His Daughter

I was way early for my flight, but I didn't feel like doing my typical pacing routine through the terminal in New Orleans. I sat down in the gate area, watching people gather for a flight leaving before mine.

A forty-something man walked up with his daughter. The girl looked to be my son's age, nine or so. She was blond, with striking, electric-blue eyes. The man was fit and rugged-looking, with olive skin and dark hair. After checking in with the gate agent, they returned to their standing position a few feet in front of me. They stood looking at the gate, his hands on her shoulders.

She turned and wrapped her arms around him.

"I don't want to leave, Daddy."

My mind raced to fill in the blanks. A divorce. Mom has custody. Daughter visiting Dad for the summer. School about to start. A flight back to Mom and her other life.

"I know Honey. But I'll see you during Christmas break, okay?" His voice sounded just a little . . . governed.

"But that's so long from now, Daddy. I wish I could live with you all the time."

The dad looked at a loss, as if the right words were failing him.

Finally, he said, "Me too, Honey."

The gate agent came to them, told them that the girl could board early. He walked with her to the ramp entrance. She threw her arms around him one last time, and I saw them both mouth the words, "I love you." She walked down the ramp, and he watched her leaving until there was nothing more to watch. He walked the few steps back to my vicinity, and turned to look at the airplane. Tears rolled from his eyes. I decided to give him his space, and stood to go buy a magazine.

I paused. I clapped him lightly on the shoulder, surprising him.

"Hang in there," I said.
"Thanks."
"She's going back to Mom for the school year?"
"Yeah. Damn this is tough."
"How long have you and Mom been divorced?"
"Two years. A long two years."
"Gosh I'm sorry," I said. "I can't imagine how hard it must be to see her go."
"She's not mine, but she's in my heart, you know?"
I paused. "You're her stepdad, then?"

It was his turn to pause. He looked at me pointedly, and seemed to weigh something in his mind. "I had a DNA test done when she was five. Turned out I wasn't the biological father. I told my wife and my girl that I was going on a fishing trip for a few days, but I checked into a hotel and drank myself stupid."

"My God," was all I could say.

"At first, I made plans to divorce my wife. I was going to get transferred out of down; I was going to start a new life. But after four days holed up in that hotel, I knew that I loved that little girl more than ever. Some other guy's seed may have created her, but she was my daughter."

I started to speak, but I had to get past the lump in my throat.

"Did you ever confront your wife?"
"No. I was afraid she would leave with my daughter." He laughed a curt, bitter laugh. "Two years later, she left anyway."
"Will you ever tell your daughter?"
"If she ever thinks to ask, I won't lie to her. But no, otherwise, I'll carry the truth to my grave."

He drew into himself for a moment. Then he surfaced, and stuck out his hand.

"Thanks for talking with me friend; it was mighty kind of you." He chuckled. "Hell, I haven't told anyone about my daughter, and I end up spilling my guts to a stranger at the airport."
I smiled. "Hell man, I'm just a nosy bastard."
He laughed. "I think I needed to run into a nosy bastard this morning." He looked at his watch. "Time to get to the office. Thanks again, friend."

He reached for his wallet, probably to give me one of his business cards. But he seemed to reconsider, and he walked away.

I watched him leaving until there was nothing more to watch.

Reckoning

Sam called out, "Glen, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Hey, is that any way to greet a friend who's visiting you at work?"

"Yeah it is, when your friend works at the police station," Sam replied.

"Can you go for lunch?"

"Yeah, but why didn't you just call first?"

"Dunno," Glen replied to his cop friend.

Sam looked at his old high school buddy. He'd been up and down since his wife and daughter had been erased from the planet in a car wreck the year before. Lately, he'd been more up than down. But by the looks of things, Glen was back in Down City.

At the old downtown diner, they nursed their coffees and picked at their food.

Glen said, "Remember when Jane and I had money troubles when we first married?"

"Yeah," answered Sam. "Good thing you got all that overtime, huh?"

"The overtime wasn't what got us out of the hole."

"What then?"

Glen took a deep breath. "I spent two years dealing crank."

Sam suddenly found it hard to breathe. His best friend had been a methamphetamine dealer.

"Sam, are you with me?"

"Huh?"

"Are you still with me?"

Sam groaned. "I feel like the whole world has tilted."

Glen looked beyond his cop friend, though the window at the life outside.

"It has," he offered. "Sam, that's not the worst of it."

"Jesus Glen, how could it be worse?"

Glen took several deep breaths. "Remember that biker who got stabbed to death in Lemon Cove six years ago?"

"Yeah."

