Theo #2
“You’re always thinking of her, even when you don’t think you are.
She’s always there.” I tapped my temple, and she sniffed hard.
“You see a dog, or hear a song, or watch a movie and there she is again. Reminders of her are all around you, and that’ll never change. You’ll never stop thinking of her.”
Finally, I turned my head toward Scout. My elbows dug into my thighs, my spine rounded. I never sat like this, making myself smaller, closing myself off. But the pain of losing him felt fresh again, but this time it was worse, because Scout’s mourning somehow suffocated mine.
Everything I felt was secondary. I wanted to take her pain away, crunch it up into a tight ball and throw it into the middle of the ocean where she’d never find or feel it again. But I couldn’t. I had to let her feel it. I had to let her sit with it.
She rubbed the center of her chest. “It’s just not fair,” she whispered, voice thick with tears.
“I know,” I rasped. Dragging my chair closer to her, I rested my hand on her back. She trembled beneath my palm as if she were trying to stop herself from crying. I understood it—I was doing the same.
Muscles tensing, jaw tightening like it could somehow stop the inevitable breach of our emotional wall. Eventually, the tears would fall, and our eyes would go raw, and then we’d feel better.
“I wasn’t there when my dad died,” I said softly, staring out at the ocean.
The white-capped waves crashed against the shore, the moon reflecting off them.
I continued rubbing my hand in circles along her back, the movement soothing me as much as I hoped it did her.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye. I was on my way, but when I landed and got to the hospital, my mom told me he was already gone. ”
I reached up, wiping the wetness slowly gathering at my eyes.
“It felt like he was ripped from me without warning, which was ridiculous. He’d been sick for a long time, but I still felt cheated that I didn’t get to say goodbye, you know? All I could think about was how he died knowing I hadn’t been there.”
I felt Scout shift her attention, her gaze boring into the side of my head. But I couldn’t look at her, not yet. Not until I’d gotten the words out.
“Maybe if I had been there, I’d feel more closure.
If I’d had one last conversation with him, one more chance to tell him I loved him, or to hear him say the words to me, or, I don’t know, get another one of his unsolicited pieces of life advice, maybe that would’ve made the pain less.
But saying I loved him would’ve still been the last time, regardless of when it happened.
And what’s the difference between the last time being moments before he died versus hours or days or weeks before? ”
I ran my fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp lightly.
“All I know is that there’s still this gaping hole in my chest. It’s there every day.
I wake up with it, I go to sleep with it.
It’s become a constant in my life, and now, I don’t even realize it’s there.
But sometimes, something happens, or I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, or see my smile in a photo and there he is. It’s like he never died. But he did.
“I think the hardest part of losing him—of losing anyone—was seeing the world continue around you. You’re in the worst pain of your life, but the world keeps spinning, and people keep laughing, and the seasons keep changing, and nothing stops.
It never lets you take a breath. It never lets you push pause on your life for a day, or a week, or a month.
You have to keep going, and maybe that’s the best thing.
Maybe the constant moving is the only thing that helps us get past it, because if we had the ability to pause the world, to live in our pain even for a moment, we’d never come out of it. ”
Finally, I looked at her. She just stared, her emotions nearly bubbling over the surface. I didn’t want her to break, but I hadn’t heard or seen her do it yet, either. I knew it would help. I knew she needed to cry.
But hearing her cry? Seeing her cry?
It would be too much for me to bear.
“I wish you didn’t have to feel any pain, Scout. I wish I could change what happened. You’re too young to feel pain this big, to deal with something this permanent. You’re the best thing in my life, but I’d give you up if it meant you could have your mom back.”
The tears finally fell.
They dripped from her eyes, leaving thick rivulets down her cheeks. Her body shook like she had no control over it, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into my side. Dropping my head forward, I pressed my lips to the top of her head as she dug her face into my chest.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I whispered, holding her tighter. “I wish I could take it away.”
“It’s not fair,” she cried again. “What did I do to deserve this? What did she do?”
“Nothing. Neither of you did anything.”
“I just—I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either.”
She gripped my T-shirt, balling it tightly in her fist. Gut-wrenching sobs worked up her throat, so loud and so big, they bounced off the waves. She screamed like she was angry at the stars, as if she’d never forgive them for the fire they lit in her chest. For everything they stole from her.
I understood it. I felt it.
I’d stared at the same sky and begged for something different. It was as close to praying as I’d ever gotten, but I did it. On my balcony overlooking the best city in the world, I dropped to my knees and stared up at that starless sky, gripped the banister, and begged the void to bring my dad back.
To take me instead, if it needed a life.
But he never came back.
And I never died.
And life kept going.
“Will it ever stop?” she asked, sniffling as she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
“Will what ever stop?”
“This—this feeling.” She pressed her hand into her sternum and stared up at me. And in that moment, I was hit by the reality that she was still just a little girl. She was just a fucking kid.
And she shouldn’t have to feel this.
She shouldn’t have to go through this.
She didn’t know me—she didn’t love me. I didn’t know if she even trusted me.
But in that moment, she looked to me for help. For comfort.
For safety.
Gently, I smoothed her blonde hair away from her sweaty, tear-streaked face.
“It’ll get easier,” I whispered. I promised .
“One day, you’re going to wake up and realize the pain isn’t as bad anymore.
That, lately, you’ve had more good days than bad.
One day, you won’t remember the last time you cried about her.
You’ll see her picture on your nightstand, and there won’t be this spear through your chest. You’ll look at it, and you’ll smile, and you’ll move on with your morning.
You’ll go downstairs and eat a bowl of cereal and think, “ This is Mom’s favorite ,” and you’ll continue on.
And then, that night, when the world is quiet and everything is asleep, you’ll stare at the ceiling and realize that your day hadn’t been so bad.
That your pain had been bearable. That even though you miss her—and trust me, you’ll miss her forever—you’re doing better.
The pain isn’t so bad anymore. The ache has lessened.
And then you’ll roll over, and feel a brush against your cheek—just the wind, you’ll tell yourself.
But in your heart, you’ll know the truth.
It was her; her lips across your cheek one more time.
And then you’ll sleep. And you'll dream. And the next day, you’ll hurt a little bit less. ”
Slowly, her crying stopped, but she never pulled away. She stayed huddled in the warmth of my chest, and I think that was the closest I’d ever come to being able to hold my baby.
The stars twinkled overhead, mocking us with all they’d taken. All they’d witnessed. But we sat there. Even when we began trembling, not from pain anymore, but from the cold, we stayed. Like we were both too scared to move, to break this moment in half.
To go back to a reality neither of us asked for.
When her breathing slowed, and eventually evened out, I lifted her into my arms, cradling her against me, and carried her to her bed. For a moment, I stared down at her, her dark lashes fanning across her cheeks, nose twitching as she dreamed.
My kid.
My daughter.
Bending, I pressed my lips to her forehead, leaving them for a moment and soaking her in.
How was it possible that for the last twelve years I’d missed a child I didn’t know I had?
In my chest, I'd always felt her. Something empty, like a missing book from its bookcase. It was so obvious now—the gaping hole that sat there. Of course that was the thing missing.
She was the thing missing.
I pulled away, but stared at her for a beat longer. Freckles dotted her face, and her lips turned down slightly, just like mine did when I slept. She rolled onto her side, sighing softly, and I slowly backed out of her room.
Maybe tomorrow morning, she’d wake up and feel a little less pain.