As I thrust my hand at the brute, whose shadow blocks the low-hanging sun haloing my hair, the dental hygienist from the clinic suddenly appears out of nowhere.
“Camille, is everything okay?” My throat constricts when she bobs down to the little girl’s level before she brushes away a lone tear from her cheek. “A visit to the dentist can be scary, but remember what Daddy and I told you last time you came to visit me?” The world falls in on me when she drifts her eyes to the stranger and smiles fondly during the “daddy” part of her reply. “Dr. Baglio won’t hurt you. But she needs to fix a tiny cavity before it causes you any discomfort.”
Oh, shit.
Heat creeps up my neck as my high shoulders sink. Camille is here for a dental visit. The only thing she fears is the cold, sterile chair inside, not the man I accused of something terrible.
My cheeks flush with embarrassment as I force myself to look up. Camille’s father, with his arms crossed over his broad chest, watches me with his full lips quirked at one side. His expression is a strange mix of relief, annoyance, and something else I can’t identify. It could be pride, but what would I know? No one has ever looked at me that way before.
Well, except for that one time.
“I’m so sorry.” My voice barely rises above a whisper. “I thought…” This is why I shouldn’t get involved. You can’t have a childhood like mine without seeing the negative in every situation. “I thought I was helping. Truly, I did.”
He exhales, the tension in his shoulders easing. As the awkwardness diminishes slightly, he uncrosses his arms and lets them fall to his sides.
While I should leave it there, my humiliation won’t let me. “Ithought she was scared of you. I didn’t realize she was afraid of the dentist.”
I glance down at Camille. She seems calmer now, but her fingers still grip my hand firmly enough that her nails indent my skin. She’s still scared, and it pulls at the strings inside me I thought had fallen apart a long time ago.
As before, I kneel before her, but this time I try to understand her fear rather than erase it. “I used to hate the dentist, too. But Dr. Baglio is super nice. She fixed my tooth.” I smile broadly, then arch my head toward the sun, hoping she will notice a small sliver of the crack the dentist fixed. “Although it was scary, it didn’t hurt at all.”
When her eyes search mine for reassurance, I smile, hoping to convey safety. Her hand becomes less clammy the longer she stares, but even as her father gently reaches for her, she refuses to let go of my hand.
Though he doesn’t seem annoyed by our immediate bond, he sounds a little perplexed while saying, “Come on, Camille. Let’s head inside. Dr. Baglio is waiting.”
Camille shakes her head as she clutches my hand. My heart aches when she blinks up at me with pleading, watery eyes. She doesn’t speak, but her message is clear: She’s still terrified.
“It’s okay to be scared, Camille,” I assure her, brushing away a loose strand of hair from her forehead. “Everyone feels that way sometimes, even grown-ups.”
She peers up at her dad, incapable of imagining someone as big and strong as him being scared, and my smile turns genuine. It isn’t solely his nod of confirmation that even he sometimes gets scared that makes me grin like a clown. It’s also his vow to protect her from harm.
“You’re safe with me, Camille. It’s a father’s job to protect his children, even more so when she is his little princess. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
When the words I would have sold my soul to the devil to hear from my father don’t stretch beyond Camille’s fear, he bribes her with the very thing that most likely caused her cavity.
“We’ll be in and out in under an hour, and then we can use the rest of our time to visit that sweets shop Uncle Elio told you about. You can get anything you want. The sky is the limit.”
Camille almost succumbs to peer pressure—the call of endless candy too overwhelming even for a child—but she is as stubborn as I wish I’d been at her age.
She stands her ground, and I admire her tenacity.
The world would be a better place if we all recognized our self-worth.
After glancing at her father, who appears as lost as I feel, I throw caution to the wind. “Would you like me to come with you? I don’t start work for another two hours, so I have time.” I clear my throat to soothe the jitters in my voice before saying, “If it’s okay with your father, of course.”
She snaps her eyes to her father so fast that my neck muscles protest on her behalf before she silently pleads in a way no morally ethical father could deny.
A silent shriek escapes her when he stares at me for three terrifying seconds before he bobs his chin.
Faster than I can blink, Camille jumps forward and leads us toward the dental clinic, her strides surprisingly confident. Our walk down the sidewalk is silent but held together by a misunderstanding and, strangely, a shared sense of purpose.
I feel her father’s eyes on me the moment Camille reaches for his hand, wordlessly requesting to link us together. The gesture is so simple and innocent, yet it sends a jolt through me.
We’ll be a chain rather than three individual links.
I anticipate some form of resistance. I get nothing close to that. Instead, with a smirk that could stop traffic, he curls his fingers around Camille’s tiny hand, and for a moment, around my heart as well.
His commitment to ensuring his daughter’s happiness blindsides me as much as my inability to walk away only minutes ago. I’ve never met a man so willing to disregard every belief that his gender is the superior race, and my mouth dries.