slowly fading memories | watty's2016

12

~This chapter is dedicated to YazmineO_o for all the awesome comments and the much needed support~

Dear Diary,

        A girl.

       She's only a baby, walking on chubby, unstable legs that she's only just learned to use. She clutches a toy in her hand; an old cloth with a giraffe head that's comfortingly soft to her sensitive skin. Two teeth sprout from her pink gums; drool dribbling down her chin. She has golden curls that bounce down to her jaw; silky and thin, her mother's favorite. She spends countless hours running her fingers through them, watching them spring back into place.

        She waddles around, jaw working while she screams in laughter, finding joy in the simplest things. The toys scattered around her; the television's blaring nonsense she cannot yet understand. 

        Her father is watching her while her mother works, and though she's young, she knows when the door opens, her mom will run in and scoop her up to deliver her nightly cuddles.

        She waits patiently all day, running around until she is tired out and then sits down and cries to let her father know she's tired.

        Except her father never comes.

        She realizes after a few minutes of screaming and not even a coaxing word that he's not on his way; she knows he isn't coming. She isn't afraid, because she has never experienced fear and has no reason to believe it exists.

        After waddling around for a while, she looks behind the sofa to discover her father laying down, his blue plaid button down open to expose a white shirt. His eyes are open, which leads her to believe he's awake.

        She crawls up to him.

        She pokes his cheek.

        She wraps his curly brown hair that she inherits in her tiny fist and pulls.

        She crawls over his waist. 

        She pinches his arm.

        She bites his hand.

        She slaps her own tiny ones on his face.

        But he doesn't respond.

       That night, when the door opens, there are no kisses. Her mother scoops her up; a panicked woman holding her wailing baby with no sign of her husband. She doesn't realize her daughter hasn't been fed all day, or that a smell has descended on the house that hadn't been there when she'd left, when her husband had kissed her goodbye and in turn she'd kissed her baby girl.

        She calls the police after a while, her daughter still screaming. She's alarmed and scared; her spouse supposed to be home but gone; her daughter losing her mind.

        Finally night rolls around and the young girl is given a bottle. She falls asleep immediately, feeling safe and secure in her mother's arms. 

        The police are there when she is awoken. Her mother is stricken. She is confused.

        She wails, but no one comes to her aid.

        She screams, but her cries are not heard.

        The girl's father is dead, and in turn her mother is too. Her eyes are hollow when she stumbles into her daughter's room, collapsing on the bed she's slept in countless nights to make sure her baby is safe. 

        Snot runs down the girl's chin, her eyes red and swollen from crying. Her hands are buried in her hair, her mouth bubbling with saliva. She screams and sobs, but her mother stares forward, trapped within her own grief.

        The baby continues on until her parent slips out of bed, eyes empty. She makes a bottle and feeds her needing child, who sucks it down as if it's ambrosia. The girl is happy, stomach full and belly warm. The mother is numb, despair crashing on her in waves.

        That girl lived on, her mother finally getting back on her feet. 

        I know that girl, Diary.

        That girl; she's me.

                Yours truly, with love,

                        Holly