Daddy in the Snow

“He tried to tell her that the queer-looking box dressed in flowers and silk was where her Daddy was, and would remain. He never used the word ‘dead.’ It was too ugly.”

Rated PG – References to violence and dead bodies (and also a little girl with two daddies)

Notes: Please excuse tense shifts. I started out writing it in past tense and changed my mind halfway through.

Daddy in the Snow

The ground is soft beneath tender feet. The snow falls on a porcelain face with glass eyes and lips made from plucked rose petals.
She doesn't smile. She never smiles, anymore.
Her father tried to explain. He tried to tell her that Daddy wouldn't be coming back. He tried to tell her that the queer-looking box dressed in flowers and silk was where her Daddy was, and would remain. He never used the word 'dead.' It was too ugly.

The snow reminds her of her Daddy.
Her other father was never as close to her as Daddy was. Her other father (she called him Papa, which was a word that took too much effort to say, so she refrained from addressing him as often as she did her Daddy) was silent, with eyes carved from steel and a face as reserved as his quiet, unobtrusive voice. When Daddy went away, Papa spent most of his time in his study, pretending nothing had happened, leaving her alone as he always had.
It wasn't that she didn't love her Papa, no.
It was just that she loved Daddy more.
The snow reminds her of her Daddy, yet it is so cold. Papa had told her he would be cold, when she peered into his smooth and pale face, which appeared just slightly misshapen on its pillow. She hadn't heeded him - she had touched his cheek with one little cherub hand. He had been as cold as ice, and she had screamed, startling the guests, making the women moan into their napkins and weep, and making Papa cry out and gather her up in his too-strong arms and beg her to be quiet, be quiet. She hadn't told him, but she had felt his tears on her neck.
Papa cried every night. She sometimes heard him break things in his study, when he thought she was in bed.
There were bags under his eyes, and his cheeks were standing out, and his stomach was caving in on itself, revealing the fine outline of his ribs. He had once been so beautiful - never quite as beautiful as Daddy had been, but still beautiful.
She was still so young. She would heal in time. Her Papa never would.
The snow reminds her of her Daddy.

She can write in the white with her gloved fingertips. Her palm sinks all the way under, vanishing up to her wrist. She thinks of Daddy, who had seemed so bright and energetic, lying still and silent under the snow and the ground, those twinkling blue eyes closed for good.
A child should never think these things.
She remembers how Daddy would scoop her up when he came home, twirling her around, no matter how big she got, and by god, if he was having a good day, he did it to Papa, too, who would reel once he was safely on the ground but smile all the same.
They used to have family nights on Fridays, together. They would pile onto the couch, Papa and Daddy curled up against each other with her laying out over their laps, and they would tell stories, or play guessing games, or watch a movie.

With Daddy gone, there were no family Fridays anymore. There was nothing anymore. She barely even bothered to go to school; she had to pack her own lunch and bathe herself and get up on time.

The snow reminds her of her Daddy. And standing like that on the hilltop with snow in her hands and her little blue school dress fluttering about her ankles, she reminds herself of an angel, waiting for her own angel to bring her wings and carry off with him: Her Daddy.

They found Daddy in December. It had been Christmas Eve. He had been driving home, perhaps a little too fast, because it had been a hard day at work, and he missed his family. That's what Papa told her.

There had been an ice spot. There had been a semi, and god, there had been a mini van, and a little kid on a bike... The semi driver had survived with hardly a scratch. She doesn't mind wishing he was dead, if only she could have her Daddy back. The driver of the mini van, a mother with her teenage son, and been knocked unconscious, but she was fine. The back of her car had been crushed under the semi; her son had been flattened, totally and wholly.

The little boy on the bike... well, there had been nothing left of him.

And Daddy.

Her Daddy had been neatly sliced in two.

For months, there had been a little cross in the snow where he had died, until somebody had run it over. It never stood again.

The snow reminds her of her Daddy.

And as she looks up at the colorless sky, her Papa lays a heavy palm on her shoulder, and says, "I think of him too, always, like this."

And somewhere, Daddy smiles.

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The End

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Author’s Notes: I was bored one afternoon and wrote this up. It’s wholly improv, so excuse any spelling mistakes. Don’t be afraid to tell me what you think.