She's turned into a little person while I've been away. It's incredible. Long blonde hair just like her mother, though hers is somehow always messy. She hikes up her skirt when she runs. And she runs a lot, chasing chickens and boys and crickets. Getting to know her has been the most amazing thing. I'm sad to have missed the early part of her life. I missed her learning to walk, to talk, how to play, and that pains me. Huh. Almost as much as my legs right now.
I'm almost glad I took that slash to my thighs. The shot to my back. The stab to my shoulder. And the blow to my head from that explosion I don't quite remember. I'm alive, that's all that matters. I'm alive and I get to be home and I get to spend time with my daughter.
I hadn't seen her since she was very small, and yet she knew who I was immediately and ran to hug me even though I was being carried at the time. I have Elodie and d'Artagnan to thank for that. They were the ones to share their memories of me with her while I've been away. It was like I had only been gone for a week. She told me stories of her friends and her favourite doll, how much she hates parsnips and how much she loves taking baths. It was like we were old friends catching up.
You know, as I watch her play, she reminds me of another little girl I met once. She reminds me a lot actually. Her name was Marie too. She had long messy blonde hair and I swear she did the same thing as Marie-Cessette when she ran. Marie, my little friend from the monastery. Before I met her I had only considered fatherhood in passing. I never thought it would ever happen to me. Didn't think I was fit for it. She was the first child to ever see me as anything other than a big scary man, and it was when I was with her that I realised that I did want to be a father. Only a few months later and I met Elodie, and then the child I would come to call my daughter very soon after. Is that spooky? Looking at Marie now, the resemblance certainly is unsettling in a way.
I gave her the name Marie-Cessette after my mother, a woman very important to me. But I see in her a lot of that other Marie I know. I wonder how she's doing.