Jan Short Story - 2008
Winner - January Short Story Contest - 2008
Trina Allen
"To Live Again"
Winner
Trina Allen
"To Live Again"
Sitting on her back deck, Allison nearly choked on sweet tea when she saw the letter from Forsyth Correctional Center buried in a stack of junk mail. It had been over a year since she had spoken with her ex-husband—the day he shot three people in a botched bank robbery, killing a mother of two small children.
Jerry had shown absolutely no remorse during his trial, which may have surprised the press but not Allison. On the witness stand he said that he felt no guilt about leaving the two children motherless, which confirmed Allison’s belief that Jerry Schultz lacked a conscience. The jury must have believed it too because they found him guilty of both second-degree manslaughter and robbery. The judge sentenced Jerry Schultz to forty-five years with no option of parole.
The sound of children’s laughter startled Allison back to the present. Two neighbor boys were playing a game of tag with Sam, her cocker spaniel. She waved at Dave Johnson as he lit his grill next-door. The pungent odor of burning charcoal mixed with the sweet smell of forsythia.
Allison stroked Van’s neck, grateful for his company. Fighting scars crisscrossed the pit bull’s face and a large scar ran from the tattered remnants of one ear all the way to his jaw.
Van, once known as The Vanquisher, licked her hand and laid his yellow head in her lap. Then he whined, looking toward Sam, who was now chasing scents at the edge of the yard.
"Go on, then."
Van shuffled off the deck and loped toward Sam. Van nuzzled the cocker’s neck, then growled and nipped Sam’s shoulder playfully.
Allison sorted today’s mail and looked up from reading a letter to see a red fan of dirt flying from Sam’s paws and a similar red brown avalanche behind Van’s front feet. Sam darted in and out of the hole in the ground, sniffing and barking. Van’s head disappeared in the hole he had dug and came up with something in his teeth.
Curious, Allison put the letter down and walked down the steps. Across the yard, Van shook the object in his teeth, growled, and then shuffled across the yard, Sam at his heels. Sam barked and whined, jumping and snapping at the object in Van’s mouth, but to no avail. He was not about to let go.
She spoke one word, "Drop."
Van immediately dropped the object, licked her hand, and then scampered across the yard. He seemed to melt out of sight.
Sam whined, his black body straining toward Van.
"No boy, you stay here." When she looked at the object that Van had dropped, a sense of disbelief filled her. She scanned the yard.
"Come Sam. Show me where you found this." She followed the cocker to the hole he and Van had dug. When she looked down, her stomach lurched and her temples throbbed with pain.
There was no explanation for what she saw.
##
Allison was still awake just before dawn. A car pulled in her driveway, light from its headlights filtering through slits in her window blinds. She lay still, her breath coming in rapid bursts. She willed her heart to stop beating so loudly so she could hear Jerry’s boots crunching gravel if he got out of the car.
During five years of marriage, Jerry had beaten her without mercy or remorse, once for talking during the football game he was watching. A small scar ran across her upper lip where his fist had opened it. Her nose remained crooked after numerous blows. Twice he’d broken her wrists when she’d used her hands to defend herself.
In desperation, two years ago Allison got a 50B order of protection and a court-ordered separation. Jerry could not come within 500 yards of the house or her. Even so, Allison believed Jerry would disregard the restraining order. She knew Jerry well enough to know a court order meant little to him. Consequently, she had the locks changed and an alarm system installed. A motion detector scanned movement in the hall. If her husband somehow got into the house, an alarm would sound, summoning the sheriff. Even that did little to ease her fear.
When the whine of the car’s retreating engine became smaller, fading into the darkness, she rose up enough to peer out the blinds. The newspaper in the driveway left little doubt who had visited. Although relieved, she lay in bed saturated with perspiration. Her arms and legs were dead weight. She was afraid to move. She needed fresh pajamas, but the dresser was too far.
It was that sleepless night, like many before it, that sent her to the Guilford County Animal Shelter, desperate and tired of living in fear. She herself say, "I’d like to adopt a dog, something big."
"My name is Tina. I’m sure we can find the right dog for you. We have one hundred thirty dogs here."
Small puppies licked her fingers through the bars of their cages. Cute little dogs tilted their heads and posed. Didn’t Tina understand? She didn’t need cute. She needed vicious. "I need a big, scary looking dog!" Her voice cracked with frustration.