"I did it. I killed him. He was trying to rip me off, and I stabbed him through the heart."

Sam sat, saying nothing, wishing he'd wake up from the nightmare.

Later, the lieutenant walked into the holding room. "You have the right to remain silent," he began.

He scarcely heard the lieutenant. He wondered if he would spend the rest of his life in prison. He didn't care. His wife and daughter were gone, as was his motivation to continue living a lie.

He thought of how the biker stood for several moments before his collapse to the grimy storeroom floor. He thought of the days he'd have left, his life on the outside jettisoned, with nothing to hold him up but the sweet memories of days with his wife and daughter.

He wondered if the day would ever come when he'd cease to yearn for life with a rewind button.





Prompted by Thom G's Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are collapse, sweet, and yearn.

Fleeing the Clowns

He sat with her at the bar. Perhaps her beauty had lost some of its sparkle since her glory days, but she was a fetching woman. And yes, she was fickle regarding her beliefs and convictions, but that night, her convictions were of little interest. He sought something lower.

He was surprised the next morning that he had no urge to bolt through the fog of the morning after. They chatted, and he very much enjoyed their pillow talk. She was a decade older, but in the soft morning light, he saw nary a wrinkle on her face. He felt utterly spent from the previous night's horizontal frenzy, but he felt a stirring nevertheless, a feeling that she wasn't just a one night stand.

He used the bathroom, returned to her, wrote down her number, and offered a goodbye kiss. He began walking through the living room. He froze. Hundreds of framed pictures of clowns covered her walls. How had he missed that as they walked through to the bedroom? He tried to tell himself that it was funny, but the gnawing pit in his stomach insisted otherwise. They looked at him. They accused him.

He let himself out, and sprinted across her apartment complex parking lot to his car, and his escape.

At home, he stood in the shower until the hot water abandoned him, trying to wash her off of his body, and out of his soul.






Prompted by Thom G's Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are fickle, sparkle, and wrinkle.

Looking for Dreamworld

My son started talking about Dreamworld when he was three. At five, he began talking about the portal into Dreamworld, down at the clearing near the main road. At seven, we got a call from the school principal. Darrell was freaking out the kids who'd joined him in his Dreamworld community at school, and the principal wanted us to tell him to knock it off.

He did, and promptly went into a blue funk. He told me that if he couldn't keep more kids on his Dreamworld team, there was danger that Dreamworld would fall to the Dark Ones, and it would be lost to kids who needed a refuge or a place to develop their potential.

One night, Darrell told me he needed to talk. I climbed in bed with him.

"DJ, why are you crying?"

"Dad, Dreamworld needs more defenders. I'm the only kid using this portal, and the Dark Ones could win if we don't get more help."

"Could I help you?"

He sighed. "Usually, adults can't go through the portal."

"Can't you just visit Dreamworld in your dreams?"

"Yeah Dad, but kids don't have the same power when they visit in dreams. To be defenders, they have to go through a portal."

"Have you been through the portal down by the road?"

"Of course, Dad."

"When do you go?"

"At night, when you and Mama are asleep."

"DJ, that could be dangerous." I suppressed a chuckle, but at the same time, I felt a chill up my spine, and the vague stirring of a buried memory. "You could run into a pack of coyotes, or a mountain lion, or even a bear."

"I know Dad, but I have to go sometimes. I'm the only defender for this portal."

"Wake me up next time; take me with you."

"Dad, the portal probably won't open for you."

*

"Ally, use the dog door." Ally was six months old, and she'd thankfully learned to use the doggy door early on. She was an Akbash, a livestock guardian breed, and she already weighed over sixty pounds. She looked like a white Lab on steroids.

She pawed me again, and whined. Sometimes, she insisted on having a doggy doorman. I grumbled as I got up. Sure enough, she went straight for the front door. She bolted down the steps, then turned and looked up at me.

"Go ahead girl," I said. "You don't need my help to pee."

She whined, and ran back up the steps and into the house. I rolled my eyes and followed her in. She turned toward DJ's room.

DJ wasn't there. I looked in both bathrooms. No DJ. I looked outside. No DJ. My stomach did a somersault.

Ally stood by the door. I could almost feel her thinking, "C'mon! Let's go find my boy!"

I knew I should wake Rachel, but something told me that it was best to let her sleep. Something told me that waking her up would be against the rules. What rules? I didn't know, but Ally seemed to know very well. I looked at my watch. Two in the morning. How long had DJ been gone? I dressed quickly, and followed Ally into the night.

I looked at the car. Another feeling washed over me. Driving the car would be wrong. It would be faster, but it would be wrong.

