Chapter 4 #2
His hand lifted as if he was about to reach out for me, but then it fell uselessly back to his side.
Try again, Dad. Reach out for me. Please.
I need you to come for me first. Then I’ll fall back into you, too.
Instead, he scrubbed his hands over his face and whispered, “I don’t know how to do this, Karla. ”
“Me either, Dad,” I softly replied.
When he brought his stare back to mine, I saw the same sadness I was living with staring back at me. We were both too broken.
His head lowered once more.
Everything stilled.
I didn’t even bother to breathe. Breaths felt pointless in such a heavy situation.
Dad’s mouth parted once more and he said, “I’m sorry I yelled.
I’m not mad at you.” His voice was quieter.
“I love you, Karla. I love you, and I’m .
. .” He took the deepest of breaths. “I’m just .
. .” His eyes flashed with tears, and unlike me, he allowed his own to fall.
“I’m just so fucking scared of losing you, too. ”
For a moment, neither of us moved. We were two broken pieces of the same DNA, staring at each other from across an invisible line of grief and guilt.
Then Dad turned and walked away, leaving me still frozen in place.
He loved me?
Still?
But how?
How could he love me after all I’d done?
Those words hit me harder than any lecture ever could. For a while, I thought the love he had for me died the day Mom took her final breath. Because I caused it. I caused the accident. I was the reason . . .
“Stop it, Lorelai!” I shouted. “Daaaad! Tell Lorelai to stop touching my seat belt!” I screamed as the snow shone through the headlights of the car.
I shook my head to stop the memories of the last day I saw my mother, and I headed to my closet.
I slammed the door shut and cried into Mom’s clothes, wishing her arms were the ones wrapping around me and not just the sleeves of her dresses.
I wanted to still be angry at my father, because that felt easier than feeling sad for him.
He was my dad—my once-upon-a-time superhero.
He was supposed to have the answers to life.
He was supposed to notice when I was drowning.
But somehow three weeks had passed by, and he didn’t even see the depths of my hurt because he was too busy fighting the currents of his own storm.
Maybe that was the hardest thing for me to realize—my father wasn’t Superman.
He was just a man. A broken man who lost his wife and was struggling to keep hold of his daughters.
Still, knowing that didn’t make it easier for me. If anything, it made it harder.
I cried in my closet for what felt like hours.
It wasn’t until later that my closet door opened, and I saw Lorelai standing there.
She was wearing her butterfly wings and holding her favorite teddy bear, Ms. Maisie.
Lorelai used to be afraid to sleep in her own room, so Mom gave her Ms. Maisie to help keep Lorelai and her dreams safe at night.
“Karla?” Lorelai whispered with her eyes wide with concern. “Are you OK?”
No one was allowed in my closet, but I knew in that moment I had to let my little sister in. I sat up and wiped away my tears. I tried to push out a fake smile, but it fell quickly. “Yeah, squirt. I’m OK.”
“I heard Daddy crying in his office.”
Guilt punched me in the gut. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah . . . Do you hate Daddy?” she timidly asked.
I reached out to her, and she climbed into my lap. “No, Lorelai. I don’t hate Dad.”
“Then why did you make him cry?”
I hesitated to answer, because I couldn’t find the words or thoughts to give a good enough response. “Sometimes, people who care about one another fight, and we can make each other cry by mistake.”
“Did Daddy make you cry, too?”
“Yes. A little.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Always, squirt.”
She lowered her head and stared at Ms. Maisie in her hands. “Sometimes, I cry because I miss Mama.”
The lump in my throat grew. I had to bite my lip to stop it from trembling. “It’s OK to cry sometimes.”
“I cry a lot sometimes, but then I think about how I want to be strong like you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m strong?”
She nodded. “You’re really strong.”
It was crazy how others could see the complete opposite of what you saw in yourself.
“Here,” Lorelai said, handing me her stuffed animal. “You can cuddle with Ms. Maisie tonight.” She leaned in toward my ear and whispered, “She takes the sad away.”
I sniffled and snuggled the bear. “Thanks, squirt.”
“Welcome, but I’ll need her back tomorrow so I can give her to Daddy, so she can take his sad away, too.”
Oh, Lorelai . . .
How much you’re like our mother.
So gentle and caring at such a young age.
I instantly felt bad because it was clear I hadn’t been there for her the way I should’ve over the past few months. I’d been living so heavily in my own swamp that I didn’t witness or even care to see how the quicksand was swallowing up others.
Maybe that was what it was like for Dad; maybe he was lost in his own swampland.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?” she asked, curling into my side like a kitten.
I nodded as I lay us both down on the sleeping bag.
It didn’t take long for her breathing to slow down as she drifted off to sleep.
Her tiny hand clutched the corner of my shirt as my hand clutched the corner of Mom’s shirt.
For the first time in a while, the heavy ache in my chest felt . . . lighter.
I couldn’t take my eyes away from my sister as she slept in my arms. The warmth of her skin was what I needed to calm the chill of my soul.
She was so small, so innocent. All I could think about was how I needed to be better at shielding her innocence from the darkness of our home and from the brokenness that infested our family.
I needed to be better to her and for her.
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head and closed my eyes.
Lorelai was wrong. It wasn’t Ms. Maisie who took the sad away that evening.
It was her.