Mimi's Demons

Chapter 80: Baby Pictures Over Demonic Sigils

Duke was exhausted. But he was happy.

Because on his laptop was now a treasure trove. Cromwell had finally pulled through and managed to get digitized all the pictures he'd managed to smuggle off the woman of the years Duke had sadly missed of his daughter's life. The majority of them were in her baby and toddler years, and oh he had never thought babies were adorable, but a baby Mimi was beautiful. All soft cheeks and big blue eyes and angel light hair. He'd had this weird misconception that all babies were bald, but no his toe-head Mimi.

As she grew older the pictures grew more sparse, to his frustration. It's not like he could go back and see it for himself, why couldn't that woman keep up with this one responsibility of documenting what would never happen again? Like five-year-old Mimi in pigtails and a giant smile at the camera that showed off her missing teeth—what happened there? Was in natural or was she the fearless fiend she was at heart and got into an accident? Serena wasn't even Mimi's mother and she'd been faithful in her photo taking without even needing to be asked.

He'd just began to notice a growing lack of smiles in Mimi's photos starting at about six or seven that his office door slid open with a whisper.

"Papa?"

He glanced up, then back over his shoulder where it rained outside. November was proving to be an especially stormy season. He wondered when the sleets of rain would finally turn to snow and whether Mimi would appreciate that more.

"What's needed?"

Mimi didn't look unsettled, as far as Duke's perceptive gaze could pick up. Perhaps it was lunchtime and he hadn't noticed?

She frowned at something she saw and took a few steps in.

"Your eye circles are darker than usual."

He smiled. Like father like daughter. What eleven-year-old would notice that? What eleven-year-old noticed anything outside themselves?

"I don't sleep well on most nights," he said. "Would you like to look at some old pictures with me?"

Her pigtails seemed to perk up with her interested eyebrows, but that was probably in his head. She scuttled over and into his lap the moment he turned his office chair to admit her. Her interest turned into a frown the moment she saw the screen.

"Where you get those?" she asked.

"Do you need to ask?"

She huffed. "Well I don't want to look at myself. Especially not like that, that day sucked."

Duke raised an eyebrow. The picture was of Mimi at some kind of party giving the camera a blank look. "You remember?"

"Yeah. It was my brother's birthday party and Tim didn't come because Mom had kicked him out."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." She nestled back into him. "He cheated on her. His slinky demon was the first one I saw."

"Ah." He didn't need to hear more. He could already imagine how that had gone down. A Mimi this little wouldn't have had any reason to keep quiet about a monster hanging over her step dad's shoulder.

It had occurred to him before, but it struck him particularly hard just then how difficult his little girl's life had been.

"Did it suck because your mom was in a bad mood?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, something else hanging in her eyes.

Duke decided to move on and clicked to the next picture. After passing through a few, which flashed through too long a period of Mimi's life without documentation (stupid woman), Mimi said quietly, "I know it isn't true, but sometimes I got the feeling she blamed me for him cheating on her."