We walked the mile and a half along the dirt road to the main road. The night was utterly still. No cars, no crickets, no toads, no wind.

We walked down the last hill to the clearing. Ally stopped. She looked at me and whined, then continued down the hill. We entered the clearing, and I looked at the area where DJ had often told me the portal rested. I saw nothing, but Ally bolted toward it.

Ally stopped. She whined. She fell to her belly, and whimpered pitifully. She looked back at me, and I could again almost hear her thinking "C'mon!"

At that moment, I saw it: the portal. The light from it was very faint, but it pulsed with a rhythmic sequence of white, red, green, and purple light. It was barely perceptible, yet utterly arresting.

I was scared. DJ had gone through the portal. Of that I felt no doubt. I also felt no doubt that through that portal could be found something wonderful, and something wicked.

I don't know how long I stood there, looking at the colors, but I was startled when Ally grabbed my hand with her teeth. She trotted back to the portal, turned toward me, and whined. That time, though, the whine didn't convey a "C'mon." That time, the whine seemed to offer a warning. Ally took a few steps toward me, and sat for a moment. She whined again, got to her feet, and walked back to the portal.

Then she disappeared.

*

Prompted by Thom G's latest offering of Three Word Wednesday. The words are arresting, rhythmic, and wicked.

The Heart Wins

The day outside was bright and sunny, with a gentle breeze blowing from the south. In his mind, though, it was dark and dreary, with a gale raging.

Shame rained upon him. He realized that the lawyer had talked him into going a step beyond what his heart would allow. If only he had realized that sooner.

He picked up the phone. His wife would be at work, but her lover would be home. The lover answered.

"It's Andy," he began.

Click.

He called back. The lover answered with a torrent of profanity. He waited.

"I'd like to meet you for lunch," Andy offered.

"WHAT!"

"I'd like to meet you for lunch."

A sigh.

The lover asked, "Why?"

"Because I think we can work things out before the court date."

"The kids?"

"Yeah," he answered.

He waited outside the restaurant. He watched his wife's lover enter. He told his hands to quit gripping the steering wheel so tightly.

He felt timid, embraced by fear. But that was okay. He felt that way because sometimes the right path was the difficult one.

He found the table, sat across the from the lover, and offered his hand. Warily, Julie took his.

"Andy, how could you of all people make an issue of our orientation?"

He thought about his change of heart on the gay marriage issue years before, and about those letters to the editor he'd written. He thought about his friends Greg and Walter, dead for several years now at the hands of two synagogue-burning, gay-hating brothers.

"You're right,"Andy said. "And that's why I'm not fighting you for the kids anymore."

Julie's jaw dropped. "You're serious?"

"Yes." Then, "Would you mind if we skipped lunch?"

"No," answered Julie.

He stood to leave. "I'll have my lawyer contact yours."

He was several steps from the door when she caught up with him.

"Andy, wait!"

He turned. She offered an embrace. He took it.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"No," he answered, "but I will be."

*

Prompted by yesterday's Three Word Wednesday. The words are dreary, embrace, and timid.

Three Word Wednesday: Fixing Things for the Greater Good

Prompted by today's Three Word Wednesday. The words are efficient, optimize, and treacherous.


He reflected on how the ignorant and uninformed would consider his actions treacherous, immoral, ruthless. They just didn't know how life worked.

He hadn't made efficient use of his time that day; he knew he could have wrapped things up in much shorter order. But the man had once been his friend. He'd taken the wrong road, though, and evolved into a busybody shit stirrer who'd shown contempt for the status quo. Those letters to the editor were bad enough, but he hadn't been satified with that. He was a regular problem at city council and county supervisor meetings, and next week, a local radio station would interview him.

It was time to get the shit-stirrer out of the way.

Still, he felt a pang of remorse when he saw his former friend walk into the women's shelter with another piece of his hand-made furniture. The guy was good in many ways, true, but he was getting in the way. He'd become another one of those troublesome citizens who insisted on promoting the truth over what was right.

The fixer got out of his car, with the tool under his jacket. He opened the trunk, and stuck the small bag of powder under the spare. He loved older cars; they made his life easier. He closed the trunk, and smoothed the previous year's tag over the present one. It was always wise to take steps to optimize results.

He watched his former friend drive away, and followed him down the busy boulevard. The guy inside the P.D. passed him, and gave a curt nod.

It was done. He thought for a moment about the man's wife and kids, but shoved those thoughts from his mind.

He felt at peace, after a time. It was good to be a man who made things work.

Love and Ground Rush

I'm late with last week's Three Word Wednesday post, but here it is. The words are bicker, nervous, and trajectory.