Her distress grew as they passed dog after dog, some lying dejectedly in their cages. She watched a dog urinate and then lie in it. She felt defeated. Even the dogs had given up.
Then they stopped in front of a disfigured yellow-blonde dog with unattractive scars. The dog didn’t bark, but wagged its tail.
"What about this dog?"
He cocked his unsightly head, whined, and licked her fingers through the bars.
Tina shook her head. "Vanquisher. He’s not for you. He’s slated to be euthanized."
"Why?"
"He’s a fighting dog." Tina said. "That dog has the stocky body of a pit bull. He may be part boxer, and he looks like he has some shepherd in him. But, mark my words he’s a pit bull. We won’t adopt him out."
Allison remembered stories of vicious fighting dogs that turned on their owners.
The ugly dog cocked his good ear. He barked and backed up on his hind legs in a doggie bow, scarred front legs stretched out. He barked and bowed again.
Allison laughed for the first time in years, the sound of her own laughter startling her. "I’ll take him. I’ll call him Van."
Van rode home in the back seat and the front seat. He sniffed the whole interior of the car, leaving slobber marks on all the windows. And he stank.
She thought, what have I done? She knew nothing about dogs.
Van made himself at home in her house, drooling and scratching himself. His first meal was sneakers amandine, followed by compact disk praline–he broke up the CDs within seconds and swallowed the pieces whole. She wondered what the plastic would do to his digestive system.
She naively laid a soft blanket at the foot of her bed and put a chew bone on it. Van had other ideas. He lumbered into the bedroom, grabbed the rawhide bone in his huge teeth, and jumped onto the bed.
Allison dragged him by his collar to the floor.
Seeming not to understand, Van jumped right back onto her bed. She tried again, but finally gave up in defeat. When he licked her face, the smell of his awful breath overpowering, Allison felt something she had not felt in a long time. She felt safe. Van and his large teeth were sleeping next to her. He gnawed the dog bone, leaving slobber and rawhide fragments on her pillow.
The next morning, when Allison stepped out of the shower, she heard Van chewing something. She had seen how quickly he demolished the rawhide so she ran toward the sound to find him chewing the bedroom wall as if it were Chicken Kiev. Slivers of wallboard littered the floor and white plaster powder covered his face. The dog looked at her, seemed to smile, and then growled at the wall and took a fresh bite. She had to do something about his voracious appetite or there would be nothing left of her house.
Van immediately enrolled in Allison Schultz’s crash course in behavior management. His first trick-the sit command. She pulled him up by the collar until he sat, and then fed him pieces of dog biscuit. She stroked his scarred neck and praised him, told him what a good boy he was. Twenty times in a row. Until he sat.
He quickly learned other commands, like stay and down. With time, he mastered even the command to heel, his leash a formality. Her furniture was safe. She was safe. He slept in his own bed at the foot of hers. Gradually her night terrors stopped and she slept through the newspaper’s arrival.
Allison had found the strength in that ugly, scrappy dog to learn to live again.
#
One morning she let Van out for his bathroom ritual, as always. After several minutes he did not bark to come in. Worried, Allison opened the door and called, "Van! Van, come here boy!" Nothing. She yelled his whole name, "Vanquisher!" She yelled his name repeatedly, to no avail.
He had always come when she called him. Where was he? No one would steal him–he was too ugly. And then she went numb with fear. Unless someone wanted a fighting pit bull. Or worse, he was hit by a car. She pictured him lying in the road: hurt and bleeding or dead.
She couldn’t get the image out of her head as she walked the streets calling him, tears streaming down her face. "Vanquisher! Here boy, come home." A car honked, breaks squealing, stopping barely inches from her. She didn’t hear the angry driver’s curses.
Desperate, she drove the streets with tear-blinded eyes, afraid she would find him smashed in the road, relieved that she hadn’t.
She checked the animal shelter twice a day, with hope in her heart each time, and placed a lost dog ad in the same newspaper whose early-morning delivery had terrified her. She posted fliers offering a reward and called animal control, grateful they had no dogs of his description.
Finally, after two weeks, as she listened in vain for Van’s bark amongst the din of barking at the shelter, she knew. He was gone. The Vanquisher had disappeared. She’d never again hear that marvelous bark. What could she do without him? That ugly pound puppy meant everything to her.
