And that's when he lost her, the little girl he loved. She had looked so innocent then, sealed away in her white casket, never to be seen again. He saw a glimpse of her face, twice in fact, but he couldn't get past her hair. What used to be a bright red mass was now a dull, flat, an orange-looking color with no life left in it. She was wearing the white gown that she and Zac picked out just a few weeks before. Nobody else was dressed like that; they all had on black dressed and black suits, something uncomfortable but appropriate for a funeral.
After the funeral he had gone home and stayed by himself. His family and his friends, Ginger's family and friends, were all having lunch and celebrating her life, while he was at home mourning her death. He was by himself but he wished that she were there with him. She'd be sitting right next to him, and he'd be looking carefully up at her violet colored eyes. He'd adored those eyes for five years, since he first saw her, dressed conservatively at a high school party. Being almost seventeen at the time (and surprisingly very weak in approaching girls) he was sucked right in.
He was afraid of her. He was only afraid of her because she didn't seem to care who he was. They'd spent the night together the first time they'd met and from that moment he was sure he was going to spend the rest of his life with her. But, there he sat, alone. She was gone. This wasn't like before. This wasn't his fault, or her fault, this just happened. He couldn't do anything to control it.
Jenny came running in the bedroom and pulled herself up on her father's lap. She put her little red head against her father's chest. Zac put his protective arms around his daughter. "Daddy, I love you," said the five-year-old version of her mother. He looked down at her and saw the rest of his life. Behind him was Christopher, happily asleep without a worry in the world. These children, her children, were the rest of his life.
"I love you too, darlin'," he said. And suddenly things were better.