She awoke to the feeling of a pillow soaked with tears. Oh my God, what a dream. He was there, and he'd said such wonderful things. He'd told her how much he loved her, how he was blessed to be married to her, and about how she was the most passionate woman he'd ever known. He finished by saying, "Thank you, and please find happiness again."

She put her feet to the floor. The sun would soon rise. Bo the bear dog looked at her from his corner. She looked at his brown face, which really did look more like that of a bear than the Lab-and-something the folks at the pound had claimed.

"What? It was just a stupid dream."

Ben had only been gone a week, and Bo had hardly moved. But he moved now. He walked to her feet, and looked into her eyes.

"It was just a dream, Bo," she said again.

A Stellar Jay lit upon the bedroom windowsill. He looked at her too. They were doing a tag-team on her heart. She motioned at the jay with her hand. "Shoo." The jay would have none of it. He looked at her, insisting. Bo the bear dog looked at her, not backing down.

She smiled, and the tears flowed again.

"Okay," she said to Bo and the jay. "Okay."

**

Ben had been nervous while driving to Minden that day. He thought for a moment about turning around and going home. But the draw of joining the big boys at the soaring center beckoned him, and steeled his resolve. It would be his first try at mountain wave flying in a glider, and he'd dreamed of this day for years.

He thought about how Sylvia would react if he showed up at home earlier than expected. She'd see it as an opportunity to go to work on him again, to convince him to give up flying those airplanes without engines. She'd tell him to take up golf or tennis or skeet shooting like normal people.

He continued driving toward Minden. He wasn't about to give up his dream, and he wasn't in the mood to bicker with Sylvia.

Don, his instructor, sat down in the classroom with him. He told Ben about the time he'd entered a mountain wave so rough that he'd been turned upside down, nearly colliding with the tow plane. They met with the tow pilot, and briefed more on emergency procedures. Ben was reminded of the glider pilot's mantra: Keep the slack out of the tow line.

They launched in the Grob 103 sailplane for their hoped-for encounter with a mountain wave. They caught a gentle one; Minden was known for that. Then came the rotor, and it was not gentle.

But after he rode through the first wave of terror and shock that came with what happened, he knew that the mountain wave rotor hadn't done it.

"Something hit us," he thought. He felt surprised that he barely felt the cold of the rarefied air.

It had happened at 24,000 feet. They were climbing at an exhilarating rate when the bang happened, and he found himself falling, the oxygen mask still attached to his face. He looked for Don, or Don's body, but saw nothing of him. He saw no parts of the sailplane, either, and thought that strange, even as he plummeted to what would almost certainly be his death.

He wasn't just giving up, though. If he could alter his downward trajectory to something with a more horizontal component, he might land on the snowy, northern face of the ridgeline ahead. The mountain face was steep, and if he hit the slope just right, it was possible that he'd live. It had happened.

At the same time, he'd accepted that it was very, very likely that he would die.

The terror and shock had largely left him, but now, as he plummeted toward the ground, he felt overpowered with remorse. The last words he'd said to Sylvia had been cross ones; he hadn't even kissed her goodbye before leaving the house.

He thought about the time they'd met. It was at her cousin's wedding reception, and he was quickly smitten with the half-Irish, half-Mexican girl with the flaming red hair. The problem was that he was drunk as hell, and he'd made a first-class ass out of himself. He realized that when her father interceded and not-too-gently suggested that he go sit at his own table. Ben was drunk, but not so drunk that he couldn't remember that her father had been a Golden Gloves boxer.

He'd felt fed up with her temper leaving that morning, but now, with the clarity given by doom, he grasped that her temper was just one part of her passion. My God, that woman was so passionate that it scared him, and not just when she was mad. Even a kiss on the cheek from her was so utterly passionate, so utterly there.

He'd been one lucky man. He'd always known that, but he wished he could have believed it half as fully as he believed it now.

He saw the beginning of ground rush, and knew that he didn't have much time left, even in his present mental state. Time would only slow so much, even when a guy was about to die. He saw that his effort to change his trajectory was futile, and that he would land in a narrow valley between ridgelines.

His last thought was, "Please let me tell her how I feel."

**

Bo the bear dog woke in the middle of the night. He looked at the woman, and exhaled with relief. There was no moaning, no thrashing about. Her face looked peaceful, and he felt no turbulence about her. She'd exited the path to hating life, at least for now.

He felt so sorry for people. They could do so much with their big brains and their thumbs, but there was so much about life and the after that escaped them. What would they do without dogs?

Bo drifted back to a blissful sleep, the kind of sleep enjoyed by a dog with a mission.