She slid to the floor and sat on the concrete next to a small yappy dog’s cage, put her head in her hands and sobbed.
The toy dog’s yapping finally broke through her consciousness. She noticed the sign on a cage across from her. "Sam. Friendly … cocker spaniel." She looked at the fine-looking black dog, as beautiful as Van was ugly. Large brown eyes looked intelligently at her. Sam barked and licked her fingers through the bars, his tail wagging.
She took Sam home. He was a well-behaved boy, never jumped on furniture. He slept on the floor, knew how to sit on command. He was a good companion, but he never bowed; never once made her laugh. Allison gave up. She quit leaving the house, spent her nights in a cold sweat too afraid to get up and turn on a light.
As she was preparing for another sleepless night, she heard his familiar bark. It couldn’t be him. Steeling herself for disappointment, she opened the door.
Her old friend stood in the doorway, much too thin and covered with red Carolina mud, but it was him. Van barked, the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. Wagged his tail and sat back on his haunches, his scarred front legs stretched out in his doggy bow. She laughed for the first time since he’d gone missing. Van barked again and licked her face. She hugged him hard, oblivious to the dirt that soaked her shirt and jeans or the tears that ran from her eyes.
Sam barked and Van touched his nose.
"Sam, this is Van. He’s come home." That was nearly two years ago.
##
Van barked and shook the object in his teeth. Looking at him, the letter from Forsyth Correctional Center shook in Allison’s trembling hands.
I don’t have any regrets except one. I wish I’d killed you instead of that ugly sack of shit you called a dog. It was fun watching you look for that dead mutt. I was excited when I came back for you the next night, ready to make you pay for throwing me out of my own house. But that demon of a dog stood there on your porch growling. The damn thing bowed to me.
It was dead, damn it. I killed it.
The mutt wouldn’t let me close to you. If I stepped on our property it attacked me, damn near ripped my arm off with its fucking teeth. It was everywhere you went. If you left the house, it went with you. I couldn’t get close to you.
Now, I’m seeing the demon cuss here in my cell at night, growling and bowing to me. Call off your dog, bitch.
Jerry Shultz was trying to scare her. Van was alive and well, digging a hole in her yard.
Still, she climbed down the deck stairs anyway and told Van to drop what was in his mouth. The sight of that object made her heart pound. At her feet was a dog collar, Van’s own. Allison looked at his collar and then stared across the yard toward the place where he had disappeared.
She told herself that he was fine. He’d been playing in the yard just seconds ago. Dogs didn’t die and then live again.
She walked with Sam to the edge of her yard. The faint odor of decay filled her nostrils. She closed her eyes once and then forced herself to look into the hole that Van had helped dig. She stifled a gag reflex. Partially unburied was the decomposing body of Vanquisher, the scrappy pit bull terrier that meant so much to her. She ran to the edge of the yard and vomited.
___________________________________________________________________
Honorable Mention
Beverly Sims
"Claire and Clarence"
Claire sat in the middle of her bed, looking through the pages of a geographic magazine. She was especially interested in pictures of ostriches, as she had never seen one in real life, but when you are only five, there are kazillions of things you haven’t seen.
“Have you ever seen these funny animals, Clarence? I mean, in real life?” She nodded at his reply. “I sure would like to see one up close. Do they like little girls?” A flicker of disappointment crossed her face as she listened to his long answer.
“Ok, I would only look at them from far away. I don’t like the smell of chickens or the duck pond either. But I still want to see them. Can we? Please?”
Downstairs her parents heard her chattering. Her father, David, frowned. “Honestly, Hannah, this friend of her isn’t a healthy thing. I talked to Dr. Malone at lunch yesterday and he said she needs more contact with real children.”
Hannah’s tone was soft. “David, she’s in kindergarten four hours a day. That’s a lot of contact with other children. Give her time. She’s only been going there for four weeks, and she has had Clarence for at least two years. Be patient, Honey, one day he will simply vanish.” Upstairs, Claire snuggled down in her little bed and was asleep in seconds with a smile on her face.
The sun was barely up when her mother called her to dress and come to breakfast before she missed the bus. She was careful to put her show-and-tell treasure in her little backpack and wore it as she ate and ran for the bus.
