After a half an hour of looking at the same sentence (and still not registering anything of it), he gave up and glanced at the clock, then the small frame in the armchair. Maybe she fell asleep. He stood and walked to her. No such luck; she was idly pulling on the loose ends of thread in the carpeting. Leave it to children to destroy furniture.

"Bedtime for you, kid." – he said in a low voice. He waited for an answer for a few seconds in vain, then went and picked up the overnight bag the girl's mother left for them.

"I think we just leave it to your mother to clean you up properly, when you get home." – he said, more to himself. He realized he was still half-whispering. Damn this silence! It feels like in a tomb. – "I suggest you just… Toothbrush, great!" – he exclaimed, relieved, a bit too loudly for the significance of the finding. He walked back to the couch, and poked the girl's back with it. She slowly sat up and looked at him with such an emotionless gaze that he shivered.

"Brrr, icy!" – he tried to lighten the mood. – "Here. Toothbrush, toothpaste… pink, what the…? …anyway, PJ's. Bathroom down the hall and then to the left." – Confusion spread over the child's features. – "Right." – he sighed. – "You really should know this by now. C'mon."

He took her down the hall and then to the left; and he waited leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door until she emerged, clad in pale blue pajamas with yellow bunnies running around on the collar and hem.

"You can actually get dressed by yourself. You definitely have a future." – he stated while they walked back towards the small guest room, deciding to ignore the little white label dangling on the outside of the pajama coat. Once in the room, he quickly arranged her plush blanket and teddy…alligator? on the middle of the bed, creating a sort of nest, then caught her under the armpits and placed her on top of it all. She quickly cocooned herself in comfort, and was now looking at him with her enormous eyes.

"Do you need a bedtime story or something?" – he asked uncomfortably. She shook her head.

"Night lamp?"

"I'm not afraid in the dark."

"O look, she can talk! …Okay then. Well… g'night, kid."

"Good night."

He still saw as she clutched the toy gator's tail, buried her face in the pillow, then he shut the door with a click. A second later, he reopened it, and left a gap between it and the doorframe.

He couldn't stop his eyes from flickering back on the wall clock again and again, watching the precious minutes of his studying time tick away. He was unable to focus his thoughts; something that only happened very rarely to him. He couldn't fight the feeling that something had gone irrevocably wrong, but what, he couldn't put his finger on. He felt broken and twisted. What was wrong with him? Snapping on a baby, verbally abusing her, only because he couldn't bear the envy he felt for her naïve innocence. He simply cannot be that screwed up – and still, he seems to. Maybe this kid has to see a shrink until she's thirty, only because in his pointless anger, he forced her to face something that is within the limits of a full-grown mind even. His father had been right: he mustn't be let near anything precious, because he doesn't know how to take care of it.

He ran a hand over his face, trying in vain to get rid of the cobweb of self-blame. He only looked up when the wooden floor creaked silently. The little girl was squinting despite the low lighting, and was poking the waxed parquet with a bare big toe.

"Are you crying?" – she asked. Gregory's eyes widened.

"What? …No! Why aren't you in bed?"

"You forgot to undo my hair. It feels itchy when I lay down my head."

"Well deal with it, because I'm not doing anything to your hair." – Greg assured her hurriedly. She then padded to him with quick footsteps, and with no hesitation, she climbed into his lap, kicking a bunch of notes off to the floor in the process. Greg sat frozen, his hands in the air to avoid as much physical contact with the child as possible.

"Get off me!" – he protested. The girl didn't even flinch.

"Put the lights off, I want to sleep."

"On top of me?" – he complained desperately, but reluctantly twisted in the chair and clicked the light switch next to him. Darkness engulfed them, and the chirr of crickets from outside the window suddenly became louder.

He listened to her silent snuffles, still sitting as stiff as a corpse in his seat; and he thought she's gone to sleep when she talked.

"Actually, it wasn't just my hair. I think I was afraid, just a little."

He felt a jolt of pain in his chest, but didn't know what to say.

"I tell you a secret, okay?" – the little girl whispered. He felt her shift in his lap, a sharp knee dug into his thigh, then he felt her warm breath tickle his ear.

"Sometimes, when I'm alone in the dark, I talk to my daddy." – she breathed. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. He wasn't up to some ghost whisperer kid sort of a story right now.

"I ask him to come back to us, but he never says anything. I think he can't hear me. Mommy says he can, but I can't see how's that possible if he's in the sky. I would surely see him if he was close enough to hear when I talk. Maybe he is invisible! Do you think he became actually invisible?" – she asked him, a subdued excitement in her tone.

"I don't know." – he managed to force out through his tight throat. – "Why should I know?"

"Because you're going to be a doctor. Doctors work in the hospital. My Dad died in a hospital! You must know much about these things. Why didn't the doctors give him a jab to make him healthy? When I got one and it hurt very badly, Mommy said it was for me to be healthy. Why didn't they just do the same to him?"

