Daddys little girl

Little girls love their daddies. For some they are the first man they learn to love. 
Daddies can teach their little girls what to expect from the men in their lives. 
What love looks like. 
How they could be treated.
I remember... the look only his eyes could give. They held so much emotions it literally poured from his eyes into mine. He almost had tears in them and sometimes did whenever he looked at me. Such love, amazement, sheer happiness and pride. The feeling was overwhelming. I almost had tears and sometimes did. With just one look he said so much more to me than his words ever conveyed, more than my words can now.
I remember... how he would hold me in his arms against his chest so tight. He was an impenetrable fortress around me so even if just for those brief moments of our embrace, he could protect his precious princess and finally keep her safe.
I remember... how we would laugh and sing and dance in any situation. A christmas fayre in the street with a band playing joyful music in red square. He took my hand, span me around and we hopped and bopped to the beat under the twinkling fairy light adorned trees that lined the car park come dancefloor. Or that time at his new place, over a cup of tea, me full of glee, sitting on a settee, simply listening to a CD.
I remember... how much I would scream and cry and beg my mum 'Why?!' I hadn't seen him for so long. Sometimes he wasn't around. 'He is away', she would say. Then along would come my birthday. Right on cue, there he was to stay. The only present I ever wished for each year appeared and disappeared by Christmas day. 
Sometimes 'Not today', she would say, 'Your dad is drunk, there is no way'. But I would cry out in dismay, 'He is here so let me go stay, I hate to be here with you anyway. You're the one that drove my dad away.' I would scream and shout and raise the roof. I didn't care, I needed proof. To see he's ok through his eyes, I would see my dad there in disguise.
I remember... younger still, my mind younger and very fragile. Broken ornaments scattered all over the floor, holes and footprints all over the door. Sometimes this was how we'd wake, watching the tiny steps to breakfast we'd take. Sometimes we would wake to two parents smiling face, he'd stayed over at his family's place.
I remember... waking on many childhood night, my little brother screaming out in fright, hearing my dads angry shouts, leaving my sister but pausing with doubt, on the hallway to his open room. So silently I crept, I peered slowly around, as the image appeared didn't make a sound. My brother on the floor a tiny tot, my daddy strangling my mum over his cot. Seconds of hours I turn away, for the stairs back down the hallway. Tiptoed to the phone. Again
Dialled a number I knew. Again.
They would come to help. Again. 
Didn't need to explain anything to them.
Knew what this was all about, could hear the screams and his shouts. 
Leave to go back to my room, they will be here again soon. My brother still screams but dads anger dies. I hear my mothers gasping cries. My little sister peers from the cover, and I dive in to seek comfort in covers. I say 'It's all going be okay. Daddy won't be here tonight to stay.' I'm calm, to her strength I display. One of many images my childhood dreams would replay.
There is much in life we are taught. 
But in our early years, little girls don't yet understand, they just want love and to take the hand, of the man that teaches them how to find a husband.