The children looked forward to Friday’s show-and-tell. Jeffrey showed his new toy car. Cecily displayed a hat her grandmother made her. When it was Claire’s turn, she opened her backpack and removed an object covered in a strange woven, brightly colored cloth. When she unwrapped the cloth, there was the biggest egg anyone had ever seen.
“Hush, Class. Claire, what it that?”
“It is a ‘stritch egg from Africa. I got it last night. A woman gave me the cloth to bring it home. See, the tiny crack here on the side? She said the egg was empty because it was broken, so there was no baby inside. Nothing to eat either.”
That caused an outbreak of a dozen little voices around her. “Yuk, who would want to eat anything like that?” “What is a ‘stritch?” “Where did you really get it? I know you didn’t go to Africa last night.”
“Yes, I did. Clarence took me. It was hot and dusty, but everyone was nice. They were strange people, taller even than my dad. Even the ladies. The men carried spears. They were all barefoot and had dirty feet half way up there legs, like mine.” She bent to pull off one shoe and sock and lifted her pant’s leg. Her classmates all started talking at once again.
Miss Taylor said, “Come now, Claire, tell us the truth, where did you get the egg and dirty feet.”
Claire was smart enough to know it would be best if she said nothing, so that is what she did. Miss Taylor seemed satisfied that she hung her head and looked at the floor.
The next Show-and-Tell day, she had a cloth bag of strange looking seeds, none of which Miss Taylor could identify. Claire said she did not know their names, either, but that “my African friends plant them in their gardens. Some fell off of trees, too. But it is too hot there, they prob’ly won’t grow here in Montana.”
Once again, Miss Taylor questioned her so once again, she hung her head. Being five, she sometimes did not think things through. She never though her nighttime outings with Clarence might result in another such confrontations with Miss Taylor. Miss Taylor let the children examine the seeds, and then moved on to the next student.
The third time was too much for Miss Taylor. When Claire showed the class a necklace of teeth she said came from a lion, the teacher went to the intercom on the wall and called the office. Mr. Putman came scurrying into the room on his short legs like a ferret which the children thought he resembled after seeing ferrets in a nature book. Miss Taylor apprised him of the situation in whispers.
“Claire, it is time to give up this story about Africa. We all know you were not there last night, or any other night for that matter. Now is the time for you to confess where you got these things.”
“Mr. Putman, everything I told is true. You know I don’t lie, Miss Taylor.”
Mr. Putman’s face reddened as he looked down on the normally well-behaved child who was actually one of his favorites. “Enough of this, Claire. It is a lie and you know it. I am calling your parents now. Come with me to the office and we will wait for them there. And bring those … teeth or whatever they are.”
She sat outside on a bench in the hall while her parents were in the principal’s office. When they came out, neither of them said a word, but Claire could tell they were upset. Her father was obviously angry, but it turned to bewilderment on the drive home. He wondered where his angelic little daughter got the African items.
After a wordless supper, he calmly asked Claire about them and could he see them. She was delighted to once again to show off her treasures. Her parents carefully examined the seeds, the necklace of lion teeth, and the cracked egg in its strange cloth wrapper.
When he asked where she got them, she smiled that sweet smile and relied. “After I went to sleep, Clarence took me on a trip. I wanted to see the things in the magazine, so we went there. A-frica, he said it was. It was hot, even worse than Missoula in summer. Dry, too, Daddy. Everything was covered with dust and everyone was barefoot. That was fun at first, but I wanted to wash my feet before we came home, and there wasn’t any place to wash them. No bathrooms anywhere. Not even in the chief’s house. All the houses are grassy … I mean, made of grass.”
Claire always gave much more information than required, but instead of discouraging her habit, then time her parents just waited for her to take a couple breathes, before her mother said, “Tell us about the people, Claire.”
“The people were all so nice to me. They liked my hair and pulled my curls, but it did not hurt. Clarence said they never have curly hair. Their hair is really short, all black, and fuzzy, like Mrs. Hotchkiss’s poodly dog. At first, I didn’t like the kids all being naked, but Clarence said it was ok, but I tried not to look at the boy’s things. A few of them were long and stuck straight out but most were curled and wrinkly like Daddy’s was when I saw him getting in the shower.” Hannah inhaled sharply and locked eyes with her husband.
