Bedtime Story Read Online Free Page A

red and shiny from a recent encounter with a washcloth.
    “Okay. I’ll be up in a sec.”
    I finished the dishes and opened a bottle of red wine, leaving it on the counter to breathe as I went upstairs to read David his story.
    Jacqui and I passed on the stairs: she was coming down after kissing David good-night. I tried smiling at her, but her face displayed the same stony rigour she had maintained since dinner.
    I tried to put it out of my mind before I got to David’s room.
    Davy’s bedtime was my favourite part of the day, and we had stumbled into it by accident. When Jacqui had gone back to work at the ER after her maternity leave, we had talked about the importance of consistency and routine. Knowing how crazy her schedule was going to be—shifts all over the map, on-call so often—we had decided that it would be best if bedtime were my domain.
    It worked for me, too. I was at home, busy with the new book, and finding routine was essential for both my writing and my sanity.
    At first it had been easy. Babies don’t need much of a bedtime routine. As Davy got older it became more involved: fights about tooth-brushing, constant negotiations for extra time, arguments about TV shows.
    That was before we discovered reading together.
    Standing in front of the bookshelves beside his door, my back to him, I asked, “So, what shall we read tonight?”
    “Daaaad,” he said, drawing out his exasperation. Playing along.
    “All right …” I slid the hardcover of
The Hobbit
off the shelf and carried it over to the chair beside the head of his bed.
    He was already nestled under the covers. Nolan the hamster was running merrily in his wheel.
    The bookmark was leather, rough-cut and almost rectangular, with faded, painted letters, some of them backwards, that read, “To the best Dad in the world.” He had made it for me for Father’s Day when he was six, and we used it in all of the books we read together.
    “We’re getting pretty near the end of this,” I said. “We’ll have to figure out what to read next.” I didn’t want to be the one to suggest the book that I had given him, still sitting on the coffee table in the living room.
    “
The Lord of the Rings?”
he asked. Again.
    We had watched part of
The Fellowship of the Ring
on DVD, the parts before it got too violent and gory, and he had been wanting to read the book ever since.
    “We’ll see,” I said measuredly. “Those are some pretty meaty books, so we might want to wait for a bit.”
    He pouted deliberately.
    “There are plenty of good books out there.” Not hinting. Not really.
    David had always been a reluctant reader, only doing his Language Arts homework under duress. We learned why when he was eight and his teacher sent him for some testing: dyslexia. Reading was a struggle for him, and since then we had done everything we could to make it easier.
    But our nightly ritual wasn’t about work, or learning, it was all about pleasure.
    “Dad,” he said tentatively, before I could start. “None of my friends get a bedtime story every night.”
    “No?”
    “Darren Kenneally says stories are for babies.”
    “Do you think he’s right?”
    He shook his head.
    “Good. Because I know for a fact that he’s wrong.”
    “Because you write stories. For grown-ups.”
    I smiled. “Right. And you know what? Darren Kenneally doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
    His face brightened.
    After that he was quiet for so long that I was about to start reading when he said, “Dad?”
    “Yeah?”
    “When am I going to be too old for you to read to me?”
    The thought brought a thickness to my chest. “Someday. That’s up to you.” Hoping silently that day would be a long time coming.
    He watched me carefully for the first few minutes I was reading. Every time I looked up our eyes would meet, and he would grin a little and press himself deeper into the pillow. After a while he turned onto his back, folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.