He gulped, and felt a rock of the size of a van compress his chest.

"Have you tried to ask your mom about this?"

He felt her start nodding.

"Yes. But every time I try, she just strokes my head and says I'm too small to understand."

"Maybe because you are too small. Stop thinking so much; it'll make your brain boil up."

"Really?" – she asked, alarmed.

"No, not really. But now, let's get you back in bed."

He started to stand, but she threw her arms tightly around his neck, and pleaded him desperately.

"No! No! Please answer me! Otherwise I'll never find out when I'm big enough to understand!"

He gave up and leaned back against the backrest.

"And what makes you think you'll manage to bribe an answer out of me, if you can't manipulate your mother enough to make her give it to you?"

She leaned back to his ear to whisper.

"Because you're not as much of a grown-up as her."

He squeezed his eyes shut. He's going to regret this so much.

"What exactly do you want to know?"

She sighed contentedly, and relaxed against him.

"Where is my Daddy right now?"

"Nowhere. He's dead."

"Not what he is! Where he is!"

"He doesn't exist anymore."

There was a moment of silence.

"What you're saying, it's not making any sense."

"That's all I can provide, sorry."

She chuckled.

"Why did the doctors let him become dead?"

"Because they got overpowered by death."

"Weren't they strong enough? They should've gotten a big sword to fight him."

In the shelter of darkness, he smiled. This whole night seemed surreal. Not only because he was discussing death with a four-year-old, but because he actually started having the urge to treat her as a partner in the conversation.

"Death is not a »him«, it's a phenomenon."

"A what?"

"A concept." – He thought for a second. – "Like… autumn. It's like autumn."

He was satisfied with the newly found metaphor, so he went with it.

"Autumn isn't a person, either, who cools the air down and paints the leaves red. It's just something that happens. When it's time for it to happen, leaves die. When it's time for death for some reason, like old age, an accident or a disease, people… die. It just happens to each individual separately, not like autumn that affects all of the trees at once. You're with me?"

"I'm right here." – came the child's voice from below.

"I mean, do you get it?"

"I think." – she said, a little uncertain. – "Do you think this means I'm big enough?" – she asked in a hopeful tone.

"Maybe." – he agreed generously.

"But when it's time for autumn, nothing can be done to stop it from coming, no matter that I still want to wear my summer dress. Mommy says it's too cold for it and dresses me in my sweater. If death is the same, then why are there doctors, if they can't stop it?"

Greg rolled his eyes. This is getting tricky.

"Because, sometimes, they can do things to postpone it. That gives people more time to live, and get used to the thought that eventually, they'll have to go."

"Sometimes. Not when my daddy got sick?"

"No. He had no luck."

Allie remained silent for a while, processing all the new things she had just heard. Her eyelids felt heavier and heavier though. Thinking this hard for this long was indeed exhausting. She thought she actually felt her brain boil a little, even though Greg said he'd been joking about that. She let her head drop against his chest.

"When I love somebody," – she started, and let her eyes slip closed. – "I let them play with my toys, tell them secrets, and I go with them for a walk. When somebody I love gets dead, I can't do any of these with them anymore. But you say that something can be done to let them stay longer. Sometimes." – she specified. – "If I can do something for doing things with somebody any longer, then I'll have to try and do that, don't I?..." – She had to stop to give in to a yawn. – "It must be hard though. That you know that it's only sometimes that you can beat death."

The end of the monologue was merely a hardly comprehendible mumbling as she slowly floated out from reality, gradually forgot where she was, and soon all she was aware of was an incandescent red foliage she could see behind her eyelids, and words she couldn't place in context anymore:

"It is."

The touch of the pillow on her cheek and the smells around her all felt alien, and so did the lights she saw through the gap of her lashes; she involuntarily reached out for a bar of her crib, but only thin air her hand grasped. But the palm on her hair and the voice over her were finally familiar, and she didn't get frightened when she felt being lifted and carried.

"Mommy!" – she smiled, still on the verge of sleep.

"Yes, Mommy's here, sweetheart; we're going home."

Home. The word lulled her in a state of such comfort and safety, that she almost fell back asleep. But suddenly she heard a voice that made her eyes snap open and look for its source. The person she was looking for was talking to Mrs. House in a low voice, leaning against the doorframe of the living room. His eyes slowly wandered away, and stopped at her. She smiled at him wholeheartedly. He kept looking at her, but didn't return the smile. He just observed her very, very seriously. She even detected a hint of sadness in the look. But she couldn't believe anymore how those clear blue eyes could have ever made her afraid. Those were the most beautiful and calming thing she had ever seen, she felt now. Her eyes slid back shut and she dropped her head on her mother's shoulder. As a stream of cool air and the scent of fallen leaves hit her, she nuzzled against her face, and whispered in her ear:

"Mommy, guess what I'll become when I grow up!"

Thank you for reading :) Please share what's on your mind! Love, WQ