“Some of the grown-up women didn’t wear bras or even tops at all. Mostly their boobies hung down on their stomachs. Not like yours, Mama. One lady was screaming and they said she was having a baby, but I did not want to have anything to do with that. I hate screams.” A sign of relief from Hannah this time.
“Tell us how you got to Africa, Claire,” asked her father David.
Claire looked at her parents thoughtfully. “Golly-gee, Daddy. I’m not sure, only that I go to bed at home and wake up with Clarence in Africa. Do you want to know about the ‘stritch egg?” Typically Claire, she did not wait for a reply. “The old chief who is named Abasi gave it to me when I told him I wanted to see one. He picked me up and carried me on his shoulder away from their camp until he saw some ‘stritches in the distance. He said they are Masai ‘stritches, like he is a Masai, whatever that means. He got close as he could … I could even smell them and they stink … before they ran. Did you know they are birds but they can’t fly. Ever hear of something so silly? Anyway, he found this egg and said I could have it.”
“Can you talk to the people and do they understand you?” Daddy asked.
“’Course they do. Why wouldn’t they?” Nothing is impossible when you are five.
David shook his head, “Ok, Claire, tell us about Clarence.”
“I told you before, didn’t I, Mama? I don’t want to talk about him again, because you get mad at me.” She hung her head as she always did when something got out of her control and she need an escape.
Hannah sighed again and looked at David and then said, “I think that you had better get your coat on so Daddy can drive you to school, or you will be late. We can talk about this more later … right Dear?”
David nodded absently, but before he could speak, Claire asked, “You guys aren’t mad at me or anything, are you?”
“No, Darling,” answered her mother. “Now off with you both.”
* * * * *
Hannah searched her little daughter’s bedroom, looking for anything that would give her a clue … any clue as to this Clarence enmity and how to get his presence out of Claire’s life. She found nothing but the two souvenirs and a handful of old geographic magazines. The one featuring the Masai was dated 1955. Is this where Claire imagined she had been? Hannah gathered the magazines up and took them downstairs with her, hiding them in the bottom of the wood box by the fireplace.
After dinner, Claire yelled down from her bedroom. “Mama, where are my magazines. I can’t find them.”
“Yes, Honey, I took them. They were so old and ratty, they smelled terrible.”
“That is not true, Mama. They did not smell bad. Why did you take them? They are mine.” She was yelling and stomping her feet like spoiled children they had seen in other homes, but their Claire was a docile child who had never disobeyed them, not once!
“Now stop that, Claire, this minute. You will not raise your voice like that again, ever. Do you understand?” David’s voice was stern and strong, but it made no impression on the furious child.
“Give them back. Give them back or you will be sorry. Give them back.”
Hannah climbed the stairs as Claire ran into her room, slamming the door. She put a chair under the handle like she had seen on television, so Hannah could not open it.
“Claire, open this door. Immediately. I mean it!”
“Not until you give me my magazines back.”
“Well, Little Girl, I am not giving them back, so forget you ever had them. Now go to bed and I’ll hear no more about it.”
“Fine. I’ll do that. We don’t need the magazines to go to Africa. We are going right now and never coming back.” The light under her door went off. Hannah stood outside listening to your daughter cry.
Hannah called to David to come up and open the door. It took him little effort to move the chair aside so they could enter. To their amazement, Claire was sound asleep, lying on top of her bedding. Tears glistened on her cheeks, causing lumps to form in bother her parents’ throats. She looked like a little angel as always and they covered her up against the Montana night.
She did not come down when called for breakfast. Hannah found her sleeping exactly the way they had left her, s is she had not moved a muscle. She called softly to Claire. No reply. She touched, and then shook the girl’s shoulders. Nothing. She began to yell for David as she realized her child was limp.
They wrapped her in a blanket and rushed to the hospital, not taking time to call her pediatrician. She was unresponsive even as they hooked her IV and other monitors to her little body. Several doctors conferred, but none had an explanation. They listened to the parent’s story repeatedly. They called Miss Taylor … she verified the happenings at school. Dr. Malone were stymied, but hated to admit it, not wanting the parents anymore stressed than they were. Claire was healthy in every way but one … she was unconscious.
Days passed and still Claire remained the same. On the eighth morning, a nurse who came to check her IV found the child sitting up in bed. She asked calmly if she could please go to the bathroom and take a bath. The nurse rushed out to contact the doctor, so Claire decided she could not wait. She carefully pulled off the tape holding the IV needle in place and slid out of bed.
