SHORT STORIES (500 words)
DEPRE(SHE)ON
UNDONE FATHERHOOD
Prompt: a conversation about betrayal.
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Daniel hesitates as he faces a blank sheet of paper: deep inside, he knows no words can justify what he’s about to do. He writes and rewrites, anxiety building within, not helping with his lack of clarity.
Suddenly, the sound of a car outside brings him back to the room. Now, He also lacks time. In a last attempt, he scribbles a few words and crushes any other failed note in his pocket as keys turn in the door lock.
“Looks like daddy’s home!” Charlotte whoops softly to Mia, the baby she holds in her arms. Daniel freezes, unable to speak, as he watches Mia point at him in awe with her chubby fingers.
Charlotte turns to face him, but her smile fades at the sight of his suitcase. Her eyes are accusatory, but her voice keeps the playful tone she uses with Mia.
“Sweety, looks like daddy has planned some holidays without us”
Daniel observes her wife full of admiration at first. A lingering second later, it shifts to guilt. She wears her wrinkled work uniform, the same one she’s worn for over 10 hours, and before her expression changed, she could still hold their daughter with the honest smile he remembers flashing at him the night they met.
“What about Mia’s tutor meeting?” his voice comes out almost like a whisper.
“School called”, she spits out. Her eyes burn with tears, but she holds back as she unleashes a dormant anger that has been boiling inside of her. “For fuck’s sake, Daniel”, fumes Charlotte as she rounds him, approaching the note.
Daniel smacks the note off the table before she can reach it. There is no point in her reading it. After all, he pretended to avoid this moment right here.
“This-”, he stutters, “This won’t work. I don’t know how to handle a baby!”
“She ain’t one of your clients. You don’t handle a baby,” she laughs at its irony, “you take care of her”
“You’ll be better off without me”
“That’s not for you to decide”, she bursts out, unleashed, prompting Mia to join the argument with a loud cry.
Charlotte quickly cradles the little girl. “Mia, it’s all right. Mama is here”. Charlotte playfully touches her nose in an attempt to distract her.
Daniel loses his strength, dropping the note as he sees the small child’s blue eyes crash with confusion and chaos. He stands far enough away to watch his wife shiver as she holds tight to Mia, as if the kid were the only thing keeping her on her feet.
“Is… dada here?” Charlotte’s eyes have been infected by Mia’s, unable to contain the water falling down her cheek.
Daniel rushes to help her hold Mia, his hand over hers, like the final piece of a puzzle, giving structure and support to both of them. “Dada is here”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-” as soft as a breath, he keeps apologising, head between his wife and his daughter.
Prompt: being haunted.
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The face in front of me awaits.
I hear rapid breathing fogging the glass between us, and I feel sweat run down my spine. As my eyes lock into hers, I fight the dizziness taking over. We were never good at confrontation.
I pick up the phone and break the silence, to my own surprise.
“I am not who you are.” My voice cracks, but she hears me firmly.
“You are”
I cover my ears. She mimics my desperate attempt to block the words, and I close my eyes. I don’t want to face her mockery. When I open them again, I realise it must have been a while, even if it felt like an instant; the glass is fogged over again. The time it takes to clear lets me pull my hair into a bun, recompose myself, and lock my gaze. Maybe I have a chance for the upper hand when her face shows up behind the water droplets.
Her smile throws me off, full of determination. I should know better; she never knew what guilt meant. I’m not sure she ever felt it. They had a hard time locking her in; no matter how hard people tried to come clean about her, she prevailed. It had to be me; I had to confront her rage in order to make her disappear.
It’s been months since then, and if I were to tell the truth, I’d forgotten about her.
Until last Tuesday. A letter from the hospital arrived.
“I’m out of danger,” I say out loud as I delete the hospital’s number from my speed dial.
“Out of danger?” She already knows why I wanted to talk to her today, and she doesn’t like it. I don’t hear her scream, but my ears burst with a deafening ringing sound, and I need to back out.
As I leave the bathroom, my mother pulls me into a hug. It’s a tight embrace; she never hugs me loosely anymore. Not since I tried to take my life. She spent weeks believing she could never hold me again.
“She’s gone”, I say with the last strength I have in me.
“She is not gone; you cannot remove a part of you that taught you so much about what you don’t want to feel ever again. But she cannot hurt us anymore”.
She places a kiss on my forehead, just as when I was a kid. I thought I’d never forgive my past self for trying to take that feeling away from me. But now, she has served time in the darkness of my mind, and I have slowly come to realise that she needed those kisses as much as I need them. She can’t ask for them, and so I share the feeling with her, in the back of my mind. Hoping that, one by one, she gets better and realises that feeling lonely is not the endpoint.