"Come on, Dad. Let's go," his daughter had said, pouting.
"Did you find the toy you wanted?" Dean had asked his little girl, smiling down at her. She had nodded, holding up her doll to prove it.
"All right then," Dean remembered saying. "Let's go then."
He had been in line to buy his six-year-old daughter her toy when he heard it. The music had flown into his ears and dug up the most painful memories he had been repressing for a decade.
Who can take a sunrise?
Sprinkle it in dew?
Cover it in chocolate
and a miracle or two?
He had froze, straining his ears to see if he heard correctly. The memory flooded back to him as a wave of emotions washed over.
He could almost hear her voice. "So, from now on, no matter what you're doing, where you are, you'll stop and think of me when you hear this—"
He slammed the toy down on the check out counter and viciously dug into his back pocket for his wallet. With a curt 'thank you', he and his daughter were out of the store.
His lips pursed while driving back home. He checked his mirror and found his girl playing in the backseat with her new doll.
He laughed. He laughed at the irony of it all, at the simplicity of the song, at the humorless lyrics. But most of all, he laughed a bitter laugh, remembering the girl who slipped away.