Her visit to the bathroom was a relief, but she had a problem getting that bowl hooked to toilet rim loose so she could dump it to flush. The nurse heard the flushing sound as she entered the room and rushed inside to find Claire naked and filthy, ready to take a shower. The nurse could not understand how Claire, who had not been out of her bed for over a week, could be so dirty … she herself had washed the child every day. Her legs and feet were red with dirt and her hair, braided (when did that happen?) had sticks and weeks in it. Her neck and arms … even her buttocks … had ground-in grime.
Nurse was dismayed that she had lost the fecal matter before it went to the lab, but she was beyond upset at the physical condition of the little girl. Claire stepped into the shower before the nurse could stop her. She smiled as she soaped her body and poured shampoo over her hair, rubbing it in as best she could. The shower was short. She wrapped herself in a towel and raced back to bed, stopping when she saw how dirty the sheets were. The nurse stared at them in disbelief. Where did it come from?
The doctors came, her parents came, Miss Taylor came, and finally Claire went home. Her parents did not question her further, even after the doctor called to say the remains of her bowel movement scraped from the toilet bowl showed she had been ingesting meats and beans of unknown origin, when in fact she had been feed only with IVs in her hospital bed.
“Claire,” asked her mother, ‘will you make us a promise?” Claire nodded. “Please promise you will not go to Africa again. OK?”
Claire nodded, “I promise.” She snuggled down in bed as if to sleep. When they were downstairs, she sat up and asked, “Clarence, remember the pictures of the emus in Australia…can we go there tonight?”
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Honorable Mention
Kathryn Gabrielle
"Aloof"
It is 4:00 pm in the afternoon. A work-weary father opens
the front door to greet his six-year-old little girl. Her enthusiasm
is infectious and he scoops her up and gives her a kiss.
"I missed you, Daddy! Come in your office and see the sunrays!
Come, hurry!"
"Oh, must we do this now?" He grumbles as he puts his coat
away. "Can't Daddy relax?"
Jonathan follows Dana into his office but soon he tunes her out.
He has other things on his mind. A sudden mood change; his
eyes turn cold as they cross over the pile of important papers
he must attend to today.
"See the sunrays darting all over the wall in yellows, reds, and
blues, Daddy?" Dana says, as she points to the traveling prisms
of light flowing through the window.
"I don't have time for games, Dana. Go, now, and let me be."
"Come on, Daddy, just a peek. It's fun. Don't you like the colors?"
Jonathan stands up, impatient, takes Dana by the hand and leads
her to the door. He pats her on the head and bends down,
whispering, "Daddy is busy now, child. Later. Later, I'll look."
"That's what you said yesterday. It is never later. You keep
forgetting me."
Jonathan walks over to his desk. A pile of papers whooshes
off his des like a flurry of snow. He chases each piece like gold.
Why don't you care about me as much as you care about those
dumb papers? Dana thinks to herself, bending down to tie her
shoe. Just a little bit of time, is that too much to ask? Look
at me, Daddy. Don't turn away!
She runs ahead of him, quickly storming into the pile of papers,
kicking them here and there, and watching them get tossed
up in the air. The papers make a sound almost like fingers
snapping. But when she turns around to see her father's
face, bright red and angry, her smile fades. Fear rises up
her throat, and she backs up to the wall.
"I want you to pick up every single one of these papers, and I
want them in the correct order, young lady!"
"How am I going to know that?", she whispers fearfully.
"You just have to figure it out. Daddy needs those papers
for work, and you just kick them around like trash. Life
isn't a game, girl. I need you to learn that now. Pick them
up!"
She runs over to the window and opens it wide. The papers
fly out of the window, swirl around in the wind like little flags.
The very sight of this makes her happy and she laughs. No
more papers! "See, see the papers fly! Let's go chase them."
"Get out. Get out of my sight!"
He takes her by the hand and drags her out of the room. The
door is slammed and locked shut.
Things would never be the same again, now that he closed
the door on her.
Dana flies up to her room and buries her face in her pillow
as rejection fills her heart.
Suddenly, a thought pops into her mind. Dana sits up and
wipes her face. The tear-stained pillow tells the story
of heartbreak. Just a moment it would take to dry her tears,
could there be rescue from sorrow?
