Always Yours.

Four.

DESIRE 

I placed a pot on the stove top and poured in a cup of water. On the counter, I chopped the tomatoes on the chopping board. Tara walked into the kitchen and climbed the stool in front of me.

"What you making, mummy?" she asked.

I smiled. "Guess what baby, it's your favourite." She turyns her head to the side and tapped her chin as if in deep thought, she looked around the counter and a smile slowly crept up on her face. 

Suddenly she jumped and shouted. "Shpaghetti and weatballs." She did a little jiggle on the stool and almost toppled over, in reflex I stretch out my hands to catch her and she jumped on the counter.

"Shpaghetti yo shpaghetti yo yo yo," she sang and danced around the counter scattering the ingredients I placed there. That should probably make me angry but she looked so adorable and my heart filled with love at the sight of her; I joined her and abandoned the tomatoes I was slicing. Dinner would definitely be late today.

I mimed a guitar and bent as if revving it and Tara grabbed a spoon as a microphone and shook her hips a little.

After our dancing session, she sat back on the stool and watched me like she was yaking a cooking lesson. That gave me an idea.

"Tara, do you wanna help mummy wash the vegetables?" I asked her and she smiled like she was about to help me. 

"No." She said and ran to her room leaving me staring after her in surprise. I swear that girl was becoming something else.

I made dinner and turned off the stove. That's when she crept out of her room and cysme to stand in front of me with her hands behind her.

"Can I help you set the table mummy?" she drawed circles on the tiled floor with her sock clad foot and I shook my head at her. She didn't help with the cooking but she could set the table to eat, she was so lazy just like her father.

"Sure." I said and she quickly sets the table. I served the food and she took a seat on her kiddie chair. 

She recited the grace and prayed in her own little way before we start to eat. As she ate, she hummed and I stared at her.

"This is delicious, mummy." She said and took a bite of the meatball, it was too big for her small mouth to bite out of it and she puts it back down on the plate. I grabbed my knife to help her cut it into bite sized pieces but she refused.

"No, I can do it, let me do it." She said and stabbed it with her fork and halves it with her plastic knife. Now the meatball looks mangled like it's being cut through with a chainsaw.

She gave me a  small smile and I smiled in return, she went back to her food and hummed as she chewed. She looked so much like Akin, it was uncanny. All she took from me was my skin colour and hair, every other thing she took after her father.

"Eew! Mummy look," she pointed to her shirt where the spaghetti sauce stained it and made a disgusted face. "I don't wike it." She said and I burst into laughter.

She pouted and glared at me with arms akimbo. "You're laughing at me, mummy," she grumbled.

"No, sweetheart I'm not laughing. Why would I laugh at you my princess?" I consoled her and she goes back to her food. She cleared her plate and stared at me eagerly.

"What?" I asked.

"It's bath time, mummy. I'm dirty." She said and made a face like she was covered in filth even though all she had on her was the stain on her shirt and the sauce around her mouth.

"Okay. Let mummy finish eating, okay. I'll bath you after."

"Okay." She said and took a drink of water before running to the living room to watch cartoons.

I cleared the plates and put them in the dishwasher. Then I prepared her bath water and put her favourite toys in them.

"Tara, come on it's bath time." I called out. She doesn't answer me but I heard the patter of feet as she ran into her room. She entered the bathroom and took off her clothes, she folded them and puts them in the clothes basket and I smiled. She might play a lot and have the energy of a bull but she's a clean freak, everything has to spic and span or she wouldn't touch it and she liked shakara like she's a beauty queen. 

She got into the bathtub and I bathed her while she played with her mermaid doll. I grabbed her organic hair shampoo from her shelf and washed her hair so it's silky and shiny.

After her bath, I wore her pajamas for her and packed her curls into pigtails with a scrunchy and tucked her in bed. I turned to leave and she grabbed my hand.

"Mummy, my song." She said.

I almost forgot, she couldn't sleep without me singing her a song and not just any song, her favourite song.

I took a seat beside her on her bed and stroked her cheek as I sang to her, slowly her eyes became droopy.

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy

When skies are grey

You'll never know dear

How much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away.

After singing, I placed a kiss on her forehead and she sighed sleepily. "I love you, mummy." She said.

"I love you too, my sunshine."

This right here was worth more than anything in the world. I turned on her bedside lamp– she doesn't like to sleep in the dark– and switched off the light in the room. I closed the door softly and it clicked or else she might wake up and I'll have to repeat the whole process again. Thank God she slept after one song today, sometimes I had to sing the song multiple times and even read her a bedtime story before she slept.