Author: Freelancer Starbuck
Website: www.geocities.com/freelancer_starbuck
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: YEAH BABY!
Archiving: CD has permission, everyone please ask me first.
Rating: G
Summary: A father daughter interlude.
The sky is dark, thick with black ominous clouds. Fat drops fall like mystical tears, plopping loudly into the growing puddles on the streets below. I can hear them, tapping through the roof and the main room above, the sound filtering down to the cellar.
The room is dark, the air musty with age. A blanket of fine dust coats the piano before me. As I run my and across the ivory and onyx keys, the dust flies up, gagging me. I lean forward and place my hands gingerly on the keys. I'm afraid it might break. A lock of chestnut brown hair falls into my eyes, and I bat it away, behind my ear.
The sheet music I've placed before me is yellowed and smudged with use and years. It was always one of my favorites. My mom would play it and sing along, her soprano voice light and fragile. Dad would stand behind her, grinning tenderly at her and tapping his foot to the beat. I'd hum gently along with Mom, not looking up from my book but smiling, content.
I begin to play, hesitantly at first, then harder. I feel tears falling from my face in a downpour rivaling the rain outside. I'm dimly aware of the salty drops hitting my fingers, the keys, making them slippery.
I don't notice the gentle, wary creak of the stairs. I don't even know he's behind me until I feel the pressure of his warm fingers on my shoulders. He waits patiently until the song is finished, then wraps his arms around me, pulling me closer to him. I feel the heated moisture of his tears on my neck as I clutch at his official looking dress shirt, unable to stop crying.
"Daddy," I croak out between sobs. "Why did she have to lie? Why did she have to be so evil and tear my life apart like she did?"
His voice is soothing, a warm blanket that I wrap around myself, soaking the heat from it greedily. "I don't know, baby. I just want you to remember her as a good person. I want to remember the woman I married."
I see her now, being led out of a ramshackle building in handcuffs. Her hair is mussed gently; nothing like the prim woman I recall braiding my hair tightly for a ballet recital. She's crying, although I don't know why, with the fervor of a teen just caught stealing and begging for the cops not to tell on her.
My steps are shaky, unsure and slipping on the strangely bone-dry ground. I look up from my shoes and directly into the eyes of Vaughn, standing off to the side. His eyes are raw, a conflicted expression on his face.
They've stopped pulling Mom away, and I halt, my eyes surely showing all the emotion I felt. "My mother died twenty-seven years ago. You are not my mother." The burn of tears behind my eyes frustrates me. I would not cry over this poor excuse for a woman.
She remains silent, choosing to glance at the ground. Good. I hope she's ashamed.
"Play." His voice, feather soft, pulls me gently from my mind. I obey, my trembling fingers poised to play.
The music floats across the moist air, swirling around us. The bass vibration of daddy's voice blends smoothly with my awkward alto.
I realize now that I wanted something good in my life. For so long, I was sure it was my mother, warm and kind, but now as I look at my father standing above me, I feel completely safe from the world of deceit I know. All I need shines through his eyes, backed up by trust and love. And I smile.