Can you see the end?
Your kindness shows no bounds when you leave me in the early morning with a sweet kiss to the lips and a whispered, "Sleep."
I don't fight you, my eyes already closing upon your request. So tired. Everything aches. My head where she pulled my hair so violently. My arms are so weary of fighting. My legs that just can't hold me up anymore. My heart that hurts so much from loving you. This love…it will be the death of me, but I can't live without it.
Without you.
It must be nearing noon when I finally crawl out of the sleepy warmth we'd created together. It's almost bittersweet to leave behind the sweat and tears of yesterday on the sheets, and when I step through the door, I know that so much has changed. It's like when the sun rose this morning, it was telling us everything was going to be different.
You've picked up the broken pieces of her hate, swept it all away until the halls were clean, leaving behind only the memory. Of her words. Of her accusations. Of those terrifying darks eyes, so judging, so much loathing. You come out of your bedroom when you hear me stumbling around, your gorgeous greens so worried.
"Daddy?" I call to you with outstretched arms.
You pull me in tight, wrapping those protective limbs around my small frame, inhaling as if you haven't seen me in forever. "Are you okay, sweet girl?"
"Yeah…just tired. Still so tired."
I feel your head nod as you rock us back and forth, shifting your weight from one set of toes to the other. "We'll get through this together. We always will."
I believe you. I have no reason not to. "I know."
You arms slowly unfold, pushing me away, gentle on my unwilling flesh. "Go. There's food in the kitchen. I'll be there in a second."
I shuffle toward the kitchen, the wood smooth against my feet. I feel almost like a figure skater, gliding along so effortlessly. So calm. So happy. You do this to me. You light up my world and make even the smallest blemish disappear. I know I can be happy. For the rest of my life. Here with you. I was right. When that sun rose, breaking the dawn of a new day, it was pointing toward bigger, better, brighter things for you and me.
The sun warms my face, chasing away the chill of last night, sending its beam of happiness to light up even the darkest of corners in this house. And that's when I see it. Sparkling gold in the corner of my eye. Missed by your cleansing hands. Almost hidden behind the leg of the foyer table, only revealed by the joyous afternoon glow.
Broken chains, one and then two and then three, litter the small area, leading up to a coil of fire gleaming against the harsh beam of light. It's wrapped so tediously around the leg as it was wrapped so sharply against my toes for those few fleeting moments last night that it takes me a while to untangle it. To bring it closer.
The gold chain, even broken as it is, strikes that familiarity chord so deep within me. I know this. I know who it belongs to. And suddenly, that shining sun that was bringing me so much hope, darkens, becoming the evil, becoming the doubter.
Your footsteps echo so harshly in the hallway that I can hear the frantic, the worry. "What's that you've got there, Isabella?"
