

She crawled out towards him and he scooped her up and placed her on her feet.

She held her arms up; flexing her tiny biceps and squeezing her hands into fists. “I can fight. I’m strong,” she argued.

“I know you are, Honey.”

“They wouldn’t come in here,” she announced. Her voice dropped to a whisper, “Nanna is scary,” she confided to him.

“Oh, I know,” he whispered back. “She is my mother - remember?”

With wide eyes, she popped her fingers over her mouth as if she had already said too much.

His mother pretended not to hear any of this but her eyes twinkled.

“So you were safe, then. With Nanna.”

“Not happy,” she said.

“You were very brave,” he assured her.

For the first time, she took a good look at him and realised that he had not escaped the fight unscathed. He had a small cut on his face and a larger one down his leg if the blood was any guide. Her annoyance evaporated and she threw herself at him.

He looked pleased. “Hey, hey. I’m okay.“

“You can go get that seen to now,” his mother said. “You’ve seen that she’s safe.”

“Fine.” He kissed his mother’s cheek, holding the small girl on the hip of his uninjured leg. “I’ll be back,” he promised her.

“I believe you,” she said.

He sat her on a bench and pulled her and the bench towards the table.

“Good. You  wait here.”

“Yes, father.”

He left, the door banged behind him.

The small girl stayed sitting at the table she had been hiding under earlier. She watched the older woman make a hot drink for her. There appeared to be something troubling her.

“What are you thinking, little one?”

“If I hurt myself, you say that I have to show it to you fast.”

“Yes, I do say that... oh, I see. You think your father should have got his cut fixed first?”

The child nodded quickly.

“He should have - he insisted on seeing you.”

“Why?”

“Because he lost your mother.”

“In an attack; like that raid?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She looked very serious. She knew Nanna never lied to her, and often told her the truth of things. “I will be braver next time.”

“I hope that there will not be a next time, so that you have no need to be,” her grandmother said. “Now drink up your hot milk.”

~~~~

© AM Gray 2013