"I know." She says it with the simplicity of a child's assurance. "They brought me to a hotel. It was quite manky, Daddy. I didn't like it at all. They put on the telly for me, but all the programs were in French. And then they got food, but that was shit as well."
"Eliza!" Rush admonishes. "What've I said about talking like me?"
"No swears until I'm thirteen or I've had my first period,” she drones, annoyed.
"Rush!" Evelyn says. "You didn't tell her that, did you?"
"I did." He arches an eyebrow at Evelyn, daring her to argue.
"She's only six, Rush. She's not old enough to know about her period. And thirteen is much too young to be swearing."
Rush just laughs. "Ev, darling, kids understand much more than we think." He tickles her. “Don't you, bug?"
"A period is when girls become women and bleed everywhere,” Eliza announces. “Colin, from my class before I got sick again, said his mum told him all about it." She looks at Rush. "Is that true?"
He nods, and then tips his head to the side. "Sort of. Not everywhere. But it…" he looks at me for help, bless the man.
I smile at the little girl. “You know, sweetheart, I think both your daddy and grandma are right. I think you don't need to worry about periods for a while yet. I didn't get mine till I was almost twelve, and my best friend Rin got hers at ten. So you’ve got a while before you need to worry about it. But you're also a very smart girl, I can tell already. So if you have questions, I'm sure your dad or your grandma would be happy to answer them."
"What about swears?" she asks.
I shrug. "Well, I think you should listen to your dad and do what he says." I lean over him, whispering conspiratorially. "But sometimes, you just gotta say a bad word."
"So if I really, really need to say a swear, I can? As long as I don't say them as much as Daddy does?"
"I mean, that sounds pretty fair to me." I look at Rush. "What do you think?"
He snorts. "I think we shouldn't negotiate with terrorists." He kisses her head again. "But yeah, I think that's fair. Once in a while, as long as it's not a habit." He glances at Evelyn. "What do you think, Grandma?"
She sighs, clearly unhappy with this turn of events. "I'm obviously outvoted on this one. But I suppose as long as you don't curse at school or at nurses or doctors, once in a great while wouldn't be the end of the world."
Eliza looks at me. "Do you kill bad guys like Daddy?"
My eyebrows go up. "Um. I…well, see…" Shit. How do you answer that? "Eliza, your daddy is a very special person. He chose to serve your country by fighting in the military. That means he's very, very brave. But your daddy wasn't just any old soldier—he was a very, very special kind of soldier. He fought against the baddest of the bad guys. And sometimes, yeah, he had to kill them. But he only did that to keep you and me and all the little boys and girls everywhere safe. Because a smart girl like you must know by now that there are bad men out there, huh? Like the guys who stole you from your grandma and grandpa."
She nods very seriously. "Mr. Nick and his friends killed those bad men. It was very loud and very scary, but I could tell they were good guys."
"How could you tell that, Lizzy-Bean?" Rush asks.
"Well, bad men have bad eyes," she answers, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "The bad men who stole me had bad eyes. They didn't hurt me, but they still stole me away, and that's bad. But Mr. Nick, he broke in the door just like the bad men did, but his eyes were nice. He gave me a wink, like this." She turns to look at Rush and winks, very broadly and exaggeratedly. "And I knew he was a good guy and I wasn’t afraid of him, even though his friends were great big giants. Mr. Thresh was so giant he had to duck under the door to fit inside the room! But do you know, he was very silly. He let me watch Bluey on his phone while we were on the helly-copter."
There's a long pause, and Eliza's face betrays the depths of her thoughts—Rush waits patiently for her to formulate her thoughts and get them out. "Daddy?"
"Yes, my beautiful, brave girl?" HIs eyes are hazy with emotion, his voice thick with it.
"When can you go home?"
"Well, I don't know exactly. When I got hurt, it made it hard for me to breathe." He taps the cannula in his nose. “That's what this is—it helps me breathe better while my lungs heal. So I have to stay here in hospital until my lungs are all better and I don’t need this anymore. Unfortunately, that might be a while longer, yet."
She nods. "Can I sleep here with you, Daddy?”
He blinks hard. "I don't think so, darling. I'd love nothing more in all the world than to snuggle you all night, because I've missed you so, so, so, so, so, so—"
Eliza giggles, clapping a tiny hand over his mouth. "Daddy! That’s enough! You're too silly!"
He laughs, pretending to bite her fingers. "So much." He nuzzles her cheek, sighing. "But. Grandma and Grandpa and you are going to stay in a very, very fancy hotel nearby. And you'll come see me every day, and you can order anything you want from the room service menu and grandma isn't allowed to say no, even to dessert for breakfast."
"RUSH!" Evelyn protests.
