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Quietly, Tom knocked onto his daughter’s bedroom door. “Amelia? Hey, I called you down for dinner ages ago. Did you not hear me?,” he enquired after entering the little girl’s room. Amelia did not reply but kept playing tea party with her Barbie dolls and cuddly toys. “Amelia...I am talking to you.”
Sighing audibly, the four-year-old dropped her plastic teacup. “I am not hungry,” she pouted, still not turning around to face her father.
Tom knew his daughter too well to believe her so he stepped over her toys strewn across the carpet before he settled down beside her. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?,” he asked quietly, trying to find a comfortable position to sit in. Amelia, however, simply shook her head, her crystal blue eyes resting on the pink plastic cup in front of her knees.
Gently, he wiped a strand of hair out of her face to be able to look at her properly. Her long, full lashes seemed even darker against her porcelain skin and the few teardrops glistening among them shone like diamonds in the sun.
“Hey, why are you crying?,” Tom whispered, worried, and without waiting for a reply, he lifter her onto his lap to hold her close. “Honey, please tell me what’s wrong so I can help make it better,” he continued quietly and the little girl buried her face in the crook of his neck, sobbing slightly. Amelia mumbled something against his skin but as Tom couldn’t make out what she said, he asked her to repeat it, all the while stroking soothingly over her back.
“Mummy and you, you don’t love me anymore. Now that James is here everything is about him. I don’t matter any longer,” the four-year-old cried, her cheeks wet and flushed from her tears.
“Hey, that’s not true,” Tom said, immediately, tenderly lifting her chin so she would have to look at him. “You always matter, Amelia. Always have and always will. Nothing will ever change that, you hear me? Just because your brother is with us now, doesn’t mean that we no longer love you,” he assured the little girl who still looked at him with doubt in her eyes. “Because I do love you very, very much and so does your Mummy.”
Amelia was still not fully convinced. Her newborn brother had gotten so much attention recently that she truly doubted her position within the family. For so long it had been her and her Mum and Dad only and now, all of a sudden, she had to share everything with little James. She didn’t like it.
“Alright, sweetheart. What do you think about a Daddy-Amelia-Day? Just you and me for an entire day and we’ll do something fun. We could go to the zoo and eat ice cream,” Tom suggested, aware of the predicament she was in. She had been centre of attention for so long but since his son had been born a few weeks ago, priorities had shifted slightly to make room for this new, wonderful addition to the family. He would have to be careful in the future to assure his daughter of their love for her.
“That sounds nice,” Amelia mumbled, a faint smile appearing on her rosy lips. Maybe they still loved her after all.