My name is Sophia and I am a precious jewel tucked away in my father's heart. As I walk through the front door he smiles wildly and I pretend to be angry with him but I can't, instead I am smiling like one of the hyenas from The Lion King. I am smiling because he is home, with me doing the laundry and staring off to the sky remembering long lost lovers and chilling nights. I have always blamed her for the scars on his heart and the hole in mine. She never once hurt me physically nor him but instead she did what I believe is more painful.
If you ask any person who has been in a terrible accident they will most likely tell you they can't remember much until they wake up in the hospital. Then the pain rushes up to them and they don't know whether they were better off dying or not. Of course the truth is they couldn't be better off dead but the point is that the mental spiritual pain can be the worst part of all pain. My mother left us with that pain and he has never been the same.
I walk over and begin to chew happily on a cookie as he watches me most likely in shock that I'm not five with piggy tails anymore. Instead I'm two weeks from sixteen with my hair perfectly set in the perfect dress that shows off my hopefully perfect body. He roughly walks over his feet dragging on the floor. I know what is coming next and open my arms as he lifts my off the ground laughing.
He releases me and asks me how schools was to which I reply that my best friends Susan and Jeffery showed up naked and that I have been scarred. He gives me a look of terror and tells me to stay away from them. I laugh at him and hang up my school purse. Hey what do you want that's just the girl I am? I walk past him sitting at my desk in my room and being to type my 2,000 word essay for school. This is my excel subject I can write a novel with ease is what my teacher says.
More time passes by and I look up at the clock, which is reading 4:30 PM. I save my finished paper and print it out busying my self to finish the decorative cover while it prints. I tuck my finished paper in to my purse and watch as he walks out of his room right on time. He smiles and ruffles my hair, which although it took an hour I don't really mind.
We are now standing in the kitchen side by side laughing and talking as we make dinner. I love it when he gets his two days off. As I chop up garlic I can feel him looking at me. "Say it" I blurt out knowing I'm going to regret it in a moment. He pretends he doesn't know but I get him to tell me.
"Don't you think that dress is a bit revealing?" he asks me. I smile and realize that it defiantly isn't dad friendly. "Maybe but it was 200 bucks of my own money so really you don't get a say." I turn and see him glaring at me and know what I said was a mistake. He slowly gets upset and I walk over squeezing his midsection but it shows no luck. I sigh and walk to my room pulling of the smooth striped blue dress. I shiver as the cold greats my body.
Walking out of my bedroom I see his eyes light up. I am now wearing a chocolate tracksuit and my hair is pulled into pigtails with those bubblegum ball elastics. "Happy?" I ask him receiving a quick yes and a smile. We eat and talk eventually running into a silence and peace that only comes when we can be a family. Its times like these that make me love him.
As he stretches out on his lazy boy I walk to my room and grab my sketchpad. I smile seeing he is engrossed in some episode of Family Guy his odd laugh ringing through the air. I settle in on the couch and beginning to draw. I draw him as a child on the chair a bowl of ice cream in his lap, next to that image I draw him as a teenager in the chair rocking me to sleep with vomit stains and bottles all around. Below the drawing of him as I child I draw him now a happy middle aged man in plaid PJ pants and a tee-shirt, next to that I draw him in a hospital bed an IV attached with oxygen tubes across his face fighting the fight for life. Slowly in the empty center I draw a police cap and badge, his gun, and most lovingly his eyes. In his eyes I draw the silhouette of my mother.
Looking at each only one brings me to tears. I don't know what I'm to do without him. Beginning to get concerned he holds me and all I can say is I love you daddy, but even that isn't true enough. I am a daddy's girl searching for immortality so I can keep him forever because forever is not nearly long enough.