Getting off her bed, she shuffles to her dresser. With trembling
hands, she picks up a picture of her daddy.
"You have kind eyes. I will give you one more chance. Please
don't let me down."
She gazes in the mirror and smiles weakly. Taking a deep breath,
she walks to her door and opens it once again. Step by step,
she descends the stairway.
"Daddy?"
Silence. She shuffles further down and knocks at his door.
Knocks. And knocks.
Silence. Pressing her face to the keyhole, she tries to listen
but hears nothing. She peeks in and sees Daddy with his
head on his desk crying.
Inside the room, Jonathan's face is pressed against the cool
surface of his desk. My company is going bankrupt. I don't
have time for these silly games she plays. Doesn't she know
how much stress I am under?
What an important man I am? Why doesn't she just leave
me alone? Stop that knocking!
He covers his ears with his hands. A soft knock on the door;
he ignores it once again.
The surface of the desk is moist from the tears on his face.
I have to stop it. I am a man. I have work to do.
Reaching in his pocket, he retrieves a handkerchief. He curses
the tear that runs down his cheek. Blasted little girl! The
world doesn't revolve around you, Dana!
He gets up from his chair and walks over to the liquor cabinet
and pours himself a whiskey, gulping down enough to save
face.
"Daddy, can I come in?"
Silence. Sitting at the door, hoping for an answer that won't
come, Dana is rejected again just like she was yesterday
and the day before.
"I won't be here tomorrow, Daddy!" she shouts through the
keyhole. "I am running away. You are a cruel man. I don't care
about your papers. And I don't love you anymore. Ever!"
She leaves out the front door with the clothes on her back,
into the woods, and keeps walking until day turns into night.
Jonathan throws back the whiskey, hoping for a quick fix. He
pauses and listens for knocking.
Silence. He carefully steps over to the door and unlocks it.
"Dana, Daddy can see you now. Come in, child. It's okay."
Silence.
"Oh, come on. Are you playing one of your hide-and-seek games
again? Okay, Daddy is game. But remember, I've got more
work to do since you messed up my papers."
Jonathan heads toward the living room curtains, one of Dana's
favorite hiding places. He quickly draws them back.
"Here you - oh, wrong again. You are clever, Dana. I have
to be more creative, like you."
He searches the whole downstairs, calling out her name, but
hears nothing. Climbing the stairs to Dana's room, he silently
opens her door.
"Dana, I know you are in here." Jonathan whispers. He
bends down and turns up the quilt. "Are you under the bed?
Where are you?"
He hurries down the stairs and out the front door. Checking the
swings, he finds nothing. Running around the house, there
is no sign of Dana.
"Dana! For crying out loud, this is not funny! I don't have time
for your games. Come out!"
Panic grips him and he goes inside to call the police.
"911 emergency, can we help you?"
"Yes! My daughter Dana is missing. I cannot find her anywhere.
Can you send the police to 958 Hanover Street? Immediately."
"Yes, sir. We will send a squad car right away."
Jonathan waits on the steps with his face in his hands. A
million thoughts go through his mind. Calm down, Jonathan. The
police will find Dana. It isn't your fault. You have deadlines
to meet. She was being a pest.
A few minutes later, a police car arrives and two officers
get out of the car and approach him. Jonathan shakes their
hands. "Can you help me? My daughter Dana is missing. I have
a picture of her in my wallet.
Here it is."
Looking at Dana's photo, one of the officers says, "Don't
you worry; we will search the surrounding area completely.
Just stay put and wait for our call. She might just come home
if she is simply playing somewhere."
"I didn't think of that.", Jonathan sighs.
"Just leave it to us.", the policeman says as they walk
back to their squad car.
"I will."
After two days of searching, the police find little Dana.
She was washed ashore in the river with a note pinned to
her coat: " I waited for you, Daddy, but you told me to
go away. So I am going away forever. Goodbye, Daddy."
Upon hearing the news, the father cries for all the times
he was cold and bitter. Though he still has much work to
do, now, finally, he thinks only of his little girl. He looks
up at the sky. "I let you down; I was not there for you. I
should have been there for you, my darling Dana. I hate
myself for being so selfish. Oh, God, what have I done?
God, are You listening?
There's only silence in return. God is very busy.